Nigeria Content Online

South Sudan’s
polling centres closed their doors on Saturday after a week-long vote
on independence from the north that could end a vicious cycle of civil
war with the creation of the world’s newest nation.

Former U.S.
president, Jimmy Carter, leading a mission observing the vote, said
turnout could reach 90 per cent and that it seemed likely the south had
voted for independence. Exhausted polling staff processed a straggle of
voters on the final day in the southern capital Juba. Some officials
were so tired they were sleeping behind their dusty stalls.

Final results are
due before February 15, but could be announced as early as the
beginning of next month. The vote caps a 2005 peace agreement that
ended decades of civil war between the mostly Muslim north and the
south, where most follow Christianity and traditional beliefs. Northern
officials have appeared increasingly resigned to losing the
oil-producing south – which makes up a quarter of the country’s land –
allaying fears conflict could reignite.

Mr. Carter, leading
one of the largest observation missions, told reporters in Khartoum a
handful of centres had reported 100 per cent turnout and were already
tallying the results. “We already know that in the south there’s been
about an average of 90 per cent (participation) from the stations we’ve
observed and I think they are representative,” Mr. Carter said.

In the few centres
where he had seen counting under way, he said, the votes “were
practically unanimous in favour of separation, with only a few ballots
to the contrary. “It’s highly likely that the referendum result will be
in favour of separation,” he said, but added that no one should
prejudge the outcome.

At least 60 per
cent of registered voters needed to take part for the result to be
binding. That point was reached just four days into the vote, according
to the organising commission. Mr. Carter also said the vote had
probably met international standards and Khartoum said it would
recognise the result, meaning all southerners must do now is wait to
celebrate their independence day, likely on July 9.

The former U.S. president played down threats of popular protests in the north following the vote.

“My hope is that
the opposition parties in the north will be brought into consultations
with President (Omar Hassan al-) Bashir’s party and that they will
prepare for modifications for the constitution,” he said.

Southern
independence campaigners have described the vote as a chance to throw
off decades of perceived northern repression. Mr. Bashir said in a
speech in Khartoum state that neither the north nor Muslims had ever
oppressed the south, but rather the divisions were the legacy of the
ex-colonial power, Britain.

“The south has been a burden on Sudan from independence until today,” he said on state television.

More than 182,000
exiled southerners have returned to the south since the end of October,
according to U.N. figures, many of them fearing repercussions in the
north after the vote. South Sudan’s government believes that figure
could rise to as much as half a million by the beginning of July, said
the U.N.’s deputy humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Lise Grande.
“Services are already overstretched. With more people coming back there
will be tremendous pressures on agencies,” she said.

REUTERS

Tunisian
politicians were trying to form a unity government on Sunday to
maintain a fragile calm two days after President Zine al-Abidine Ben
Ali was ousted by violent protests. Tanks were stationed around the
capital Tunis and soldiers were guarding public buildings, but after a
day of drive-by shootings and jailbreaks in which dozens of inmates
were killed, residents said they were starting to feel more secure.

The official who
was in charge of security for Ben Ali is to appear in court on charges
of stoking violence and threatening national security.

Sunday is not a
working day in Tunisia and the streets were quiet, but some people were
moving about, shopping for food. For the first time in days, a handful
of commercial vehicles – vans and pick-up trucks – could be seen making
deliveries. The only occasional sounds of gunfire overnight were a
marked change from the heavy shooting the previous night but analysts
say there may be more protests if the opposition believes it is not
sufficiently represented in a new government.

The speaker of
parliament, Fouad Mebazza, sworn-in as interim president, has asked
Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi to form a government of national
unity and constitutional authorities, and said a presidential election
should be held within 60 days. Mr. Ghannouchi held more talks on Sunday
to try to fill the vacuum left when Ben Ali, president for more than 23
years, fled to Saudi Arabia following a month of protests over poverty
and repression that claimed scores of lives.

