Goodluck Jonathan Stoned By Crowd In Uganda, Police Kill One Attacker

KAMPALA, UGANDA—Ugandan police shot at a crowd in the capital Kampala after it attacked a car carrying Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan who had attended President Yoweri Museveni's inauguration, a government spokesman said.

At least one person was killed in the incident.

“The car belonging to Goodluck Jonathan was stoned by mobs,” said Fred Opolot, director of the government media centre. “The security shot around the area, and one person was shot dead.”

The 25-year leader was sworn in to a fourth term.

Opposition leader Kizza Besigye over the last month has been leading “walk to work” protests over the rising cost of food and fuel. Besigye, whom Museveni defeated in his February re-election win, said the marches are also to protest government corruption.

Those marches have been the most serious unrest in sub-Saharan Africa since protests swept out leaders in Egypt and Tunisia. Museveni says he will not be swept from office by Egypt-style protests.

A 21-gun salute rang out before a crowd of thousands who watched the country’s chief justice administer an oath to Museveni. Leaders from Kenya, Tanzania, Southern Sudan, Nigeria, Congo, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe attended the ceremony.

Museveni appeared to make reference to Besigye in a speech, saying that opponents wanted to cause chaos but that their “disruptive schemes” will be defeated.
Museveni said the country would begin pumping oil within three years, and that Uganda would no longer need to rely on imports.

He also sought to highlight the country’s progress in the last 25 years, saying that 8 million primary students are in school today compared with 2.5 million in 1986. He also promised to fight corruption.

Museveni also indulged in a moment of self-congratulations, saying: “I thank the Ugandans for overwhelmingly voting for me with 68.3 per cent.”

Although official returns showed Museveni winning that amount, Besigye says the results were falsified, and that Museveni and Besigye both received a bit under 50 per cent of the vote, an outcome that would have required a runoff.

Uganda has seen sharp spikes in food and fuel prices the last several months, making car or bus travel unaffordable for many. Anger over the increases has fuelled Besigye’s protests, and security forces have clashed with protesters around the country. Human Rights Watch says government forces have shot and killed nine people during crackdowns on protests.

Museveni, an ex-rebel commander who seized power at the head of a guerrilla army in 1986, once criticized African rulers who clung to power. In 2001 he promised to retire from politics despite lifting a two-term limit on the presidency so he could run again in 2006. But now Museveni says he is fostering peace, stability and growth.

African strongmen of old are under increasing pressure. Moammar Gadhafi, who has ruled Libya since 1969, is battling attacks from Libyan rebels and NATO. Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, who attended Thursday’s inauguration, has been in power since 1980. He has refused to accept a 2008 election defeat.

With files from the Associated Press.

Thieves ransack Emir Ado’s bedroom

Thieves broke into the palace of the Emir of Kano Alhaji Ado Bayero on Tuesday night and carted away large amounts of money, Daily Trust learnt from police and palace sources in Kano yesterday.

The thieves gained entry into the monarch’s apartment and removed money believed to be in millions while the emir was away in London, a palace source said.

A source said the thieves broke many wardrobes, trunk boxes and drawers and truned the whole apartment upside down.

More than a dozen persons have already been arrested by the police in Kano State over alleged complicity in the theft, among them one of Alhaji Ado Bayero’s sons and a lady, the sources also said. The suspects are being held at Kwalli Police Division in Kano metropolis. Also in the custody of the police are palace guards and other individuals accused of having a hand in the alleged theft.

The theft was said to have taken place late in the night at a room in the palace used specifically for keeping the emir’s valuables, including money. The suspected thieves did not break or damage any of doors in the apartment while making their way to the vault located in the highly guarded section of the palace, said the source, who further disclosed that the development raised suspicions of an insider job.

A source said ten palace guards are deployed on a daily basis to secure the said room. Police sources also said the emir’s son was suspected of having hand in the crime because was seen at the palace on the day the incident occurred, even though he is a Customs officer based in Kaduna. “This person left a day after the theft and when our officers trailed him to Kaduna, he was on a spending spree. So they arrested him and brought him to Kwalli Division,” said the source.

