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Aminu Mojid, 26,
sat on his bed at the dilapidated Suleja general hospital, dazed from
the bomb blast that put him there. He kept asking me to repeat myself.

“I am sorry, I
used to hear better,” he said. His ear drums were hurt in the blast
that ripped off part of the office of the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) where he had gone to check his name on the
list of those scheduled to participate in the National Assembly polls.

Victims in pains

Around him, other
corps members wailed in agony as the medical staff struggled to prepare
them for the ambulance journey to Abuja where they could get better
treatment – if they get there alive. There had already been too much
delay. Blood from ripped flesh and bones flow ceaselessly from wounds
that defied the doctors valiant efforts; efforts that were bound to
fail because of the poor state of the hospital. Mr Mojid looked at
them, his colleagues, and sighed, “I am lucky,” he said. “I can talk, I
can walk. I just saw somebody died right here.” Actually, by 9.30pm
shortly before I met Mr Mojid, I had met the harassed compound nurse,
Martins Dawo who told me that 10 people had already died. She said 39
people were rushed there immediately after the blast, more than the
hospital could cope with, more than the hospital had ever seen. The
injuries were horrendous, her gloves were all covered with blood, as
were her shoes and she knew that more will die if they were not moved
immediately: but there were only a few ambulances available.

“How could they do
this to us?” Mr Mojid asked me. “We are just corpers trying to assist
in the elections.” I tried to say that they were the innocent victims
of a horrible crime but he disagreed. “No sir. We are the target. They
planted the bomb at the place where corpers were checking their names.
Nobody was there apart from us. They meant to kill us.” I asked who he
thought they were, “these people who planted the bombs.” “Politicians,”
he said promptly. “They should kill each other if they have to, but why
involve us?”

Corpers are Nigerians

I asked the
Director General of the NYSC, Muharazu Tsiga during his visit to the
hospital the next day why youth corps members should continue to be
drafted for election duties after this debacle. “Corps members are
Nigerians,” he said. “And we must continuously give them the
opportunity to ensure that Nigeria remains united. Besides, they will
soon be the policy makers themselves.” Mr Mojid said a similar thing
when I asked if he had any regrets for donning the NYSC uniform and
serving as a polling officer. “I will never regret serving my country,”
he said proudly. “Never. But the people need reorientation. Why kill
corpers? Why, why?” A graduate of Osun State polytechnic, Mr Mojid said
he arrived Suleja for his primary assignment less than two weeks ago.
“I thought it was an opportunity to serve. But as I sit here now, I
feel scared. Even here, I am not safe,” he said, taking note of the
grim surroundings; the patients suffering from great trauma moaning on
their bed; the harassed nurses, the endless stream of visitors who came
to confirm if a relative survived the blast.

As I took my
leave, I asked Mr Mojid if he thought elections should still go on the
next day? “Election cannot go on,” he said. “Do you know how many more
bombs are out there?” But the next day, elections did go on but not in
Suleja, and not with Mr Mojid. When I saw him the next morning, nurses
were attending to him, his face to the wall as they prepared to give
him his injections. I asked how he was. “l hear better now,” he said.

Ibrahim Shekarau, presidential
candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and governor of Kano
State voted on Saturday at the Giginyu polling unit of Nassarawa Local
Government Area of the state.

Mr Shekarau
arrived at the polling unit at 12.10pm for accreditation and voted as
soon as voting commenced. While he was departing from the polling unit
at after voting, the security team that accompanied him to the unit
arrested a man for saying, “bamayi” (meaning we are not with you) to
the governor.

Mr Shekarau praised the large turnout of voters, saying that the exercise went peacefully in an orderly manner.

Voter apathy

However, there was
low turnout of voters at Jigirya polling unit, where the INEC official
conducting the election at the venue told NEXT correspondent that out
of the 1,268 eligible voters that registered at the unit, only 452 were
accredited at the centre at exactly 11.52am.

The official said:
“Our hope is that before the closure of accreditation, the voters will
come out and be accredited to cast their votes.” The situation was
different in Fagge B unit of Fagge Local Government Area; where the
turnout was large and impressive.

Muhammad Sani
Abacha, governorship candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change
(CPC) who voted at Fagge B Ward expressed satisfaction with the
turnout, saying it was impressive.

It was also
observed that election materials arrived at all the polling units in
time, while the INEC adhoc staff said there was no report of any
violence within Kano city at the time of filing this report.