While there have
been relatively positive noises from the talks so far, the negotiations
may run into trouble when they get down to the detail of which parties
get which cabinet post and how many of the old guard are included.

Coalition talks

Ahmed Ibrahim, head
of the opposition Ettajdid Party, said he and other party leaders would
met Ghannouchi on Sunday. Ahead of the meeting Mr. Ibrahim explained
that “the main thing for us right now is to stop all this disorder. We
are in agreement on several principles concerning the new government.
We will continue to discuss. My message is to say no to Gaddafi: we do
not want to go backwards,” he said, in reference to a speech by Libyan
leader, Muammar Gaddafi, who said Tunisians were too hasty to get rid
of Ben Ali.

Opposition parties
want assurances that presidential elections will be free, that they
will have enough time to campaign, that the country will move towards
greater democracy, and that the power of the ruling RCD party will be
loosened. Two opposition parties have also already said the two-month
deadline for holding elections is too soon.

Another opposition
leader, Najib Chebbi, said after talks with Ghannouchi on Saturday that
elections could be held under international supervision within six or
seven months. Beirut-based commentator, Rami Khouri, said it could take
a while for Tunisia’s opposition of secularists, leftists, and
Islamists to coalesce because there was no unified movement.

The ousting of
Tunisia’s president after widespread protests could embolden Arab
opposition movements and citizens to challenge entrenched governments
across the Middle East.

Dozens of Hamas
supporters rallied in Gaza holding large posters of Ben Ali bearing the
words: “Oh, Arab leaders, learn the lesson.”

Western and Arab
powers have called for calm and unity. The French government called on
Tunisia to hold free elections as soon as possible and said it had
taken steps “to ensure suspicious financial movements concerning
Tunisian assets in France are blocked administratively”.

White House
spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said Ben Ali’s departure could give the
Tunisian people a say in how they are governed and if elections are
free and fair it would deal a blow to the Al Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb militant group.

REUTERS

The Federal
Government at the weekend advocated for the establishment of a common
regulation and ethics for media practitioners within member nations of
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Minister of
information and communications, Labaran Maku, said at the opening of
the ECOWAS Ministers of Information and Communications meeting in Abuja
that the role of the media, particularly during conflicts, is too
crucial to be left to the practitioners alone, if the developmental
goals of the region are to be realised.

The meeting was
preceded by that of communication experts in the region, which reviewed
the ECOWAS Commission Communication Policy and Strategy, to recommend
series of proposals to be adopted by the ministers.

“ECOWAS must define
the ethics of the media, without necessarily controlling the practice
of journalism. The time has come to engage the various stakeholders to
ensure that we have a system in place that renders every professional
journalist accountable for his actions, to compel them to obey the core
values of the practice.

“If we have this,
the region will be leading the way in defining the rules of engagement
for media practice, to compel government to be accountable to the press
and the press to be accountable to the citizens of the various
countries within which they are practising,” Mr. Maku further said.

Acknowledging the
media as a strong positive force for development, the minister said it
can also be a negative force, adding that in situations of conflicts
and political instability within nations, the media are hardly neutral
as they take sides with combatants, resulting in the division of the
citizenry and making it difficult for reconciliation to take place.

“Because of the
power and reach of the media, if government cannot professionalise the
practitioners as well as have common rules of engagement to hold them
accountable to the communities they serve, they could contribute to
crisis,” he said.

Freedom of information

He challenged
participants to develop a policy that will support the growth of the
media sector, as well as inculcate in the practitioners the core values
required to make them function as unifiers. He called for the promotion
of freedom of information across the region.

“If we really want
to run a democracy that is accountable to the people, and think about a
proper communication process between the governed and their leaders,
then the sub-region, of necessity, needs a freedom of information bill
that cuts across the entire sub-region, because citizens have been
finding it difficult to access information.