The only lady among the suspects was said to have been picked by the police because of the free access she enjoys around the palace. Others suspects in police net include senior palace guards, known as Dogorai. The source told Daily Trust that the arrests may not yet be over.

When contacted yesterday, the spokesperson of the Kano Emirate Council Professor Isa Hashim said he was not aware of the case. He said he had just returned to the country from Cairo, where he went for medical check-up. All attempts to speak to the Kano Police Command’s spokesperson ASP Musa Magaji Majiya on the issue failed.

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Bankole survives suspension over secret loan

Speaker Dimeji Bankole yesterday survived moves by some members to suspend him over allegations that he took a loan of about N10 billion without approval of the House.

Bankole, who appeared at the House as demanded by members, forced the House into a closed session as several members insist that the matter should be discussed in the open.

At the end of the session, the Speaker said “the House in closed session discussed issues concerning the House and the Speaker offered explanation satisfactorily. Payment of emoluments to suspended members is being resolved.”

Several members protested the position by shouting ‘no’ but when the question was put by the Speaker; majority voted that they were satisfied by the explanations offered by Bankole on the contentious issues of House finances and the loan.

But a member who spoke to Daily Trust on condition of anonymity said the Speaker revealed that the House is indebted to some banks but that the issue is being resolved and members emoluments will soon be paid.

He said “I am surprised because the Speaker said he took the loan in May last year. I thought the loan was taken this year in view of the fact that the budget has not been signed so that when the budgetary allocation comes, they will use it to settle the loan. But that was not the case.”

The members said “the loan was collected May last year to subsidise House spending in anticipation of budgetary releases. When the anticipated money failed to come they now started rolling it over and over. In my own estimation this loan of about N10 billion is stealing.”

Senate: No contest against David Mark

There is no contest for the office of the President of the Senate to warrant any change of rules as the incumbent Senator David Mark is on the verge of emerging as an unopposed candidate for the top job, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Information and Media, Senator Ayogu Eze said in Abuja yesterday.

Speaking on the outgoing Senate’s controversial moves to amend the Senate Standing Rules in order to shut out all new senators from eyeing the presiding and principal officers positions in the Red Chamber, Eze said there was no contest in the first place to warrant any rigging of the rules.
He said, “I want to say that the issue of ranking senators taking precedence on matters of presiding officers down to committee chairmanship is already in our rules. Section 97 (1f) of the rule is clear on that. What we are doing now is just to make clarification, which is not provided in the present rule.”

Eze denied any selfish motive behind the amendment saying, “it is not about David Mark or any other individual in the Senate. It is about deepening our democracy. It has nothing to do with Mark as a person, it is all about institutional integrity on how to stabilise our democracy.”

He said the incumbent Senate President has performed well enough to earn a return. “Do you really think there is a contest? There is no contest to warrant amendment for any individual,” he said.

Eze also said the proposed amendment is in line with Section 60 of the 1999 Constitution which empowers each chamber of the National Assembly to regulate its own proceedings. “You may be aware that some people that have not even come to the chamber are thinking of going to court to challenge our ability to exercise Section 60 of the Constitution,” he said.

He said experience matters much in the task of presiding over the Senate, saying “as a second term senator, if you make me a presiding officer it will be a major challenge, not to talk of someone who is just coming for the first time.”

Meanwhile, a meeting of all senators-elect has been scheduled for tomorrow in Abuja to further iron out the issues surrounding selection of presiding officers, principal officers and committee chairmen before the inauguration of the new Senate.

Sources among the incoming senators, who will form a majority in the next Senate, told Daily Trust yesterday that they are moving to throw overboard the controversial amendments being pushed by outgoing senators to the Senate rules in order to railroad a second tenure for David Mark. An incoming senator said, “they [the outgoing senators] are labouring in vain. They were there for four years and they did not amend the rules, until most of them were defeated in the elections and they are just about to depart. Mark is using them for his rigging plans, but it won’t work. We will throw out the new rule first thing in the new term.”

Jega: Voters can wait for results

Prof. Attahiru Jega

Mogae: That’s good, but..