In Rogo Local Government Area which is
almost 150 kilometres away from Kano metropolis, election materials
arrived on time, but low turnout was also recorded at various polling
units of Zarewa, Bari, Rogo town and Zoza towns of the local government
area.</

The National
Assembly election started in most parts of Kaduna by 8.30am but the
exercise was marred by low turnout of voters in some polling units in
Kaduna North and Chikun Local Government Areas.

At Camp Road
polling unit, Kabala Doki ward, where Vice President Namadi Sambo, and
his wife, Amina, voted at about 2.20pm, only 469 of the 1,148 people
that registered at the polling unit were accredited.

A voter, Aisha Audu
told NEXT that the reason for the low turnout was that some people who
registered at the polling centre were not from the ward while some of
them were unable to return to the polling unit to cast their votes
after accreditation.

However, many
voters at many polling stations visited complained of the delay in the
accreditation procedure. They called on the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) to adopt the method where voters would be
accredited and vote at the same time.

“Accrediting people and asking them to go home and come back later to vote is very cumbersome and time consuming.

“Most of the voters
could not cast their votes because they couldn’t withstand the scourge
of the sun. Some of them are old to stand up for too long, so they
left,” said another voter, Ahmed Uba.

At some polling
units at Sabo Tasha, in Chikun Lcal Government Area, voters reported
that the absence of INEC officials and voting materials prevented them
from exercising their civic rights.

One of them, Alice
Usman who is a member of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) said
as at 1pm that they were yet to see the officials.

“The situation is
deliberate because you can see that where the PDP has strong hold,
materials are supplied massively in those places. But you can notice
scarcity of election materials in places they know they will lose.”

Too many to handle

At Unugwar Sunday
in Sabo Tasha, it was observed that most of the polling units had over
2,000 registered voters. The same was witnessed in Barnawa and Narayi
areas, both in Chikun Council. But accreditation and voting were done
simultaneously in some other areas in Sabo-Tasha and Ungugwar Romi
where materials arrived late.

However, there was
orderly conduct of voters and security agents in most of the polling
stations as well as heavy presence of security personnel who were
stationed at strategic points in the state.

There was complaint of under aged people who voted in some polling
units in Tudun-wada and Rigassa areas in Kaduna North Local Government
Area despite the presence of the Police and other security agents. An
ANPP agent said that most of those who cast their vote were not up to
18 years, threatening that his party was going to file a petition to
INEC to that effect.

Three persons were
arrested in possession of Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) materials in Guyuk Local Government Area of Adamawa State.

NEXT could not
confirm whether the ballot papers were fake or authentic because the
state Resident Electoral Commissioner, Kassim Gaidam said he was yet to
ascertain the authenticity of the seized ballot materials.

“I need to see the material before I can ascertain if the confiscated ballot materials are fake or genuine,” he said.

Head of the army
command in the state, John N. Nwoka told reporters that his men
apprehended a man and two ladies in possession of 500 ballot papers
suspected to belong to INEC for the National Assembly polls.

He said preliminary investigation revealed that none of the three persons arrested were officials of the electoral body.

Mr Nwoka said the culprits will be handed over to the appropriate authorities for further investigations.

The Adamawa State
commissioner of police, Musa Daura, following his tour of polling
centres in the state, said the election was orderly and peaceful.
Underage voters were sighted in some polling units visited.

The head of service
of Ondo State, Ajose Kudehinbu, national officials of the Nigeria
Labour Congress (NLC), and those of the Federal Ministry of Labour
narrowly escaped being hurt at the 2011 Delegate Conference of the Ondo
State council of the Nigeria Labour Congress, held in Akure yesterday,
after the event degenerated into a fight.

The union leaders
threw decorum and caution to the wind as they hurled sachets of pure
water, plastics, and stones around freely.

Some labour leaders
who were against the congress election also threw stones and other
dangerous weapons at the high table, where Mr. Kudehinbu, who
represented the state governor, Olusegun Mimiko, sat.

The governor’s aide
on labour and union matters, Dayo Fadahunsi, had announced the
postponement of the election due to what he said was a security threat.
This, however, did not go down well with some members of the union who
felt that government was trying to impose its candidate on them, with a
view to infiltrating them.