“It is important
that we have a media that unites across the boundaries of tribe,
religion and have common values and ethics that can help the media
stand above the divisions and offer both parties in conflict the
opportunity to express themselves without being part of the conflict,”
he said.

On the place of
technology in communication management, the minister called for
transparency, pointing out that in this modern age, there are only a
few things that could be hidden from the public.

ECOWAS Commission
president, James Victor Gbeho, stressed the need for revisiting of the
instruments that underpin the region’s integration agenda, if the
vision of transforming from an ‘ECOWAS of states into an ECOWAS of
people’ is to be realised by 2020.

He said no other area requires more urgent attention than information and communication, which he described as the key drivers.

He also said there was need to forge agreement on a mechanism for
effective citizen participation in the integration process, as well as
ensuring the region’s security and competitiveness on global market of
ideas, innovation and trade.

The former deputy
governor to Adebayo Alao-Akala during his 11-month stint as Oyo State
governor in 2006, Azeem Gbolarumi, has told his former boss to forget
about his ambitions to return to office in the next governorship
election.

Mr. Gbolarumi, who
described last week’s People’s Democratic Party primary where Mr.
Alao-Akala won the governorship ticket as illegal, expressed his
surprise that his name was not included in the ballot papers used at
the primary after he had been screened by a PDP committee in Abeokuta,
Ogun State.

Speaking with
journalists at his Bodija, Ibadan residence at the weekend, the former
aide to the late strongman of Ibadan politics, Lamidi Adedibu, said he
was not informed of his disqualification, declaring the process of the
governor’s emergence illegal, null and void and of no effect.

Messrs Gbolarumi
and Alao-Akala were former allies and close associates of the late
Adedibu, but since the demise of their political godfather, they have
split into different groups to further their political interests. Apart
from his former boss’ victory, Mr. Gbolarumi also challenged those of
other PDP candidates, who emerged through the party’s congresses
conducted last week, saying they fell short of provisions of law.

Threatening to
challenge the process in court and before the national body of the
party, he promised not to allow the governor get away with is victory
and promised to fight the battle to a logical conclusion.

Failed congress

The politician also
expressed his displeasure with the last congress of the party which was
ordered by the National Working Committee of the PDP. Alleging that
this was not conclusive, he said the Independent National Electoral
Commission officials and party members sent from Abuja to supervise the
election did not witness the process where state executive officers
were purportedly elected.

“With the outcome
of the said state congress, nothing has changed and it was natural that
the incumbent governor had, through that illegal process, secured an
undue advantage over other party contestants which he utilized at the
illegal primary.

“That is why we
will not fold our arms and allow somebody to foist himself on the rest
of us. No, it will not happen and we are going to fight it out,” he
said.

The INEC officials fled the state after the local government
congress held at Ona-Ara local government of the state turned bloody,
leading to the death of Lateef Salako (aka Eleweomo), the state’s
factional leader of the National Union of Road Transport Workers
(NURTW), and the subsequent arrest and incarceration of the senate
leader, Teslim Balogun.

The Action Congress
of Nigeria (ACN) has asked the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF)
and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, to file criminal charges
against a senator, Iyiola Omisore, over his recent comments on the
president of the Court of Appeal and other members of the court.

The national
publicity secretary of the party, Lai Mohammed, said recent
advertisements paid for by Mr. Omisore and published in some national
dailies regarding a Court of Appeal’s ruling on the appeal for the 2007
gubernatorial election in Osun State that favoured the ACN candidate,
were contemptuous of the legal institution.

Mr. Adoke should
“stand up and protect the integrity of the nation’s judiciary by
immediately filing a criminal contempt charge against Iyiola Omisore
over his recent attacks against the president of the Court of Appeal
and other members of the court,” Mr. Mohammed said.

He also quoted some part of the advertorial which he said did not show sufficient respect for the judiciary.