PDP: People should not wait

Voters in tomorrow’s elections should be allowed to stay behind at the polling centres until the ballots are counted and the results are declared in so far as they remain calm and law abiding, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Professor Attahiru Jega said in Abuja yesterday. His latest declaration heightened the tug-of-war that has been raging on this matter since last week between INEC on the one hand and the Federal Government, security agencies and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] on the other.

Also speaking on the matter speaking on this issue yesterday, former Botswanan President Dr. Festus Mogae welcomed it, saying it will enhance transparency, but said the concerns of security agencies also valid. However, the ruling PDP’s acting national chairman condemned INEC’s stance, saying it could cause security problems at the polling stations.

Speaking when he received the Commonwealth election observer delegation led by Mr. Mogae in his office, Prof. Jega disagreed with the position of the police and other security agencies that voters must leave the polling stations after casting their ballots.

Mogae had told Jega that some stakeholders have raised concerns over possibility of violence if a large number of voters are kept at the polling stations for long hours for accreditation, voting and to also wait until votes are counted. He also asked Jega to make clarifications on the issue of the distance within which voters are to stay away from the balloting area. Mogae said, “There is the issue raised on how far should the voters stay away from the polling stations.

The police said 300 meters, while you said 30 meters are enough.” The INEC chairman replied, “The system of accreditation that we have adopted was used in 1993 and the result of that election is accepted as the most credible in our history, but it was unfortunately annulled by the military. We also used it recently for the re-run governorship election in Delta State and it was also successful. From our experience there is nothing that has shown that the procedure of accreditation will fail.”

On the issue of voters waiting behind to protect their votes, Jega said the police are relying on a provision of the Electoral Act which prohibits activities such as wearing of party attires, campaigns and loitering within 300 meters of the polling stations.

He said, “That is what the police is basing its own decision on but I believe that a voter that has been accredited to vote cannot be said to be loitering. Any voter that has cast his vote and is ready to wait patiently until the votes are counted and that remains calm and law abiding, I believe should be allowed to wait. That is why we say that 30 meters away is enough.”

He said the security agencies are apprehensive as a result of the spate of pre-election violence in some parts of the country. He said, “They probably know more than we do because it is the issue of security and it is their role. I think the final say on this matter, we will leave it to the security agencies to determine.”

The chairman however told the delegation that the people are committed to credible elections this time around, saying “Our experience shows that if there is transparency, which is what we want to bring into the system, the people will wait and get the result, accept it and go away.”

On the issue of military patrols, the INEC chairman said soldiers are to carry out their operations discretely unless where direct intervention becomes necessary. He said, “Even the policemen that will be at the polling stations will not carry arms. Most of the patrols would be by armed mobile police, sometimes assisted by the military.”

He said the security agencies will be on hand to deal with any security situation during the election and that any voter waiting behind for votes to be counted but becomes unruly would be removed from the polling station by the police.

Mogae expressed optimism that INEC under professor Jega is capable of conducting credible elections in the country, saying the resolve has been demonstrated in its preparation for the polls. He said the Commonwealth has deployed observers to seven locations in the country and is in constant interaction with stakeholders to ensure that the polls are credible and peaceful.

Daily Trust however gathered that top security officials in the country have raised concern on the security implications of keeping hundreds of voters within polling stations for hours, which they said could lead to conflicts. The security heads are said to be insisting on reversal of the procedure so that voters can get accredited and vote immediately, and then leave the polling stations.

Meanwhile, President Mogae told Daily Trust yesterday that the idea of voters staying back at the polling units after casting their votes so as to observe the counting process is good in itself because it would strengthen the transparency of the electoral process.

He however said the concerns raised by the security agencies over this was also justified, given that any little provocation could spark violence among the mass of people at the polling stations. He said there is a wave of excitement and confidence among the people ahead of the polls, but added that there is apprehension over the potentials of violence.

“There has been talk of defending the mandate; people saying they are going to vote and they are going to stay there to ensure that their votes count, which is good on one hand. On the other hand there are usual tensions of competition which also then gives rise to some apprehension of possibilities of violence given the apparent intense determination on the part of almost everybody to ensure that their votes count and apparent determination to try to do it even physically—sit there at the polling station to ensure that their votes count,” he said.

