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Tag: Ekiti

  • ‘Don’t be discouraged by Ekiti poll’

    ‘Don’t be discouraged by Ekiti poll’

    Supporters of the All Progressives Congress(APC)in Ondo State have been urged to gear up and reconnect with the people to build the party.

    The chairman of the party, Isaac Kekemeke, said the outcome of the Ekiti governorship election should not rather than demoralise them, adding that they should unite to build an electorally prosperous APC in the state.

    He said the lesson of the Ekiti polls is that it is impossible to take the voters and supporters for granted, adding: ”We must constantly reconnect and reboot with our party supporters and the people.”

    Kekemeke spoke in Akure during the inaugural meeting of the State Executive Committee (SEC).

    According to him, the executive committee was the product of arrangement of consultation, balancing and joggling with different tendencies in the party by the Femi Pedro-led State Congress Committee (SCC).

    He urged party men and women to accept the final outcome and to work for the victory of the party at subsequent polls.

    The former Secretary to the  Government (SSG) identified the challenges facing APC which he however said is surmountable.

    He said: ”Our party was registered barely a year ago on July 31 and in opposition at the Federal and State level,the new party is bedeviled by rancour and factions,indiscipline and disrespect for constituted authority as well as absence of a winning mentality with the leadership and followership.

    “This is why we offered ourselves for the offices for the offices we are presently occupying. We, therefore can not afford to be part of the problem or be promoters of these same problems,if we are then,we have no moral right to the leadership positions we have been entrusted with.”

  • Ekiti: The morning after

    Ekiti: The morning after

    It is all over now in Ekiti, bar the wailing and the gnashing of teeth in Governor Kayode Fayemi’s camp, and the exuberant rejoicing in Governor-elect Ayo Fayose’s circle.

    There is no way to finesse or spin this one:  Fayemi and the All Progressives Congress (APC) took a comprehensive shellacking.

    No major public affairs analyst, among whom I number myself, saw this coming. This will therefore have to be accounted one of the most egregious failures of perception in the annals of political journalism in Nigeria.

    When we placed Fayemi and Fayose on the scale, we saw in the one an incumbent whose record spoke eloquently for a second term, as did his overall approach to the business of governance:  deliberative, steeped in the detail and nuance of policy, goal-oriented, and unobtrusive for the most part.

    In the other we saw a challenger who had had his chance as governor and blown it spectacularly, a showboat and a con-artist whose idea of governance consists in stagingstunt after tawdry stunt, given to cheap populism and not a little demagoguery, and withal not foresworn to violence as a means of winning and retaining support.

    When we surveyed the field, we saw an electorate populated for the most part by sophisticated and discerning men and women of much learning – several holders of university degrees in every home, plus a formidable array holders of doctorates in every specialism under the sun, to say nothing of professors, of whom, household by household, Ekiti probably boasts the largest number in Nigeria.

    Given a choice between Fayemi and Fayose, surely, the learned, sophisticated and discriminating people of the “Fountain of Knowledge”, who know only too well the antecedents of the twain, would heartily renew the mandate of the one and indignantly reject the advances of the other.

    The only problem was that we analysts attended for the most part to people like ourselves; we read for the most part what they wrote and heard for the most part what they said.  So that, for all practical purposes, we did not see what was out there; instead, we saw only what we wanted to see, heard only what we wanted to hear and believed only what we wanted to believe about the candidates and the electorate.

    We were not “on ground,” to employ a peculiarly Nigerian coinage.

    That feeling first struck me when I saw the picture of the mammoth crowd at Fayose’s campaign rally with President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP’s grandees. Given Fayose’s reputation for pulling all manner of stunts, it was tempting to dismiss the throng as a rented crowd.  But if it was indeed a rented crowd, it must have taken a great deal of organisation and resources to put it together. And the people behind it could not be dismissed as inconsequential.

    As I drove through Ekiti en route Kogi six days to the election, the feeling that we analysts might have misread the Ekiti political terrain stirred somewhat. Many campaign billboards with pictures of the candidates had been vandalised. But billboards bearing Fayemi’s pictures seem to have been marked for special treatment. Was this the work of commissioned thugs, or an indication of public feeling toward him?

    But perhaps the clearest indication of the situation “on ground” came from a resident of Ekiti in the early stage of the vote count.  Fayose was going to win and win big, he said with the utmost confidence.

    What of his less-than-savoury first coming, especially the scandal-plagued Integrated Poultry Project that gulped billions of Naira without producing an egg, and the rusted remains of which are strewn over the countryside?

    “The people have forgotten,” he said.  “Those who haven’t forgotten don’t care.”

    By “the people,” he obviously meant the okada bikers, artisans, street vendors, shopkeepers, motor-part touts, unemployed persons who don’t know where the next meal will come from, or when, and of course rural dwellers.

    But Fayemi has transformed Ekiti through building new infrastructures and rehabilitating the old ones.

    “The people are yearning for infrastructure of the stomach,” he rejoined.

    What of the murder rap he is facing, arising from the killing of two political opponents?

    “Even if Fayose were to kill off one-half of the population, the other half would still vote for him,” he said.  “They love him.  They adore him.”

    Fayose himself would confirm this mysterious hold on “the people” when he said at his post-election interview that if he raised his hand high, they would cheer vehemently; if he lowered  the hand, the cheering would subside. And if he pointed in one direction, they would go in that direction.

    Is this what they call charisma?

    By whatever name, it is at once fascinating and disturbing. It was missing entirely from our analyses. And now, we have mud on our faces.