“It is now
abundantly clear that Ayo Salami’s Court of Appeal has a special squad
that he deploys to prosecute Action Congress of Nigeria’s (read Bola
Ahmed Tinubu’s) agenda,” the advertorial said in part.

“While I pray that
God judges these knavish judges without mercy or compassion for
delivering a manifestly fraudulent judgement, let it be known that the
last has not been heard as far as the matter of the Osun Governorship
Appeal is concerned.”

Contempt of court

The ACN claimed
that Omisore’s “irresponsible frontal, crude, and unsubstantiated
attacks on the Court of Appeal and its members” constitutes contempt of
the court.

“If it (contempt of
court) had been committed in the course of the proceeding, it would
have amounted to contempt in the face of the court, in which case the
Judge would have put him in the dock immediately and summarily imposed
sanctions until he has purged himself of the contempt,” Mr. Mohammed
said.

It, however, noted
that “it is the duty of the AGF to file an action against Iyiola
Omisore because it is the constitutional duty of the AGF in such
situations to protect the integrity of the court and our judicial
system by filing an action which enables the court to exercise its
disciplinary jurisdiction.”

The Minister of
Justice was reminded that failure to act in defence of the integrity of
the judiciary would mean that he has failed in his primary
responsibility to the nation’s system of justice.

After an
assassination attempt against a Washington lawmaker that took the lives
of six other people, many Americans debated this week whether their
politics, culture and country have grown too violent.

“The anger, hatred,
bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous,” said
Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who is investigating the crime.

The U.S. guarantees
the right to own a gun in its constitution and millions of its citizens
are proud of it. But no prominent political figure is as fond of gun
talk as Sarah Palin. The Republican activist has urged her followers,
“Don’t retreat, reload!” Before last November’s Congressional
elections, she also posted a map of the U.S. online, highlighting her
opponents’ home districts with gun-sight cross-hairs, as if taking aim.

One of the
districts she targeted belongs to Gabrielle Giffords, the Democratic
Congresswoman who is now recovering from a bullet wound to the head
suffered in last week’s rampage.

Giffords objected
to Palin’s map at the time. “When people do that,” she said, “they’ve
got to realize that there are consequences.” The truth is that
journalists and media personalities, politicians and protestors of both
the right and left tend to favor violent metaphors. Palin is hardly
alone.

There is also no
indication that the 22-year-old suspect who was charged with carrying
out the rampage ever saw her map or drew his inspiration from any one
source in particular.

“Acts of monstrous
criminality stand on their own.” Palin said. “They begin and end with
the criminals who commit them.” Is she right? Is it simplistic and
inappropriate to blame the crimes of a single deranged gunman on the
attitudes of an entire country that is law-abiding and peaceful for the
most part? Or are America’s angry politics and plentiful guns a
combination that was bound to turn deadly?

President Barack Obama cautioned against any quick conclusion but suggested Americans do have to be more civil.

“We can be better,”
he said. “We may not be able to stop all evil in the world but I know
that how we treat one another is entirely up to us.” Many American
politicians have tried to keep politics out of the collective grief and
mourning that have followed the attack, but they haven’t quite
succeeded.

Jonathan Mann
presents Political Mann on CNN International each Friday at 18:30
(CAT), Saturday at 3pm and 9pm (CAT), and Sunday at 10am (CAT).

He was supposed to
return from exile to pick a job as a senior aide of President Goodluck
Jonathan, but the decision of Nuhu Ribadu to seek the top job moves
closer to actuality when he emerged consensus presidential candidate of
the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) at the aprty’s national convention
held in Lagos on Friday.

Prior to the
convention, rumour was rife on the possible withdrawal of the other two
contestants vying for the party’s nomination, but this became real
during the programme as the duo of Attahiru Bafarawa and Saidu Malami
announced their withdrawal from the race.

Mr. Malami, whose
posters along with those of Mr. Ribadu were the only ones visible
outside the convention ground. But none of the teeming delegates within
the convention ground nor party supporters carried neither his nor
Bafawara’s posters and this had tongues waxing.