“On one hand, INEC has been very transparent and is anxious to assure everybody…that they are willing to be transparent…. And therefore if you say I want to be looking at what you are doing, they say ‘oh, by all means, come and watch what we are doing.’ Which is good. It’s reassuring.

“On the other hand, we as observers cannot help but share some of the trepidation, some of the nervousness of the law enforcement agencies that in a tense situation, if people are crowding around the whole table there could be a disturbance,” he said.

Mogae also said they were not comfortable with the procedure of conducting accreditation first before voting starts, which is likely to create chaos at the polling stations and also inadvertently deny voting chance for people who could not stand the long wait for one reason or the other.

The Commonwealth mission will be in Nigeria till April 15 to observe tomorrow’s National Assembly elections and the presidential poll on April 9. Mogae said his team is likely to make interim pronouncement after each of the elections and would also issue a report stating its findings and recommendations at the end of the two elections.

The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Acting National Chairman Dr Bello Haliru Mohammed has explained the reasons why the party has picked holes in the advice given by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that voters may wait behind after accreditation or voting exercise.

But speaking at the PDP National Secretariat, PDP’s acting national chairman Dr. Bello Haliru Mohammed said the voters-can-stay-behind stance of INEC is a recipe for chaos and an unfair action against the eligible voters who have other daily activities to do. The suggestion is likely to cause low turn-out, he said.

Asked if PDP is not be comfortable with the plan for people to remain behind after voting, Mohammed said, “I think this is a case of misrepresentation that has been going on. People have made up their mind that election is going to be rigged by PDP simply because they know they cannot win. We have nothing against people staying at the polling station to defend their votes. What we say is don’t make it mandatory and don’t create a system where it is essential for people to stay at the polling station. If you bring supporters who are reasonable and responsible people and these hoodlums are still there to provoke people, the way we see them breaking people’s cars, they will start insulting them. No matter how patient you are for four hours you are staying in one place and people are insulting you and shouting slogans, there may be fighting in some places where people are not restrained.”

Responding the suggestions that the presidential election may go into a run-off, Mohammed said CPC’s presidential candidate cannot win because he does not have national spread. He said President Goodluck Jonathan will get the majority of votes cast and will get the required 25 per cent in two-thirds of the states and FCT on the first ballot.

Apparently reacting to a statement by CPC chieftain Buba Galadima, Mohammed said he could not see where PDP’s competitors got the idea that they can win election or there will be a second ballot. “They are only preparing ground for dissent,” he said.

He also said, “We went to a meeting with the police and I read in the papers that one Buba Galadima of CPC said they will not recognize any winner other than Buhari and even if Buhari gets less than 80 per cent, they know that the election is rigged. I was surprised because anybody who knows this country and who knows the spread of the candidates, unless you have your head in a bag, will know that there is no way Buhari can win this election because Buhari’s stronghold is in a few states even in the North. He doesn’t have national spread. So where are the votes coming from to say that he will get 80 per cent?

“And for a politician to say that he doesn’t recognize any winner other than Buhari, that means they have a plan, if anybody emerges as winner, to perpetrate violence and create stalemate. That is not going to happen. That is why we complained to the security agents and to INEC to be mindful of utterances of politicians which is indicative of what they are planning.

“The opposition has not gone round even in the zone. Buhari, Shekarau and Nuhu are still struggling to go round the zone. We have gone round every state. They don’t have the spread. They are not prepared. They have not gone to meet the people.”