    We should be prepared for the taunts and the jeers of the other side, given the triumphalism arising from the Ekiti verdict and the vindictiveness that is their trademark.

    One of their standard responses is to dismiss whatever I write as the bidding of a “paymaster,” by which they obviously mean Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, feigning ignorance of the well-advertised fact that I earn my living as a university professor in the United States and need no “paymaster,” real or imagined, to practise my art and craft.

    Personally, I will not be surprised if, henceforth, they reflexively dismissed those of us who got Ekiti wrong as “failed analysts,” or even more damnably as “failed and discredited analysts.”  Some of them may pivot on the build-up to my 70th birthday to excoriate those “spent old men who should have long ago left the serious and exacting business of journalism to younger and fresher minds.”

    I hear you all.

    If there is any redeeming grace in this matter, it lies in recognising that the right to comment on public issues – indeed, freedom of speech itself – implies the right to be wrong, so long as one is not deliberately and irresponsibly wrong.

    I do not believe that those of us who called Ekiti for Fayemi were deliberately and irresponsibly wrong. We were wrong all the same; flat-out wrong.

    The Ekiti people have spoken. Those who do not like what they said must in the spirit of democracy respect their will, as must those who regard it as the triumph of style over substance.

    Fayose’s return to power eight years after he was disgraced out of office is one of the most amazing political comebacks not just in Nigeria but anywhere.  He deserves to be congratulated.

    His challenge is to prove as adroit in governing as he has been in vote harvesting.

    With Ekiti now back under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) umbrella, President Jonathan should for once redeem his pledge and unleash the Federal Might on the state, its transformational magic to work.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Averting violence in Ekiti election

    Averting violence in Ekiti election

    The  Special Adviser on Inter-Party Affairs, Senator Ben Obi, recently held a sensitisation workshop for political parties and stakeholders in the June 21 governorship election in Ekiti State. Sulaiman Salawudeen, in this piece, examines  the danger of electoral violence in the state.

    A thick cloud of uncertainty lovers on  the June 21 governorship election in Ekiti State. There are widespread fear that the election may be marred by violence. This was the subject that dominated the recent one-day sensitisation and interactive forum for political parties and other stakeholders. At the sensitisation forum held at Adetiloye Hall, Fountain Hotel, Ado-Ekiti, the capital Speaker took turns to dispel the fears. They also to emphasised the importance of peaceful co-existence to the development of the state.

    The forum, was organised by the Office of the Special Adviser (SA) on Inter-Party Affairs to President Goodluck Jonathan, in conjunction with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). A similar sensitisation forum had, according, Senator Ben Obi,  preceded the recent elections in Edo, Ondo and Anambra states.

    In his opening remarks, Obi said the essence of the forum was to urge parties to submit themselves to the rules of the game and to make it categorically clear that elections were not wars and that parties should not prepare for violent confrontations, by  piling up ammunitions like guns, cutlasses, big sticks, axes, knives, stones and the like.

    Apart from Obi, other dignitaries in attendance were General David Jemibewon, who chaired the event, Dr. Eddie Iroh, who gave the keynote address, and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) boss, Professor Attahiru Jega, who was represented by the commissioner in charge of the Southwest, Professor Lai Olurode. Others are Guest speaker, Kunle Fagbemi and the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate in the election, Mr. Peter Ayodele Fayose who arrived a few minutes to the end of the programme, which lasted about four hours.

    The  candidates of the All Progres-sives Congress (APC). But  the Labour Party (LP) were absent, and Kunle Ajayi (Accord Party), Opeyemi Akinyemi (Action Alliance), Adeniji Philip (United Democratic Party), and Adekola Ayo (Social Democratic Party) were present.

    However, despite efforts by the organisers to present themselves as unbiased proponents of peaceful elections, the impression that it was essentially “a programme of the PDP, by the PDP for the PDP” could not be avoided. One of the key stakeholders, Hon. Bimbo Daramola, the Director-General, of the Campaign Organi-sation of Dr. John Kayode Fayemi of the All Progressives Congress (APC), stormed out of the event midway, without being recognised by the organisers.

    Daramola cracked a Yoruba proverb, which translates to: “Two people cannot miss out on the import of lying; if the person being lied to does not know he is being peddled with a lie, the person telling it would know he lying”. He added: “I have to leave because none among them has spoken the truth. They have been lying and scratching the facts on the surface”.

    Daramola went further to state that he has nothing against Senator Ben Obi or his office, but “this whole efforts (the forum) reeks of deceit and an attempt to hoodwink the people into believing that efforts are being made to have free, fair and credible elections”.

    In Daramola’s opinion, the event is a typical political charade, where holders of political positions pay lip service to the genuine and obvious needs of the people.

    “Remember that two years ago,” Daramola said, “when I said President Jonathan was paying lip service to the issue of insecurity in the country, people said Daramola has come again. Today, Nigerians now know better”. He added: “I refer to the interview I granted two years ago, and I cited on TV that It is better to pluck and prune the branches of the Iroko tree in good time as failure to do that would make the people suffer consequences of their sturdy maturity. When I walked into that venue, I wanted to see a clarity of purpose and sincerity of intentions. But I regret to tell you that everything fell flat.

    “The speech that Senator Obi read was full of platitudes. Nothing concrete could be held on to. It was full of ‘we expect that this election will be free, we hope the players will comport themselves’ and all sort of apologetic expressions. The last part of the speech alluded to the non-existent achievement recorded by President Goodluck Jonathan. I began to get worried when the second speaker came up and he turned out to be General David Jemibewon. I listened to him.