The leaders of
major industrial unions in the state held a meeting where they agreed
that the election must go on as scheduled because the purported
petition threatening the conduct of the election was copied to neither
the state nor the national headquarters of the labour movement.

But the tension
over the congress became apparent when the outgoing chairman of the
state, Momodu Braimah, called the house to order for the congress.
Since majority of delegates at the congress voted that the election
should hold, Mr. Braimah presented the agenda of the conference.

New leader emerges

The atmosphere
became tense when Mr. Braimah started reading his address and the
report. When it became obvious that the aggrieved parties were not
going to be cooperative, he declared the address published and
presented. The same thing happened to the address of the national
president of the union, Abdulwaheed Omar.

The aggrieved
delegates, however, displayed their determination to disrupt the event
when Mr. Kudehinbu was about to present the governor’s address. As soon
as he handled the microphone, the protesters started chanting various
abusive songs while hauling different missiles at the table occupied by
the officials.

The head of service
hurriedly declared the conference opened without the normal protocol,
packed his papers, and was escorted out of the Ondo State Cultural
Centre Hall, venue of the conference, in Akure.

Bosede Daramola was
elected chairperson of the congress, after scoring 499 votes, as
against 7 votes scored by her opponent, Sotikare Olusegun.

The Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday re-arraigned former
minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nasir el-Rufai, before
the Federal High Court in Abuja over allegations of fraudulent
allocation of land and abuse of office during his tenure as minister.

The court however granted him bail in self-recognition.

The Court had
recently ruled that an application by Mr. el-Rufai, seeking to stop his
arraignment by the Commission, lacked merit and that he should make
himself available for trial.

The trial judge,
Sadiq Umar ruling on a preliminary objection by Akin Olujimi, lawyer to
Mr el-Rufai, said the trial of the former minister should go ahead.

Mr. Olujimi, in the
preliminary objections, argued that the charges levelled against his
client had no legal bases, having been filed under a repealed law, the
ICPC Act 2003. He said under the repealed law, the FCT High Court
lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the matter and urged the court to
quash the charges and discharge the accused persons.

But Justice Umar
held that the EFCC had filed fresh charges based on the ICPC Act of
2000, and held that under the Act, the EFCC had the powers to amend the
charges against an accused before judgment is delivered.

“In this case, the
accused have yet to be arraigned to take their plea, so the court can
grant the EFCC leave to amend the charge as contained in the provisions
of the ICPC Act 2000,” he said.

The judge also held
that the EFCC, under provisions of section 46 of the act setting it up,
has the responsibility to investigate all economic and financial crimes
in the country.

A Federal High
Court in Abuja had, last year, thrown out the suit filed against the
former minister on the same issue. The presiding judge, Adamu Bello,
ruled that the charges had no legal basis, having been filed under the
Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission
(ICPC) Act of 2000, a law that has since been repealed.

The judge quashed the charges and discharged El Rufai.

The Federal
Government however responded to the dismissal of the charges by filing
fresh charges at the Abuja High Court. Mr El-Rufai and two others were
accused by the EFCC of illegally allocating land in the FCT to friends
and relatives, some of whom included: Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, the
daughter of former president Olusegun Obasanjo.

The other accused
persons are Altine Jubrin, former director general of the Abuja
Geographical Information System, and Ismail Iro, former general manager
of the agency. All three men pleaded not guilty.

Liberal bail condition

At yesterday’s
sitting, Mr Umar granted bail to El Rufai in self-recognition after the
former minister pleaded not guilty to the eight count charge, saying
that given El Rufai’s past service as a minister and his compliance
with the bail conditions previously imposed by the EFCC and the Federal
High Court, the court decided to exercise its discretion by granting
him bail in self-recognition.

He adjourned the matter till May 17, 2011.

El Rufai and two
others were arraigned on charges relating to the allocation of plots of
land in the federal capital. After the pleas were taken, Mr Olujimi
moved the application for bail, urging the court to grant it in very
liberal terms.

But counsel to the
EFCC did not oppose the application, citing the antecedents of the case
and the compliance of the accused persons to previous bail conditions.

Votes from last
Saturday’s aborted national assembly elections indicate that the
People’s Democratic Party (PDP) will probably lose elections across the
North and the Southwest.

According to
investigations by NEXT, even in such PDP strongholds like Kaduna,
Nasarawa, Jigawa, Bauchi, Gombe and Zamfara States, the ruling party
was behind the opposition parties of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP),
Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Congress for Progressive
Change (CPC) in votes cast.