[Malam Nasiru el-Rufai] Malam Nasiru el-Rufai The National Security Adviser retired Gen. Patrick Aziza must be joking for daring to oppose INEC’s recommendation that voters should wait at polling units after casting their votes to witness ballot counting and announcement of results, former Minister of the FCT, Malam Nasiru el-Rufai, has said. Leading the Good Governance Group (3G) at a press conference with the theme: “Voters must not be intimidated”, yesterday, el-Rufai urged voters to discountenance any position other than INEC’s, noting that the NSA must be living in the past when people would vote and walk away to allow space for election riggers to have a field day. “The NSA is living in the past and he will get to know on Saturday...vote and leave is the foundation for rigging. We are urging people to take big breakfast before going to polling units so that after voting they will stay there and see their votes being counted,” the former minister said. The 3G also frowned at the plan to deploy troops during the election, saying “the operation has little to do with security concerns but creating a climate of intimidation to rig the elections.” “The plan consists of intimidating voters and precluding them from coming out to freely elect candidates of their choice in the 2011 elections, particularly in areas where candidates having the support of the government of the day appear to be unpopular,” he said. 3G commended INEC for resolving “to disallow any public officers –be it President, vice president, governors, deputy governors, and ministers...from violating the restricted movement on Election Day directives under the guise of election monitoring.” He noted that Jega’s appointment was by accident and the PDP is already regretting that President Goodluck Jonathan took the decision to appoint the INEC chairman, who has currently built fire walls around the electoral commission. El-Rufai observed that the trend in majority of African elections in recent times have been to sack incumbent government, citing cases of Ghana, Ivory Coast and Kenya. “No Nigerian would wish to share the anguish that stolen elections have caused in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and is causing in Cote d’Ivoire,” the 3G said, stressing that the convulsions of June 12, 1993 should not be allowed to return. The 3G which was formed in 2009 also has former Senate President Ken Nnamani and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Aminu Bello Masari as members who took part in the Safe Nigeria Initiative that pushed for the observance of constitutional provisions in the terminal days of President Umaru Yar’adua.

retired General Muhammadu Buhari

The factional crisis in the Congress of progressive Change (CPC) in Katsina State deepened yesterday as the leader of the party, retired General Muhammadu Buhari  wound up his presidential tour in the country. Supporters of the party who went for the rally left in confusion on the authentic  candidates to face the ruling PDP in Saturday’s National Assembly polls.

Two factions of the party loyal to the former speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Bello Masari and those of the court-recognized Yakubu Lado Danmarke had mobilized supporters to the venue to receive the party’s presidential flag bearer with either side claiming legitimacy.

The confusion was accentuated after General Buhari at the podium raised the hands of the senatorial flag bearers of the party, Senator Abu Ibrahim (Funtua,Katsina South), Hadi Sirika(Daura, Katsina North) and Abubakar Saddiq Yar’adua(Katsina Central) constituencies.

The situation angered supporters of Senator Abdu Umar Yandoma (Daura) and Ahmed Sani Stores (Katsina Central) who are in the court-recognized list of 44 candidates against Sirika and Yar’adua, both of whom are in the Masari faction currently challenging the latter’s nomination at the appeal court.

Daily Trust learnt that before that incident, the police  had earlier stopped some youths who attempted to erect a billboard of Masari at the airport.  Masari, who only a day earlier lost a case at the Abuja Federal High Court to quash Lado’s status as authentic CPC candidate in the state, was not seen at the General’s convoy. Thousands of CPC supporters were seen chanting “Nigeria sai Buhari” and “Kama shi Lado.”

Buhari who earlier visited Governor Ibrahim Shema and the Emir of Katsina, Abdulmumini Kabir Usman, informed them that he would not raise the hands of the gubernatorial and other candidates because of the pending court cases to show his respect for the court. He praised the hands of the governor and the emir for personally staying back to welcome him at their offices as against other states where emirs on the instruction of their governors ran from their palaces in order not to receive him, saying he was not bothered due to his 2003 and 2007 experiences in the contest.  Buhari ended his tour with a pledge to tackle corruption, insecurity, power, health, transportation as well as infrastructure while promising to ensure fairness to all Nigerians irrespective of their socio-economic background if elected.

El-Rufai berates NSA for opposing INEC’s vote-and-wait option

Malam Nasiru el-Rufai

The National Security Adviser retired Gen. Patrick Aziza must be joking for daring to oppose INEC’s recommendation that voters should wait at polling units after casting their votes to witness ballot counting and announcement of results, former Minister of the FCT, Malam Nasiru el-Rufai, has said.

Leading the Good Governance Group (3G) at a press conference with the theme: “Voters must not be intimidated”, yesterday, el-Rufai urged voters to discountenance any position other than INEC’s, noting that the NSA must be living in the past when people would vote and walk away to allow space for election riggers to have a field day.