    “When they introduced the third speaker in person of Kunle Fagbemi, I knew instantly it was a PDP affair and that a script was most possibly being acted. Eventually, none of them had a word for the Vice President Namadi Sambo who declared on national television that the election in Ekiti was going to be war. That was marching orders from the Vice President himself.. Given what the PDP came to orchestrate in Ekiti, I urge the people to be on their watch. But we are telling the Jonathans that we in Ekiti will not let stealing happen. A million army cannot defeat a people who have made up their mind where to go. One million and one army cannot break the will of Ekiti people. We will not be intimidated. Let nobody mock God.”

    Speaking further, Obi said if the Edo, Ondo and Anambra elections were adjudged as free and credible by local and international observers, the efforts of his office, which promoted the interactive forums in the states, were not in vain and should  be sustained and replicated in Ekiti. The SA who stated the Presidency was aware of the charged political atmosphere in Ekiti, noted that the workshop was to enable party associates and stakeholders exchange ideas on how to ensure crisis-free election in the state.

    Jega noted the primacy of security to successful elections anywhere and that people would go out to vote in elections only if they have a feeling of assurance about their physical security. According to him, every stakeholder in the election must work to sustain security which he saw as saine qua non to free and fair poll.

    Jega assured INEC would put in place measures to ensure the outcome of the June 21 exercise in Ekiti would not suffer common compromises. He urged the parties not to see the election as a do-or-die affair. He equally condemned the general intolerance and violence among partisan groups in the country, adding that recent by-elections to the lower legislative chambers in Kano and Ondo states witnessed high level violence.

    He said security agencies have a role to ensure adequate security during the election in Ekiti. He added: “INEC on its part will not do anything that would negatively affect its integrity. INEC is going to be neutral. The mindset of politicians concerning elections must change. The candidates must not give the impression that they are coming to win irrespective of what voters think.”

    Jemibewon urged the  INEC to improve upon its performance in Anambra by ensuring perfect logistics, particularly the distribution of materials to designated polling centres. He added that the Ekiti exercise must be made to agree with the United Nations resolution that recognises governments as being responsible “for free and fair elections, free of intimidation, coercion and tampering with votes.”

    The retired General said: “electoral marginalisation is almost becoming a norm and that fracas and public disturbances are equally becoming a permanent feature of elections in the country. The “INEC must therefore, live above board to ensure that people are given a chance to elect the candidate of their choice.”

    Iroh, in his keynote address, placed the responsibility for “peaceful, free, credible, and successful” election in Ekiti squarely on the shoulders of politicians, noting that despite the seeming impossibility of achieving desirable election outcomes, parties and politicians needed only discipline and sacrifice.

    According to Iroh, all the contending political parties in the elections must accept that others in the race are not ‘enemies’, saying this would enable them to accommode, tolerate and accept one another as brothers.

    Jemibewon agrees with Iroh. His words: “In the real world or real politics, this calls for crossing the familiar lines of political rivalry. It calls for dispensing with old prejudices and bitterness. It calls for an uncommon and unusual sacrifice, the type that has always been elusive in Nigerian politics in more than 50 years of independence, but the one that can transform ordinary politicians, men and women to that extra-ordinary pantheon occupied by immortal statesmen”.

    The guest speaker, Mr Kunle Fagbemi, who is also the Executive Director, Centre for Peace Building and Socio-Economic Resources Development (CePSERD), admitted that the political space in Ekiti was manifestly charged.  He said politicians, the partisan groups and other interest bodies who have stakes in the approaching exercise must be practically committed to ensuring that the election was not marred by violence.

    He said: “It is now very clear that unless as stakeholders, we all make concerted efforts towards peaceful conducts across board, that is by ensuring that peaceful conducts characterise electioneering campaigns during the remaining three critical weeks, the actual election day and post declaration of governorship election results, we may end up going back to the ‘wild-wild West days.”

    Fayose and the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Felix Uyanna, engaged briefly in some verbal wars on who had been more liable for the unsettled political space in the state. While Fayose maintained that the police had been looking the other way while some politicians foisted violence on the citizenry, Uyanna countered that the three major parties –  the APC, the PDP and the Labour Party (LP) have been part of the violence.

    Fayose had said perpetrators of violence had been doing it because the police had not called them to order, adding “If the police can check armed robbers, then they can check politicians because politicians are not armed robbers”. He however urged the CP to summon a meeting with the major parties to find a way of ending the violence.

    “There is  suspicion in the air, thugs are being hired, and all the hotels have been booked in the towns and villages. INEC cannot be blamed, if the election fails because it should be the role of the security agencies to check the excesses of unruly politicians,” the PDP candidate said.

    Uyanna however, disagreed. He said: “Party leaders are the cause of the violence. It is sad that some of them have not taken our advice to avoid violence. Leaders of the APC, the LP and the PDP have been involved in large-scale violence. So far, 70 persons across these political parties have been arrested.” The CP disclosed that steps are being taken to check excesses of politicians during the election, noting that about 13, 000 policemen would monitor the exercise. He added that each of the 2, 195 polling units in the state would be monitored by three policemen each, while the collation centres and other strategic places would equally be manned by high-ranking officers.

    Uyanna, who noted that the police and other security agencies had been up and doing in, ahead of maintaining peace in the state the election, he said that ‘flashpoints’ of violence had been identified and strategies were already in place to police them.