But all fears were
laid down as the three aspirants were called up to address the crowd
ahead of the election, with the former governor of Sokoto State the
first to announce his intention to withdraw.

Mr. Bafarawa, whose
party, the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), was one of the parties who
merged with ACN, said he never joined with intention of becoming the
president but to “build a strong party”. He said he wanted to be part
of the group that will capture power in April 2011, hence his
withdrawal. Mr. Malami followed in a similar manner.

He declared his
wholesome support for the man the party has chosen and withdrew his
candidature, saying he has been “assured that the dream will not be
changed.” He thanked the leadership of the ACN for giving him the
honour to campaign for the presidency.

As demanded by the
2010 Electoral Act, the party leadership then moved a motion to use a
voice vote from the delegates to affirm the party’s presidential
candidate. This motion was seconded by Muiz Banire, the legal attorney
to the ACN and a resounding YES! enveloped the Onikan Stadium, venue of
the convention.

Mr. Ribadu, using
his campaign motto “a new Nigeria is possible”, called Nigerians to
recall that “in the cold moments of our national discord, during the
civil war, we came together to forge a new beginning; the same spirit
was evident when we mustered the will and sacrifice to defeat military
dictatorship and restore democracy. Anytime we come together, no force
negative and retrogressive as they come can defeat Nigeria. We can do
it again,” he said, urging for a vote to get the ruling party out of
power.

Kayode Fayemi, the
Ekiti State governor who was also the chairman of the screening
committee, stated that “we (the ACN) were lucky to have three eminent
Nigerians who presented to us in clarity the possibility of a new
Nigeria. The two aspirants that stood down demonstrated why our party’s
policy in holding elective office is not that of do or die. They
demonstrated that there are several ways in which we can all serve our
nation. ACN will from Monday start campaigning for the agenda of
renewal, due process, and transformation.

ACN’s government at
federal level will ensure that Nigeria becomes a country that refuses
to be a bunch of joke in the comity of nations.”

With the song
‘Stand up for the champion’ by Right Said Fred playing loudly, all the
contestants and governors of the ACN joined Mr. Ribadu on the stage.
Adams Oshiomole, the governor of Edo State, warned Nigerians on the
essence of voting in the coming polls saying that “this time, its
either we make it now, or we will never make it again.”

The Lagos State
governor, Raji Fashola, decided to take a jibe at the ruling party,
which he described as the Poverty Development Party.

“Governors in
Lagos, Edo and Ekiti have shown that great leaders can affect the lives
of their people in less than four years,” he said and called on people
to register and vote immensely to get the PDP out of power.

“Their 12 years of being the largest party in Africa has brought
larger darkness, hopelessness and poverty to Nigeria than ever seen in
the nation’s half a century history. The battle to remove the Poverty
Development Party starts today,” he said.

The swearing-in of
Emmanuel Uduaghan as the governor-elect in the January 6 re-run
election by the newly-appointed Delta State Chief Judge, Abiodun Smith
on Monday, January 10, at the cenotaph in Asaba, was a landmark event
for two reasons: one, it was the very first time in the history of the
state for a sitting governor to be sworn in twice within a four-year
tenure and secondly, it opens avenues to more maneuvering and scheming
by the gladiators who are desperate to wrestle power from the
incumbent.

One thing that stood out in the political development of
Delta State in the last three years was electorate consciousness. This
much was demonstrated in the January 6 rerun when they came out in
large numbers to exercise voting rights devoid of sentiments and ethnic
bias. This was done to the extent of undermining cases of intimidation
and harassment by some political thugs who were reported to be on the
rampage in some polling centres while the election was going on across
the state. Despite well-advertised ethnic jingoism by some leaders with
outsized ideas of their own importance, the electorate showed a great
sense of maturity and civilized conduct which proved quite a number of
those who had anticipated violence, either during or after the
election, wrong. Of course, there is also a realization that the
electoral process is capable of effecting needed changes. This is more
crucial as the candidates gather their strength for another contest in
the general elections coming up in April.