“The NSA is living in the past and he will get to know on Saturday...vote and leave is the foundation for rigging. We are urging people to take big breakfast before going to polling units so that after voting they will stay there and see their votes being counted,” the former minister said.

The 3G also frowned at the plan to deploy troops during the election, saying “the operation has little to do with security concerns but creating a climate of intimidation to rig the elections.”

“The plan consists of intimidating voters and precluding them from coming out to freely elect candidates of their choice in the 2011 elections, particularly in areas where candidates having the support of the government of the day appear to be unpopular,” he said.

3G commended INEC for resolving “to disallow any public officers –be it President, vice president, governors, deputy governors, and ministers...from violating the restricted movement on Election Day directives under the guise of election monitoring.”

He noted that Jega’s appointment was by accident and the PDP is already regretting that President Goodluck Jonathan took the decision to appoint the INEC chairman, who has currently built fire walls around the electoral commission.

El-Rufai observed that the trend in majority of African elections in recent times have been to sack incumbent government, citing cases of Ghana, Ivory Coast and Kenya. “No Nigerian would wish to share the anguish that stolen elections have caused in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and is causing in Cote d’Ivoire,” the 3G said, stressing that the convulsions of June 12, 1993 should not be allowed to return.

The 3G which was formed in 2009 also has former Senate President Ken Nnamani and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Aminu Bello Masari as members who took part in the Safe Nigeria Initiative that pushed for the observance of constitutional provisions in the terminal days of President Umaru Yar’adua.

Protect your votes – Ribadu

The presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) Mallam Nuhu Ribadu has urged voters  not to leave the polling centres after casting their votes as he faulted the Federal Government’s plan to deploy soldiers for the general elections due to start tommorrow.

Reacting to National Security Adviser, General Patrick Azazi’s comments on the issue, Ribadu told newsmen in Yola yesterday that  it was an anomaly to use the military for elections in a democracy.

‘’We were shocked by Azazi’s pronouncement and this poses a threat and suspicion on the whole electoral process. We will fight it and people must protect and defend their civic rights’’, he said. Ribadu  warned on the consequences, saying the planned deployment is a continuation of the intimidation tactics of the PDP, wondering why soldiers who are trained to fight wars were being drafted into a purely civil matter like elections. The ACN candidate is also asking local and international observers to pay very close attention to the role soldiers would play at the polls, saying elections can only be declared free and fair if they are held in an atmosphere conducive for voters to exercise their constitutional rights.

Jonathan’s team wants Buhari disqualified

President Goodluck Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign team yesterday asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to disqualify his main rival Muhammadu Buhari from participating in the April 9 presidential election over alleged violence by supporters of the Congress for Progressive Change.

Buhari’s supporters were reported to have ransacked a campaign office and pulled down billboards of the ruling People’s Democratic Party in Gombe last week. Earlier on, anti-Jonathan protests were also held in other places though it was not clear if the protesters were Buhari’s supporters or CPC members.

The Goodluck/Sambo Presidential Campaign Council in a statement yesterday in Abuja called on INEC and the security agencies “to invoke the relevant sections of the law and disqualify Buhari and his violent supporters from the 2011 elections.”

Director of research and strategy of the campaign council Mike Omeri said in the statement: “The violence unleashed on People’s Democratic Party (PDP) supporters in Sokoto, Kaduna, Kano, Nasarawa, Port Harcourt and Gombe by the CPC are ploys capable of truncating the democratic project Nigerians have laboured for over the years.”

He said the way the CPC supporters have been behaving during the campaign “is not how democracy should be practiced, violence or threat is not part of democracy. I think those who have no democratic credentials should have no business in this game.

“By now, Nigerians should know those who are the real enemies of democracy and the people. This is not the era of brute force. Nigerians must have a choice and a right to decide. This resort to violence and intimidation cannot win votes for them.”

Omeri alleged that some CPC supporters have threatened to kill him. “In the last five days, I have been inundated with strange phone calls and text messages threatening me not to speak or comment on anything involving General Buhari. One of the text messages came from phone number +2348035074163 warning ‘Mike you should think twice before you either write or say something on Buhari.’”