     

     

  • Ekiti Diaspora to voters: Choose a hopeful future

    Ekiti voters have been urged to choose a hopeful future and avoid a return to the gloomy past.

    The charge was made by Convener of the Ekiti Diaspora Europe 2014, Femi Awoniyi, at a campaign rally in Ipole Iloro-Ekiti in the Ekiti West Local Government Area.

    Awoniyi, while addressing more than 300 inhabitants of the town at the event, said Ipole was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Fayemi administration. He reminded the gathering that the construction of the Ikogosi-Ipole-Efon road by the Fayemi administration opened the town to the outside world.

    “For more than 50 years, the road was the main stumbling block to our development in this town,” he said.

    He also told the crowd that the transformation of the Ikogosi Warm Spring Resort by the present administration was also impacting positively on the town. He revealed that the development of the proposed Ekiti tourism corridor, which Governor Fayemi had said would be a priority of his government in its second term, would bring a new dawn to Ipole.

    “The Arinta Water Fall will be developed into a world-class tourist destination, which will boost the economy of the town and create jobs for its youths.”

     

  • Why Ekiti 2014 is important to Nigeria 2015

    Why Ekiti 2014 is important to Nigeria 2015

    Regular readers of this column may recall that several months ago I announced that reactions to this column should be no more than 300 words to have any chance of getting published in the column. I am sorry I am breaking the rule so soon, but I believe the significance of credible elections in Ekiti and Osun raised by the author and the clarity of his thinking justifies breaking the rule. I should, however, declare that the author, Chief Emenike, a veteran journalist, publisher and politician, is also a close friend.

    Next week, God willing, I will publish some of the other reactions to my article.       By Ikechi Emenike

    Ace columnist Mohammed Haruna’s piece on Governor Kayode Fayemi’s chances at this month’s polls in Ekiti State provokes a closer look at the man’s inner motivation for seeking another shot at the Government House. How does Dr Fayemi view the essence of his mandate? What does it mean to serve the people?

    Anyone in doubt about the meaning of “service to the people” should visit Ekiti State and engage any of the 25,000 beneficiaries of the social security scheme for the elderly. Every month, each senior citizen (over 65 years old) of this small South-western state receives a stipend of N5,000 from the state coffers to help cope with the ravages of old age.

    Token though it may appear, the stipend is a life-saver for many senior citizens cut off from the state-run pension scheme, having not been on the public sector’s payroll in their more productive years. They all have Dr Kayode Fayemi, who only received the keys to the governor’s office less than four years ago after a protracted, bitter fight to reclaim a stolen mandate, to thank. The social security scheme is only one of Fayemi’s practical demonstrations that governance is about touching people’s lives. “Remove service to the people from my mandate and I would humbly tell you that I have no business in politics” is one of his insightful statements.

    Now the man who eminent academic, Prof. Akin Oyebode, says has done virtually all he promised before the last election is asking for another term, to ring-fence, as it were, his people-driven programmes and make them the norm in Ekiti State. Any visitor to Ekiti today would attest that the people are eager to, with their votes, demand for four more years of Fayemi. The billion naira question, however, is: will Nigeria’s now thoroughly discredited electoral system redeem itself and allow the people’s will to prevail? I shall return to this vexed question shortly.

    A practised strategist, Fayemi has approached the House of Assembly to back up the social security scheme by ‘locking in’ the benefits for the people by law, much like the UK’s National Welfare Scheme which has remained untouchable since 1945 in spite of numerous efforts to scale it back or scrap it outright.

    He is a campaigner for the sustainability of sound projects. His administration has assiduously worked to clear the backlog of projects it met and in so doing, completed many road projects that were only 20 per cent done when Fayemi took the reins of power. He would be the first in the state’s 18 years of existence to treat government and governance as a continuum. “Government projects”, he says, “shouldn’t be considered personal projects”, which many an egotistical leader believe they are.

    Dr Fayemi’s solid record as a civil society activist and board member of such organisations as the Open Society, Justice Society and Baobab for Women’s Rights would not permit him to be less alive to the people’s cause. The scholar in him blended with the street activist in the troubled days of the Abacha dictatorship. Fighting on the side of the people, Dr Fayemi was instrumental to the success of the opposition’s soft weapons of communication, such as Radio Freedom/Radio Kudirat that exposed the junta for the callous power usurper that it was. His encounter with such pan-Africanist leaders as Ethiopia’s the late Meles Zenawi impressed in him the moral imperative of leadership of service and people-driven development agenda.

    When Dr Fayemi prioritised the upgrading of infrastructure, education, agriculture, gender sensitivity, the social sector and governance in his eight-point agenda for Ekiti’s development, he was merely building pro-people policies like his mentors did, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo included. He is on record as the first governor to endorse the Freedom of Information Bill and the first to publicly declare his assets alongside his late deputy. All these he did while maintaining an open-door policy, meeting the people on their turfs and welcoming dissenting voices with his now familiar gap-toothed smile.

    Will the people of Ekiti remember Dr Fayemi come June 21 when they return to the polls?

    Methinks they will, just as they have imprinted in their minds, the N5,000 stipend for elders; the N10,000 allowance for the 5,000-strong Ekiti Volunteer Corps members; the Samsung Centre established to promote ICT in the state; the enhanced pay/allowances for teachers in rural areas and how this has helped to lift the state’s school certificate success rate from 22 to 70 per cent; the YCAD programme that engages some 20,000 youths in viable commercial farming…The list is endless. Even his main rivals agree that he has performed, just as they shamelessly think up other means to ensure the people’s will does not prevail.  One says that whatever Fayemi has achieved would not count in the elections, proclaiming that “we must remove him”.  He is relying on thuggery and rigging.   Another simply snapped: “So what?” But that one’s ship is sinking.