The April polls

Some opposition
politicians, especially members of the Democratic Peoples Party (DPP)
that came second in the re-run election, have expressed doubts on the
ability of INEC to conduct a fairer election in April. But there is a
conviction that the April election would guarantee another chance for
them to further express their aspirations on who will lead them in the
next four years. In other words, besides the free and fair prospect it
holds, many see the “One Man, One Vote” slogan and promises of a
credible process by President Goodluck Jonathan as sincere enough.

One positive expectation for the April election is the expected level playground it will create for contenders in the race.

“Since the new
voters registration being compiled by INEC is capable of taking care of
issues that borders on multiple registration and falsification of
figures in the number of people in a particular community, then there
is the likelihood that the result of the April polls would represent
the yearnings of the electorates,” an official of the DPA said.

Again, the issue of
creating awareness on the present political process through the various
enlightenment campaigns, especially in the media, has contributed
immensely to re-awakening political consciousness in the electorate and
this was clearly demonstrated in the massive turnout of people for the
election even with the protest over non-revalidation of the voters’
register by the opposition group.

Uduaghan’s hurdles

One major challenge
Mr Uduaghan had to contend with before the April polls was factional
crisis within his party. The trouble dates back to the 2007 party
primaries at Ogwashi-Uku in Aniocha South LGA as a result of the
supremacy tussle between two opposing power blocs in the state. A
former federal commissioner of information, Edwin Clark, led a faction
of the party against the incumbent governor, Uduaghan who leads the
other group. This lingering crisis, which has defied all reconciliation
efforts aimed at the reconciliation of factional groups, came to a head
during the party primaries held on Tuesday, January 11 — barely a day
after Mr Uduaghan’s inauguration. It was an event that further exposed
the disenchantment among party members in the state as it witnessed the
emergence of two governorship candidates of the ruling party.

While the Peter
Nwaoboshi-led state executive converged at the Cenotaph in Asaba to
pick the party’s flagbearer in the April election, the other faction
led by Godwin Ebomah found a home at Mid-West Inn, Enerhen, near Warri
to conduct its own parallel primaries. The result was that while the
Nwaoboshi camp returned Mr Uduaghan for the second tenure, Mr Ebomah’s
parallel body settled on Saliba Mukoro as its governorship candidate,
alongside other aspirants who emerged to contest the various elective
positions under the party platform.

Obviously
determined not to take chances with the opportunity avail him, Mr
Mukoro, who was coming into party politics for the first time, after
having served in the Nigerian Army for 16 years where he rose to the
rank of Major before the Gideon Orkah coup which he participated in
truncated his career, reassured his supporters of his commitment to
ensuring that the mandate giving to him as the party flag bearer was
secured till the end. He also promised to make a pronouncement on his
choice of a running mate as soon as the party’s national headquarters
in Abuja on his candidacy.

One of the critics
of Mr Uduaghan within the party, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
said the intra-party challenge might well be the most dangerous
obstacle to the governor’s second term bid.

“If truly President
Goodluck Jonathan is the political godson of E.K. Clark, a man seen as
the arrow-head of the parallel group in the state, then, there may
likely be a last minute U-turn in certain party decisions by the
national headquarters, especially now that the president had secured
the party ticket to contest the April general elections and no longer
needs to lobby or do the bidding of any governor to secure delegate
votes,” he said.

One of the high
points of the rerun election was the near upset by the candidate of the
Democratic Peoples Party (DPP), Great Ogboru and that raises fears as
to what would be the faith of the Uduaghan led PDP in the April polls.
This is more so as some notable members of the PDP are defecting to the
DPP to protest their failure at the last party primaries.