Two weeks ago, Omeri had accused General Buhari of involvement in the blast at a PDP rally in Suleja, Niger State, but he later retracted the accusations.

But Buhari’s campaign group yesterday denied inciting anyone to violence and dismissed the calls for his disqualification.

Spokesman for the CPC presidential candidate, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, said Buhari has only been asking Nigerians to vote and ensure that their votes were counted.

“All Buhari has been harping on is for the people to guard their votes and make sure that they are not tampered with. He is also calling on the security agencies to be fair and impartial in their jobs,” Odumakin said.

Also yesterday, another group affiliated to the Goodluck-Sambo campaign team, True Democracy Advocacy Network, called for the disqualification of the CPC and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) presidential candidate Nuhu Ribadu.

In a statement by its executive secretary David Onilede, the group said, “The same violent tone has been adopted by the ACN team of NuhuRibadu and Fola Adeola ably complimented by the rampaging rhetorics of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu. All have been unrepentantly preaching violence against the PDP apparatus and people.

“We hereby call on the INEC to disqualify Buhari and every other candidate guilty of inciting people to violence immediately. The provision of the recently signed Code of Conduct for Political Parties and their candidates is in full support of such a sanction. There should be no room for enemies of democracy.”

2011: Don’t evaluate candidates on religious basis – Sanusi

Central Bank Governor Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has urged Nigerians to place less emphasis on where political office holders come from or his or her religious inclination.

Sanusi in his acceptance speech as the ‘Silverbird Man of the Year’ at the award ceremony in Lagos at the weekend said such things were  immaterial, and rather, emphasis should be placed on what the person has to offer in solving our development problems and his capacity to deliver on them.

He said those at the helm of affairs in various endeavours and at whatever level owed it a duty to mobilise the enormous resources and deploy them judiciously for rapid transformation of the country. He noted that Nigeria had recorded remarkable growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over the years but such growth was vulnerable as no concerted effort was put into realising the growth. According to him, growth recorded from a natural phenomenon like vegetation or rain fed agricultural production or high oil prices is not sustainable and therefore called for genuine efforts aimed at transforming the potential to reality for the benefit of the present and future generations. He further said , “let us build a society that has options for the people”.

Still on leadership, he urged the younger generation to rise to the challenge of changing the status quo and stop passing the bucks to elders, most of whom are in the twilight of their endeavours.

The CBN Governor further noted that nothing stops the country from attaining double digit growth yearly with the resources at our disposal provided that critical infrastructure like electricity and roads are developed. He cited the on-going transformation in some neighbouring African countries like Ghana, Togo and Mozambique which strove to fix their infrastructure, even in excess of their present requirements.

Mallam Sanusi also compared Nigeria to her contemporaries like Malaysia, Singapore and Brazil at independence in the 1960s, all of which have become economic successes by taking their destinies in their own hands when it matters most.

On the need to reposition agriculture, he stated that in realization of the fact that agriculture still has the potential for economic transformation of the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria is collaborating with the banking system to fix the value-chain in agriculture. He said the agricultural sector contributes about 45 per cent to the GDP and lamented that only one per cent of the entire bank lending goes to the sector due to the risks inherent in agricultural production in Nigeria”. As such, efforts are being made to de-risk the sector through the creation of value-chain covering the entire production and marketing processes capable of generating chains of employment and income. He noted, “no country has developed through the exportation of primary products”.

On the recent call for the devaluation of the Naira by the IMF, Mallam Sanusi vehemently disagreed with the logics of the Brettonwood Institution, noting that Nigeria has no capacity for export and therefore questioned the rationale for prescribing currency devaluation for an economy that is import dependent.

He thanked all Nigerians who voted him as the ‘Silverbird Man of the Year’ and promised not to let them down.

Earlier in his address, the chairman of the occasion, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Odein Ojumogobia, in his speech extolled the qualities of Mallam Sanusi “for his sincerity, resilience, creativity and vision”. He said Mallam Sanusi had shown courage beyond the call to duty by adhering to his personal philosophy of speaking the truth to power.