    Try as they may, it is hard to see how the people of the Land of Honour will not queue behind a man who has been so faithful to his promises, come June 21.  While Fayemi speaks of and works towards a future of transparency, good governance and prosperity, Ayo Fayose evokes retrogression, a fall-back to the bad old days of brigandagethe intelligent citizens of Ekiti would rather forget. In a sense, Ekiti 2014 may indeed turn out to be a contest between the past and the future.

    Regrettably, in these climes things are not as straight-forward as they should be. I now return to the question of the fairness of our electoral umpire.

    Last week, in devoting his popular column to the forthcoming Ekiti general election, Haruna posited that given his antecedent, Governor John Kayode Fayemi should ordinarily secure his second term quite easily.   Like earlier commentators, the veteran journalist is worried about the role of INEC. He joined several other previous commentators to urge INEC to use electronic card reader for the election both in Ekiti this June and Osun in August. None of the parties is objecting (at least publicly) to the use of this device that is meant to weed out ghost voters and ensure transparency and fairness in the elections. The commission stands to lose nothing if it bends to this consensual demand.  To say the least, INEC’s silence on this popular clamour is very worrisome.

    INEC Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega needs the Ekiti and Osun elections more than he is willing to admit. He came to office with so much goodwill following the woeful performance of his predecessor, Prof. Maurice Iwu.  Four years into his tenure, he has virtually dissipated that goodwill on the platter of shoddy performance.  He wobbled during the 2011 general elections, fumbled with the Ondo general elections and failed in the Anambra polls.  At each turn, he presents bags of excuses even as he promises to umpire a better 2015 general elections.  But any discerning observer would note that Jega’s voice is no longer as firm as it once was.

    Fortunately, Ekiti provides a unique opportunity to begin a sorely needed redemption.  If the electronic card-reader, as all stakeholders demand will assist INEC, prudence demands that it should be adopted.

    It is also important for the INEC chairman to put aside his three-piece designer gowns for a workman’s gear and personally deliver on Ekiti.  That is called leadership by example. His mere presence would check some of his recalcitrant and venal officers and place him smack at the centre of the action.   Since 1999, INEC has been unable to deal with recurring complaints about shoddy distribution of electoral materials. The worst case was in the recent Anambra governorship election where materials meant for some local governments simply developed wings.

    Jega would be well-served to lead a team of his top 16 commissioners to Ekiti and assign to each a local government for the purpose of distributing materials while the chairman himself takes charge of the central distribution centre in Ado-Ekiti and does the hand-over to the electoral commissioners personally and publicly, starting from 6am prompt. The process of distributing these materials should be broadcast live to enhance the credibility of the process and secure authentic real-time documentation of events, which may aid future forensic analyses. That done, electoral officers across the country and other stakeholders in Nigeria’s election processes will watch and learn from the boss how sensitive electoral materials are to be handled.  Well executed, Ekiti 2014 will cause Nigerians to be less cynical about the conduct of the 2015 general elections.

     

  • Why Ekiti must reject a soul-less, clueless PDP (INEC must deploy card readers)

    Why Ekiti must reject a soul-less, clueless PDP (INEC must deploy card readers)

    President Jonathan, to have any respect worldwide, must immediately direct INEC to deploy the machines in the Ekiti and Osun elections

    The president, the father of the nation went azonto-dancing in Kano the other day even as blood was still flowing at Nyanya, in the federal capital territory, Abuja, where he, incidentally, resides. Limbs, burnt torsos, and, indeed, shredded bodies were still being packed for evacuation, in a once tantalisingly peaceful Jos, as the father of our nation, our very no.1 citizen, was being programmed to visit Ekiti to kick off what the clueless, soul-less party touts as the opening glee of  its rampaging, rigging machine to capture the Southwest to signpost their plan to once again inflict President Jonathan on the country even when U. S Senator McCain, not just hapless Nigerians, already  know that  Nigeria has been so  terribly ill-served with him as president.

    For the PDP to consummate its evil plans in Ekiti, all manner of rigging devices are being put in place but none is  as shameful as Professor Jega and his INEC’s  recant of its open declaration to deploy PVC card reading machines for both Ekiti and Osun Elections. As part of preparations for the 2015 election, INEC said it has concluded plans to deploy card readers to be used at the 2015 general election as well as in the governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states. Speaking at a knowledge sharing workshop with national publicity secretaries and deputy national publicity secretaries of political parties on the optimisation of the voter register, continuous voter registration and permanent voters’ cards (PVCs), Dr Ishmael Igbani, INEC’s ELECTION MONITORING AND OBSERVATION COMMITTEE (EMOC) Chairman, publicly announced that INEC would use card readers to interpret the PVCs at the elections. Said Igbani, ‘In line with its legal mandate, the Commission is currently in the process of printing the permanent voters’ cards for voters. The PVCs have embedded electronic chips containing the personal information and fingerprint details of the voters and will be used to identify and authenticate the voters at the polling unit on Election Day through the planned deployment of handheld card readers.’ But without the slightest regard for INEC’s integrity, his own apparently nebulous integrity and that of  Jega, the body, like a drunk, would within hours deny that it would use those machines which are the only means by which to read the embedded electronic chips to identify and authenticate voters.  These crafty INEC officials are yet to tell Nigerians how identification will now be done, but woe betides anybody caught presenting a cloned card to vote in Ekiti.  Without a doubt, PDP electoral investors in the Southwest who have successfully blackmailed President Jonathan by claiming the PDP had to win in Ekiti and Osun for him to have a ghost of a chance in 2015, must have again rattled the president who, in turn, must have directed INEC to recant. Or how do you explain an official of Dr Igbani’s status misrepresenting what must have been discussed severally at the topmost echelons of INEC unless he was not sober at the occasion?  President Jonathan, to have any respect worldwide, must immediately direct INEC to deploy the machines in the Ekiti and Osun elections. Any other thing will be disastrous for his presidency.