Voting was
concluded in many places where news that the election had been
cancelled did not reach the polling units on time. In many instances,
electoral officers in villages refused to stop the process, claiming
that they had no official notice to that effect. Party agents and
voters were thus able to note the number of votes cast and the voting
trend.

A former senator
from one of these states, who preferred not to be named said, “It was a
shock, really. In Nasarawa, CPC was first, ACN was second and ANPP came
third. PDP was fourth in all the centres. In Gombe, CPC, ACN and ANPP
were first, second, third while the PDP constantly maintained the
fourth position. In Zamfara, ACN and ANPP were first and second across
the senatorial zones while PDP constantly came third.”

The Intra Party
Advisory council had, in a statement signed by its chairman, Osita
Okereke, claimed that 16 million Nigerians voted before the election
was cancelled. INEC, however, would not confirm the igures. According
to the spokesperson to the commission’s chair, Kayode Idowu, “There
were no elections, so there could not have been votes counted.”

No home advantage

In Kaduna, the home
state of Vice President Namadi Sambo, which has a registered voting
population of more than four million people, sources said the PDP was
already losing the polls in Tudunwada and parts of Zaria before the
election was called off. “The vice president had earlier noted that
there was no hope for him at the regular polling unit in Kabala West
and directed that a new voting centre be opened for him at a nearby
mosque, called Camp Road,” said a nearby resident. “But that one did
not help him. The Imam made it a point during the five daily prayers to
stress the need to choose a better government.” Sources said that the
party had become so unpopular that when Mr. Sambo came for his
verification exercise, not one person went over to greet him.

“He was in that
queue for a while and when he finished he left. There was none of that
clamour to greet the big man. We were sure he would lose his ward,” the
resident added.

It is not clear if
Mr. Sambo was, indeed losing in his ward. But there is some evidence
that the party had a poor showing. One of the voters at Sabongari,
Zaria, who claimed to have witnessed the vote count and does not want
his name in print, said in his unit only three people voted for the PDP
out of a total vote cast of 60.

Mr. Sambo is being
relied upon to use his influence as vice president to deliver the
state, which has the third largest voting population, to the PDP.

Rethinking strategy

“PDP is finished
politically and they will lose woefully in Kaduna State and the whole
of the north because people are tired of the PDP,” said Hassan Mohammed
Jallo, a lawyer and political analyst.

Mr Sambo recently
relocated to Kaduna where he has held series of meetings since Monday
with party officials across the state. But there are doubts on his
ability to change the voting trend noted at last week’s cancelled polls.

“PDP will have to
pay the price for jettisoning zoning,” said Mr Jallo who is a supporter
of former military president Ibrahim Babangida.

In Kano State,
which has the second largest voting population after Lagos, the PDP
seemed to have held its own against the ruling ACN and CPC in the
villages where the election did hold. According to our source, although
the PDP may do well in the parliamentary election, the CPC is more
likely to win the state.

Mr Sambo reportedly
met with PDP governors, including the chairman of the northern
governors’ forum and governor of Niger State, Muazu Babangida Aliyu to
re-strategize on the polls.

When contacted, the PDP spokesperson, Rufai Ahmed Alkali said, “It
is not useful to go into speculation on an election that has already
been cancelled. Whatever happened last week is a foregone issue. We
want all our members to focus their minds on tomorrow’s election.”

The Court of
Appeal, Abuja yesterday indefinitely adjourned its deliberations on the
appeal filed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to
enable it conduct governorship elections in five states of the
federation.

A federal High
Court recently gave a ruling that stopped the commission from
conducting governorship elections in Kogi, Sokoto, Adamawa, Cross
Rivers and Bayelsa States.

The court held
that the tenure of the five sitting governors, Ibrahim Idris (Kogi);
Aliyu Wammakko (Sokoto); Murtala Nyako (Adamawa); Liyel Imoke (Cross
Rivers) and Timipre Sylva (Bayelsa) shall not expire until next year.

In his judgment in
the consolidated suit filed by the five governors, the presiding judge
Adamu Bello, held that the tenure of the governors legally started in
2008 when they took fresh oath of office and allegiance following the
nullification of their April 14, 2007 elections by the courts.

He said although
section 180 of the 1999 constitution was amended in 2010 by the
National Assembly and signed into law by the President, the amendment
has no effect on the five governors since their re-run elections were
conducted in 2008.

