2015 POLLS: 6 Million OPC Members Set to Vote For Jonathan – Adams

National Co-ordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC), Otunba Gani Adams, yesterday, said that six million members of the group have resolved to vote for President Goodluck Jonathan at the March 28 presidential polls.

OPC members took the decision at their National Co-ordinating Council meeting after taking time to assess President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Major Gen Muhammadu Buhari (retd) of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

He made the disclosure at his Lagos residence while hosting Special Adviser to President Jonathan on Niger Delta Affairs, Hon Kingsley Kuku, who came to solicit his and OPC’s support for Jonathan’s re-election.

Adams said OPC is rooting for Jonathan because of his human rights records in not arresting or detaining any activist since he came to power, convocation of national conference and promise to implement the 633 recommendations that will help to restructure the country, which he said is in the interest of the Yoruba and South-west.

 He said: ‘’OPC is a group of six million people. We sat down at our National Co-ordinating Council to decide on who to vote for between President Jonathan and Buhari and the support for Jonathan is unanimous.”

The End of APC’s Fabricated Momentum, By Femi Aribisala

I have news for APC stalwarts.  You don’t win an election in Nigeria by being the champion of social media.  You don’t win by renting crowds to fill up your rallies.  You don’t win by putting up your billboards everywhere while tearing down those of your opponents.  You don’t win by master-minding in the media a false sense of the inevitability of your victory.  When you do all this successfully, you simply end up by deceiving yourself.

You win elections by mounting an effective ground-game at the grassroots level; designed to bring out the people on Election Day to vote for you.  Instead, APC strategy was to stampede the electorate into victory.  The design was to proclaim victory even before the election, laying grounds for protests and acrimony in event of defeat. 

B-O-K-O H-A-R-A-M: Battle-Field Account Of A Military Deserter

Soldiers tasked with fighting Boko Haram militants arrive to face

trials for mutiny in Abuja on October 2, 2014.

W hile the battle to route Boko Haram insurgents within six weeks as promised by the Federal government rages, an army officer, nursing the wounds and deep feelings over the whole incident, spoke exhaustively to Saturday Vanguard about his battle field experiences at Gombe and Yobe axis and why he deserted the profession he loves so much. His narration which runs like a ‘war memoir’ is as interesting although the military has recorded reasonable success with more equipment with which they have attacked terror camps and killed a great number of them.

However we present to you an interesting account of an officer who deserted the army from the battle front.

Excerpts: 

BACKGROUND

‘’I have served Nigerian Army for about twenty years. I enrolled through the regular course.

I have served in almost all formations in the country. I am from the middle Belt part of the country, married with two children, a boy and girl. I have also served in foreign missions in Sierra-leone, Liberia and Dafur and we always came out in flying colours. Sierra-leone and Liberia were for peace enforcement while Dafur was for peace support missions. We fought real battles at Sierra-leone and Liberia for about one year. We were there as a member of ECOWAS and we proved our mettle. It was popularly called ECOMOG. The battles were tense but rewarding in the sense that we were heavily equipped and all we needed for the war were adequately provided for us. During the battles we recorded very minimal casualty though. You know that it is difficult not to record casualties in war situations.

Non-Indigenes Protest in Lagos over PVC

Thousands of non-indigenes in Lagos yesterday marched to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Yaba to protest alleged marginalisation in the distribution of the Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC).

The protesters, who were leaders of the South-South and South-East groups in Lagos, brandishing their Temporary Voter’s Cards (TVCs) stormed the INEC office with various placards, demanding their PVCs to enable them to vote in the forthcoming elections. They had first converged on the Yaba Market before marching to INEC’s office.

Some of the placards read: “No PVC, no peace, no election,” “INEC, release our PVCs please,” “Jega, where are our PVCs?”  “INEC deliberately hold our PVCs,” “Non-indigenes of Lagos State refuse to be disenfranchised,” “We want to vote, give us our PVCs,” among many others.

Buhari Certificate Saga: CJN Probes Magistrate

The Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, has okayed an investigation into a petition accusing a Chief Magistrate in Abuja, Mr. Abubakar Babashani, of deliberately frustrating moves to commence hearing on the perjury charge entered against the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (ret).

Already, the CJN has directed the magistrate to immediately file his response to the petition entitled “Case of Abuse of Office and Manifest Bias by His Worship, Abubakar Babashani, in The Criminal Complaint by Shield Jones Ufot & Ors. Vs. Muhammed Buhari.”

Reacting to the petition, the CJN via a letter with Ref. No. CJN/MAN/B9/S.1/VOL.VI/389, which was signed by his Senior Special Assistant, Mrs. Hadiza Sa’eed, said he would give due consideration to all the allegations that were raised against the magistrate in the complaint letter dated February 4, 2015.