    News have since filtered in  as to how the PDP is buying up PVC’s from students and the poor as well as assembling former Adedibu thugs who will use the cloned cards to vote. The president  should know in advance that whoever is caught in Ekiti attempting to use cloned voters cards will not have the opportunity of reporting his/her fate to the police. Ekiti will never go back to those days of murders and attempted murders, of treasury looting, massive insecurity and outright mayhem.

    Former Ekiti State governor, Engr Segun Oni, has advised the good people of Ekiti never to have anything to do with the PDP but should, instead, vote for the respectable and performing incumbent, Dr. John Kayode Fayemi. Said Asiwaju Segun Oni, concerning the PDP, in a well-publicised newspaper interview: ‘I did everything I could do to give the party a chance to pick a candidate we can be proud of; one we can show to coming generations as a role model. When the PDP decided what its own options are, we had no alternative but to make up our mind to toe the path of honour. What we are doing is for the good of Ekiti, especially its name and integrity, both of which we may lose if we are not careful and for which coming generations will suffer. The position of a state governor is an exalted one in which the occupier must be a moral leader, a role model. If you have a governor you cannot sincerely pray in your heart that your children should emulate, then it means that the state has missed it. If you have a governor that could not be a role model for younger ones, then something is amiss. What is required is far more than legal qualifications or satisfying the letters of the constitution.  The position of governor is a higher ground and like Caesar’s wife, its occupier must be seen to be above board because you cannot make somebody governor that is deemed in the eyes of all reasonable persons to be devoid of morals. It is a slight on the office of a governor and on Ekiti people to have someone that the average man on the street perceives as a crook. You just cannot make just about anybody governor as doing so will mean creating problems for generations. Such a society will be planting trouble.

    “Secondly, I know the clique that is scheming to install one of its own as the PDP governor in Ekiti.  It is a very dangerous amalgam. It will be a grave mistake if we allow people, who have been declared wanted to answer for crimes all over the world, to become kings and kingmakers here in Ekiti. I want to sound this note of warning to all, that we should be vigilant and not allow a nursery bed of evil to germinate and mature in any part of the country. When that evil matures, the monster will threaten the peace and sanity of all, ala Boko Haram.”

    These are words of wisdom from a highly experienced statesman who knows the PDP and its dangerous ensemble only too well. Engr Oni was elected governor on the platform of the PDP and knows what evil the party is capable of perpetrating. Also, in its 15 years’ stranglehold over Nigeria, the PDP has nothing to point to as its contribution to Ekiti development. Federal roads in the state are worse than anywhere in the country and all we have for a federal secretariat are empty promises thus making Ekiti the only state without a federal secretariat in the country.  Were the PDP a decent party, its members will loathe coming to Ekiti to canvass for votes.

    Nigerians, irrespective of where they are located, must impress it on President Jonathan that our country needs a rebirth. Given the horrible names world leaders and leading newspapers have deployed in describing Nigeria in the wake of the abduction of about 250 girls in Borno State and our government’s incredible ineptitude in handling it, it is important that the president be prevailed upon to know that we already have enough bad news to add a post election crisis which, in the case of Ekiti State, God forbid, will be massive and riveting. The entire world has shown enough empathy towards President Jonathan, with many sending men and material that he should by no means, under whatever subterfuge, allow these dangerous businessmen to manipulate and mess him up since the buck stops at his table. God has been more than kind to Goodluck Jonathan. He should learn to count his blessings.

  • Photo: APC rally in Ado-Ekiti

    Photo: APC rally in Ado-Ekiti

  • Man burnt to death in Ekiti

    Man burnt to death in Ekiti

    The lynching of a kidnap suspect by an irate mob in Ikere-Ekiti, Ikere Local Government Area of Ekiti State, has thrown up issues about the growing tendency among the people to take the law into their hands, SULAIMAN SALAWUDEEN reports

    Penultimate Sunday was a particularly bad day in Ikere-Ekiti, Ikere Local Government Area of Ekiti State, when an alleged kidnapper and ritualist was apprehended by the people and later set ablaze.

    Time was 7.40 in the morning and the man (name unknown) reportedly in his 40s was sighted by a commercial motorcyclist emerging from a bush located at Eyitayo Housing Estate, Moshood area, Ikere-Ekiti.

    On sighting the man, the motorcyclist was said to have made few frantic calls to residents around the area and the man was promptly arrested. He was said to be carrying, at the time, a black polythene bag containing what was described as a mutilated but fresh body of a boy whose age could not be ascertained.

    The people reportedly forced the man back into the bush to know his actual mission where they saw objects which looked most like fresh human parts covered with fresh blood.