Lawrence Akpeti, a
DPP leader said that members of the party are going to reclaim what he
described as stolen mandate of the people by the PDP in the re-run
election.

“The governor
should know that he never won the election and his stay in Government
House, Asaba is going to be for a short time because DPP will kick him
out through the court,” he said. “The recent re-run election brought a
healthy competition between the political parties like the DPP that
came to compete with the PDP. It has brought awareness to politicians
and people in Delta State; for them to know that one party cannot
benefit alone. The votes that DPP had came from Deltans who believe in
justice.”

With barely three
months to April’s polls, Mr Uduaghan will need to work extra hard to
change reformulate the policies of his party and his government.

“He must do this by giving all the ethnic groups the right sense of
belonging in terms of developmental projects and empowerment schemes,”
the PDP leader said. “Perhaps this could help in building the needed
confidence and trust that could guarantee a landslide victory for him
in the general election.”

The Kwara State governorship candidate of the Allied Congress
Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Gbemi Rukayat Saraki, on Thursday, urged all indigenes
of the state to come out and participate in the voter registration exercise,
which kicks off tomorrow nationwide.

Ms. Saraki, a senator, advised the electorate to exercise their
fundamental right, saying the right to vote is sacred and sacrosanct.

“The survival of democracy and indeed our nation’s growth will
depend on each individual being able to express his/her voting rights without
intimidation or disenfranchisement,” she said, even as she told Kwara State
indigenes that the ACPN is the true symbol of peace, people and democracy.

Ms. Saraki, in a statement she issued in Ilorin, said the only
way the people of the state can receive the kind of development they have been
yearning for is to be proactive in the electoral process.

“The coming elections can only be successful if people
participate actively in it,” she said.

She warned that failure to register during the registration
exercise means that the people would have disenfranchised themselves and would
not be in a position to vote in credible people to drive the state’s
development.

Sensitisation drive

Ms. Saraki said her party, the ACPN, has started a mobilisation
drive to sensitise people on the need to participate in the exercise.

She noted that ACPN will take over the state in May, adding that
the party is ready to ensure that developmental projects are spread across the
state.

Promising that gender-based issues will equally be addressed
with vigour, Ms. Saraki said “women will not be relegated in the scheme of
things.”

Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has called on officers
and men of the nation’s armed forces to take sides with democracy, saying their
support should be for the people and not the ruling class or a political party.

Mr Oshiomhole made the appeal yesterday at the launch of the
2011 Armed Forces Remembrance Day Emblem Appeal Fund in Benin City.

According to him, “the commitment of the Nigerian Armed Forces
must be to the Nigerian nation. And it is important as we are approaching the
next general elections that the Nigeria Armed Forces must stand on the side of
democracy.They must remind themselves that they are for the country and not for
the ruling party. If there is a conflict between the interest of the ruling
party and the interest of the Nigerian nation, the interest of the nation is
superior to that of any political party.

“When we stand by the people and defend the democracy, not
individuals,then the campaign of One man, one Vote will be thororughly carried
out even to into the military barracks.”

Divisive politicians

He berated the political class for its divisive tendencies which
tend to weaken the foundation of the nation, saying “whereas Nigerian Armed
Forces have continued to struggle to keep the country together, the evidence is
everywhere that the political class or a good section of the political class
often behave in a manner to weaken our national unity.” Mr Oshiomhole also
admonished Nigerians to ensure that their actions do not threaten the unity of
the country, adding that “Nigeria will never know peace for as long as there is
no justice.”

Earlier,the Edo State Chairman of the Nigerian Legion, Johnbull
Awanbor a retired colonel, commended the governor for the developmental strides
in the State. He appealed to the state head to consider members of the legion
for opportunities to serve the state.

The emblem launch was attended by the Commander of the 4
Brigade,

Benin City, Abel Umahi; Commandant, 81 Air Maritime Group, Air Commander J.
Atiku; representative of the Police Commissioner, top government functionaries,
among others.