Specifically, four activists, Shield Jones Ufot, Jimmy David, Ogueri Enwerem and Tochukwu Okorie, had in a direct criminal complaint they filed before the Abuja Chief Magistrate Court, accused Buhari of violating section157 of the Penal Code.

France, Cameroun Lock Horns over Captured French Boko Haram Fighters

Following the capture of eight French nationals who are members of the terror group Boko Haram, a diplomatic spat has ensued between France and Cameroun, which has insisted on trying the terror suspects.

A top Nigerian intelligence source opened up to THISDAY on the brewing diplomatic tensions between France and one of her Francophone allies in the sub-region following the shocking discovery that some French citizens are staunch members of the sect, a throwback to their membership of the terror group, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

According to findings, France was reported to have chided her former colony for insisting on trying the terrorists in Cameroun instead of handing them over to the French authorities.

Enraged by the audacity of Cameroun to hold its citizens, the French Foreign Minister, Mr. Lauren Fabuci, was alleged to have ordered that the suspects be handed over to the European country with immediate effect.

Rapists on Rampage: Shocking Stories of How Minors Have Become Endangered

As you approach her, she  averts eye contact, preferring to look at the ground; call her name, she nods her head without saying a word. She is equally not forthcoming when you try to engage her in a conversation. Yet this is a girl who was said to be outgoing and playful before her most recent traumatic experience.

But after much prodding, 13-year-old Sadia (not real name) and a primary five pupil of a private school in Jos, the Plateau State capital, was able to tell her story, albeit amidst tears.

Residents in shock

A middle aged man was caught defiling her at about 7am on the fateful day of October 12, 2014. It was an ugly incident that has since turned her life upside down and left residents in the neighbourhood reeling in shock.

She said it was not the first time the man raped her, adding that she had before this time allowed him to have his way because he gave her money to meet her urgent need, which is food. So their being caught in the act, booed and sniggered at by a curious crowd of residents, was a “shame too much” for her bear.

The Real Reason Why Obasanjo Is on a Collision Course with Jonathan: A Revisit of Iyabo’s Letter

I said it last time when OBJ’s daughter wrote an open letter to her father OBJ. I know that for that letter alone, he will fight like a wounded lion to make sure that President Jonathan is disgraced out of power. Obasanjo sees Jonathan as the reason why his daughter went to that great extent of maligning his person. OBJ is yet to come out of that shameful exposé by his daughter.

I see this letter as a reply to OBJ’s recent outburst on Joanathan.

Below are some excerpts from IyaboObasanjo’s letter to her father, OBJ.

 

Setting the Records Straight

“It brings me no joy to have to write this but since you started this trend of open letters I thought I would follow suit since you don’t listen to anyone anyway. The only way to reach you may be to make the public aware of some things. As a child well brought up by my long-suffering mother in Yoruba tradition, I have been reluctant to tell the truth about you but as it seems you still continue to delude yourself about the kind of person you are and I think for posterity’s sake it is time to set the records straight.

Buhari: Trivializing The Irrelevant

AS Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka put it the other day, ‘this intervention has been provoked, not so much by the ambitions of General Buhari to return to power at the head of a democratic Nigeria, as by declarations of support from directions that leave one totally dumbfounded.’ Nothing best describes the upsurge of vociferous but futile calls for Nigerians to forcefully swallow hook, line and sinker the arrival of a long awaited messiah in Buhari.

 

If political irredentism is a fixation, then we become quite familiar with this journey to perfidy, having travelled along same route in 2003, 2007 and 2011. Familiar in the sense that long before elections hold, celebrations begin that opposition has won. Then comes election day, results are announced and Election Tribunals here we come, etc, etc.

But perhaps this year’s election victory celebrations have never had so much grandiloquent exhibitions as the APC is demonstrating in the current campaigns.

NIGERIA’S RICHEST OIL BLOCKS OWNERS EXPOSED: NAMES & DETAILS

The oil block business is so lucrative that Danjuma’s Sapetro divested of its investment in Akpo condensate for $1billion dollars. The business is second to none in Nigeria. That is why any attempt to investigate the activities in this sector will always be futile. The money is so much that they give bribes in millions of dollars. A birthday gift or child naming gift from an oil block owner to a government official could be as paltry as $2million dollars, and if the official’s father died, the condolence gift could reach mere $3 million dollars.

When they want to bribe legislators, it is in millions of dollars and any ongoing investigation ends within weeks. They are so confident that with excess money they can buy up Nigeria and they are succeeding OML 110 with high yield OBE oil fields was given Cavendish Petroleum owned by Alhaji Mai Daribe, the Borno Patriarch in 1996 by Sanni Abacha. OBE oil field has estimated over 500 million barrels of oil. In layman’s language and using average benchmark of $100 dollars per barrel, translates to $50 billion dollars worth of oil reserve. When you remove the taxes, royalties and sundry duties worth about 60% of the reserve payable over time you get about $20billion dollars worth of oil in the hands of a family.