    The mob which had now formed brought him out of the said bush again and then dealt him blows, using all manner of objects, before they took him to the local vigilance group called the Odua Peoples Congress (OPC), in the town.

    But they (the mob) reportedly numbering about fifty seized him from the vigilance group, brought him to Odo-Oja main road, stripped him naked and while still in the unconscious state, heaped upon him about ten used tyres, doused all in petrol and in seconds, he was up in flames.

    An eye witness had said the man had earlier been handed over to the Oodua Peoples Congress in the belief that they would ‘deal’ with him but “they schemed to protect and shield him.”

    “We were looking at them after he had been handed over. We expected he would be tortured but they (vigilance group members) did no such thing. They kept him there and wasted our time. At a point we got angry and we moved in and took him to the main road close to a bank and burnt him.

    “Just last week, a kidnapper escaped here in this town with some collusion and support among certain elements. We did not want that to happen again. To catch a kidnapper and allow him to escape is the worst thing that can happen in a community. That criminal would return to perpetrate worse crime,” the eyewitness said.

    While investigations are currently ongoing to bring perpetrators to justice and discourage a repeat of the act, The Nation investigations revealed that criminal activities like that were not unique to Ikere alone, other towns in Ekiti State, including Igede and Omuo have lately recorded such occurrences as well.

    In Omuo-Ekiti, a 12-year-old girl sent by her mother on an errand was waylaid by suspected relative and killed for ritual purposes.

    According to a source, the girl who was sent to deliver food to her grandmother was pursued and stopped by her mother’s brother as she was returning from her granny’s place. She was said to have been taken to a small house where she was killed and some parts of her body, including her brain removed The Omuo case was generally believed to be a case of ritual killing.

     

    Police reaction

     

    In a swift reaction, the  State Police Commissioner, Felix Uyanna, condemned the burning of the suspect, saying it was unlawful for people to take laws into their hands, adding that “the Command will deal with whoever is found engaging in such.”

    Mr Uyanna, while maintaining that the act “was regrettable and inhuman” said in a statement that the state police command”is dismayed at the ugly incident of mob attack/killing/burning of a yet to be identified citizen at Ikere.

    “The supposed victim of the alleged crime is also unknown and that the flimsy excuse or suspicion of being a kidnapper if allowed is a recipe for anarchy, especially now that a major election is afoot.

    “The Command hereby warns members of the public to desist from taking laws into their hands, rather reports of any incidents of commission of crime or any suspicion whatsoever should be made at the nearest police station as anyone arrested in connection with any lawless act will be made to face the full weight of the law,” Uyanna said.

    While some of the suspects were said to have been arrested and making useful confessions, the fact according to the police remains that residents themselves have to support the police in securing the communities.

    At a recent chat with journalists in the state, the Police Commissioner stressed that security had become everyone’s business and that people have to be interested in who is moving where and at whatever time.

    While residents have continued to condemn the abandonment of Eyitayo Housing Estate, where the man was reportedly found, The Nation findings reveal that the estate used to be the site of a proposed central market when Ise, Emure, and Ilawe were still under Ikere Local Government about thirty-years ago.

    According to a source, “The place at a time was being prepared for a large local market. But the local government failed to implement this before the separation of the council into Ise, Emure, Ilawe and Ikere local government areas.

    A resident around the area said: “We have been having meetings in this place because of the tendency of criminals to use that place (Eyitayo Estate), but most times when decisions are taken, it would not be implemented.

  • Yoruba secondary school competition ends in Ekiti

    The maiden edition of a Yoruba creative writing competition organised for secondary school students in Ekiti State ended last week with the state finals held in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital.

    Tagged Idije Aroko fun awon Akeko, the competition was organised by Diaspora Media, a communication outfit with the objective of restoring interest in language, culture, and tradition of Yoruba.

    Praising the initiative, the state Commissioner of Education, Mr. Kehinde Ojo, said the competition was in line with the regional integration aspiration of the Southwest states to strengthen the study of Yoruba in schools especially at the foundation stage.

    The CEO of Diaspora Media, Mr. Dele Morakinyo, said a prize-giving ceremony will hold soon in Ado-Ekiti.

    He also expressed hope that more schools and local governments would participate in the next edition slated to hold next year.

     

  • Ekiti and Osun: Nigeria’s make or mar elections

    Ekiti and Osun: Nigeria’s make or mar elections

    The fear today is that rigged elections in any part of the Yoruba homeland could provoke Yoruba reactions that could escalate into horribly wider conflicts beyond election protests

    It has been the unalterable position of this writer that the Jonathan presidency’s main pre occupation with the 2015 presidential election is  now how to vitiate the votes of key opposition geo-political zones, where elections hold at all, because as things stand today, the arithmetic, going by the population of each zone, is a major source of concern to it. These include the North West where there are now increased waves of reciprocal mass killings between groups that have, like forever, lived together in peace; the North East which, no thanks to years of internal misrule, has played into their hands by birthing the ferocious Boko Haram and, of course, the South west, which must reckon as the greatest obstacle to Jonathan’s 2015 ambitions. To take care of the  Southwest, not only has the presidency assembled the usual political outcasts in the region, it has successfully breached what was hitherto an impregnable regional elders’ redoubt with the result that men you could count on a few years back have completely sold out.