Not satisfied with
the judgment, the electoral body approached the appellate Court with
five separate appeals against the judgment.

Presiding judge,
Paul Galinje, who presided over the panel, said the appeals filed by
INEC so far were against Messrs Wamako, Idris and Nyako.

No polls

But at yesterday’s
sitting, the appeals were consolidated and the written argument adopted
by all the counsels to the governors and the commission. The judge
thereafter adjourned indefinitely for judgment, saying the date for the
judgment will be communicated to the lawyers.

NEXT had reported
exclusively that the Commission may not conduct governorship election
in about ten states in the coming April poll. The ten states are
missing from the commission’s website on the list of governorship
candidate to contest the coming election. Kogi, Sokoto, Adamawa, Cross
River, Bayelsa, Edo, Osun, Ondo, Anambra and Ekiti state are
conspicuously missing on the INEC website list of where elections will
take place.

Elections are not
expected to hold in Edo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti states because their
state executives took office after the Court of Appeal voided the
election of previous governors.

The Oyo State
Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Ayo Adakeja, on Thursday, said
the people caught with electoral materials in Ibadan, the state
capital, on Wednesday, were working for the commission.

Mr Adakeja, who
spoke with journalists at the commission’s office in the state during a
meeting with heads of security operatives over Saturday’s National
Assembly election, said the national headquarters of the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC) was aware of the development.

His defence came
shortly after the state commissioner of police, Salihu Hashimu,
informed journalists that the suspects had been interrogated and found
not to have gone foul of any law.

The INEC chief
explained that the commission’s chairman, Attahiru Jega, gave the
printer the go-ahead to contract the printing of some electoral
materials to private hands to forestall the kind of crisis their
shortages caused in the botched national assembly election of last
Saturday.

He said the men
were detained by the police till evening and were only released after
he came to identify them. The six men were arrested in a hotel in
Ibadan in possession of a DDC machine and electoral materials.

Measures by INEC

Speaking on the
measures put in place to address the problems of missing names
experienced by eligible voters last Saturday, Mr Adakeja said they have
resolved to use manual register in addition to the electronic register
to ensure that no registered voter is disenfranchised for the elections.

He explained that
many of the problems came after the registration as some of the Direct
Data Capture (DDC) machines crashed and the information in them could
not be retrieved because there were no backup for them.

The REC also said the remaining ballot papers for the National Assembly elections are intact and in safe custody.

He said the
commission had used 277,787 ballot papers for the House of
Representatives election in the state during last week’s botched
ballot, adding that they are still left with a total of 2, 164,126
papers for this Saturday’s election.

For the Senate, Mr Adakeja said only 46, 219 ballot papers were
used for last week’s election, while 2,326,974 are still intact. Heads
of security agencies in the state, including the Army, State Security
Service (SSS), Police, Immigration, Customs Service, Prisons, Civil
Defense Corps and the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), were all in
attendance.

The Adamawa State
office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has
distanced itself from the sample ballot papers circulating in the state
and bearing the INEC logo.

The Resident
Electoral Commissioner for the state, Kassim Gaidam, who issued the
disclaimer, said the ballot papers were designed by some political
parties.

He said the
circulation of sample ballot papers bearing INEC’s logo in the state,
printed by the political parties and showing a thumb print against the
party to educate voters “contravenes the electoral guidelines”.

“In as much as we support voter education, we should do it within the confines of the law,” Mr. Gaidam said.

Ready for polls

The Adamawa INEC
official also revealed that all materials for the election, both
“sensitive and insensitive,” are already on ground for the forthcoming
National Assembly election. He equally stated that all the personnel
for the elections are also in place and have received training for the
exercise.

Mr. Gaidam,
reacting to allegations that politicians have infiltrated some adhoc
staff of the commission in order to rig the forthcoming elections said
election officials are under oath to be fair and fearless.

“This is not the
time to make baseless accusation,” he said. “It is time to come forward
with proof so that those involved can be investigated and fished out.”

The Congress for Progressive Change in the state said yesterday it
had uncovered a plot by some politicians to rig the forthcoming
elections hatched in connivance with some INEC adhoc personnel which
the party said have already being compromised ahead of the polls. The
CPC, however, did not reveal the name of the political party allegedly
dealing with corrupt INEC staff.