    The above scenario, especially in the Southwest,  has yielded circumstances so bewildering a very  respectable, completely apolitical Yoruba Diasporan Think Tank, the OODUA FOUNDATION, whose members are drawn from academics and the professions, and residing in various countries across the globe but with its international headquarters in the state of Delaware, United States of America,  has cried  out to draw attention to the likely, very  grave consequences of allowing history repeat itself in the region.  In its clarion call dated  4, May 2014 and titled DO NOT START VIOLENT CONFLICTS IN THE YORUBA SOUTHWEST OF NIGERIA, the group, in a powerful  1500-word statement that would have to be paraphrased  here for lack of space, declared as follows:

    “We are alarmed by the trends that we see in the politics of our homeland in Nigeria. We discern a truculent resoluteness to foment very tangled violence in our homeland in southwestern Nigeria in the months ahead. We Yoruba are an ancient civilisation; we had lived for over a thousand years in well-organised kingdoms and cities before the coming of European colonialism at the end of the 19th century. We command the cultural capability to change our rulers smoothly by conducting free and fair elections. In the decade before Nigeria’s independence, when the British overlords allowed all sections of Nigeria to elect their rulers, we ran free, fair and decent elections and became the pace-setter in the development of democratic politics in Nigeria. We became the first people in Africa to institute universal Free Education for our children, and the first people in Africa to make television available to our people. Our politicians are more than able to compete peacefully and responsibly at elections, to responsibly accept the outcomes of free and fair elections, and then to go on to give our people competent and accountable leadership and governance.

    Since independence in 1960, we have constantly demanded that we be allowed to run the free and fair elections that the masses of our people desire. In resistance to the crudely and violently fraudulent elections that have become the dominant and abiding character of Nigerian politics, many of our youths lose their lives at every election. We want this kind of loss of lives at elections to end in our nation. In particular, we are desperate to ensure that, in the State elections that will come in our homeland between now and August, the machinery of federal power at the disposal of some powerful politicians will not be able to bring electoral fraud and its usual consequences over our homeland.

    From various directions and sources, indications seem to be accumulating that the Yoruba homeland of southwestern Nigeria could be heading towards serious, cataclysmic, violence.  This is easy to discern in the tortuous electoral politics being generated among the people, the worried looks among the people, their utterances, and their numerous writings in countless outlets.

    The immediate backdrop to this picture is the approach of gubernatorial elections in two of the six Yoruba states of the Southwest in June and August 2014. The historic background is that the Southwest is the part of Nigeria where the common people have had, since the independence of Nigeria in 1960, to put up stiff, often violent, resistance to the brutal rigging of their elections by federal electoral agencies and officials, which acts of electoral fraud have often occasioned bloody conflicts, death and ruin.

    Owners of an ancient political culture that was based on orderly selection of rulers, the Yoruba people of Southwest Nigeria have demonstrated uniquely high regards for free, fair and orderly elections in modern times.  Unfortunately, they belong to a federal Nigeria in which the holders of federal power assume that it is part of their prerogative to rig elections in any part of Nigeria. Yoruba resistance to the federal acts of electoral fraud in the Yoruba homeland has produced some of the most serious uprisings in the history of independent Nigeria. Their epic three-month uprising against the federally backed rigging of their Western Region’s election in October 1965 was responsible for destroying the first government of independent Nigeria and ushering in the first Nigerian military coup and military dictatorship. Because the Nigerian federal rulers, agencies and officials have continued, nevertheless, to disregard Yoruba cultural sensitivities in the matter of elections, they have, in the years since 1966, pushed the Yoruba into many other serious acts of resistance. The fear today is that rigged elections in any part of the Yoruba homeland could provoke Yoruba reactions that could escalate into horribly wider conflicts beyond election protests.

    On aggregate, the Southwest is about the only  peaceful area in Nigeria today. It’s  well-known culture of religious tolerance, and open-handed hospitality to, and smooth inclusion of, foreigners into society, has for decades made the Southwest the destination of most Nigerians fleeing from their poorer, insecure, or conflict-rattled homelands. For decades, Nigeria has increasingly experienced conflicts, violence, high crimes, inter-ethnic and religious blood-letting in most of its regions. These have reached a peak today, especially with the killings and devastation carried out by Boko Haram. More and more, the picture is that Nigeria lacks the capability to control these violent troubles.

    Finally, we serve notice that we are hereby taking this important matter to the attention of the most important members of the international community – in particular to the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, and the Foreign Ministers of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, Japan and Canada”.

    It is just as well that authentic Yoruba opinion molders, not some concentrated political outcasts and their newly acquired collaborators, have spoken. President Jonathan can, in all ‘innocence’, claim he knows nothing of all these shenanigans but we know their antics too well to be deceived all over again. We know, for instance, that those who announced their willingness to invest their billions in this looming ‘electoral heist’ are already, as has become the norm in the politics of their part of Yoruba land, in agreement with INEC and key security officials, to make available to them  for use in the two elections, only those electoral officers and security agents who will be  prepared to swear to oaths, probably lying naked  in coffins, after which they  will  be handed huge bribes.

    I would like to conclude by saying that given the  circumstances in which the misuse of our security forces  by the likes of  the Minister of State for Defence has resulted in the United States, for instance, reportedly becoming  rather reluctant to share intelligence with the entire Nigerian security architecture, it is hoped that the Commander-in-Chief will think twice before deploying our soldiers, especially,  and policemen to unwholesome election duties in Ekiti and Osun states given the utmost certainty that such unedifying assignments will further compromise our military and bring our country to further ridicule in the international community. I think the Boko Haram war front is too bloody and sickening enough to dare open another with its ramifying consequences