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Tag: PDP

  • ‘Why PDP can’t bounce back in Plateau’

    Plateau State Commissioner for Information and Communication Yakubu Dati spoke with YUSUFU IDEGU in Jos, the state capital, on why the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) failed to bounce back during the last governorship election.

    It was a two-man contest between Governor Simon Lalong of All Progressives Congress (APC) and Jeremiah Useni of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Why was it so?

    It was simply because the two parties are the ones that have elected representatives at various levels; I mean both of them have members in the state House of Assembly, they have members at the Senate and the House of Representatives. So, the two parties are the major contenders in the contest. Remember before the advent of the APC, the PDP was the only party known in this state. So, it was like a battle between the party that was in power, lost the power and is battling to return to power versus the APC that is in power at the moment. While the PDP was trying to come back to power in the state, the APC wanted to consolidate. At the end of the battle, the people decided to give power to the person they preferred, which is Governor Lalong of the APC. There are other governorship candidates representing other political parties, but their parties are not as popular as the APC and the PDP. Again, it might be the preference of the voters to reduce their choice for governorship to two, hence they had the APC and the PDP candidates to chose from and between the two, the people has demonstrated their preference for the APC. This boils down to the people’s choice; that is the beauty of democracy, the people’s choice must prevail. In other parts of the country, voters don’t even look at the parties, they looked at the personalities and so you see people making their choice of candidate outside the APC and the PDP. At the end of the day, it’s people choice. In Plateau State Lalong was the people’s choice.

    What do you think are Governor Lalong’s attributes that endeared him to voters?

    In the first place, Governor Lalong is humane, humble and he is a God-fearing man. His kind of humility is unparalleled, his nature is such that does not want to hurt a fly, not to talk of a human being. He came with a mindset to be fair to all residents of the state, irrespective of political leaning, ethnic, political or religious background. He is at home with everyone and that personal attributes reflected positively in his style of administration in the last four years. The administration that ruled the state before him was the type that did a lot to elevate one tribe above others in their policies and programmes and such ethnic politics caused major divisions among the multi-ethnic population of the state. But, when Lalong took over, he made it a deliberate policy to eradicate ethnic divisions and tried to bring the people together as equals. He made everyone equal stakeholder in the state and that alone endeared him to the people.

    Secondly, Governor Lalong has kept his electioneering promises to the people. As soon as he took over the mantle of leadership in 2015, he made wide consultations with the people to find out their areas of priorities and at the end he came up with what we called the “5-Pillar Policy” of the administration. It is a kind of developmental blueprint that guides the government in addition to the promises he made to the people. That was why, if you take the issue of welfare of the people, for example, Lalong is second to none. He did not only make salary payments regular, he also made sure that he cleared backlog of salary arrears. In fact, he came into office when workers were on strike and he promptly promised that he was going to pay the backlog and he has not disappointed them. The payment of salaries alone made the entire state happy, because even those that are not civil servants were happy because those who collect salaries patronise them and money is always in circulation. You can imagine a government that releases at least N2.5 billion into the state every month through salary payments. Definitely, it will impact on the economy of the state and petty traders, artisans, farmers ussually feel the impact of the money in circulation. If you realise the economic impact of one month salary no government can afford to delay salary payments because that salary touches on every aspects of the economy. The local economy has picked up and everybody is pleased with the government.

    Thirdly, Governor Lalong recalled all civil servants that were sacked by previous administration and those placed on indefinite suspension. He reinstated them and they were paid their arrears. The unemployed youths also like Governor Lalong, because they have also benefited from the administration through entrepreneurship trainings. As I’m talking to you, more than 100,000 Plateau youths benefited from the entrepreneurship programme organised by the Plateau State Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (PLASMEDA), an agency created by the governor himself. The beneficiaries of this entrepreneurship programme cut across all the 17 local governments. It was another means of job creation, because most of these trained youths were equipped with relevant tools for them to start their own businesses. Most of them did well and thereby also employed others on their businesses. So, everywhere in the state the youths are just singing praises of Lalong.

    His achievements in the areas of peace and security have also endeared the governor to the people. I can say Governor Lalong brought peace to people. You can only appreciate Lalong’s peace initiatives when you think of a period that the state was completely polarised along ethnic and religious lines. Then, there were no-go areas in Jos; where you go depends on your religion or the ethnic group you belong to. But Lalong did well to eradicate that within the first year of his administration. Why will people not like him? More so, he run an all-inclusive government. So, all these and many more really endeared him to the people and eventually made him the number one choice of the people during the election.

    But, there was gang up against his re-election bid. What do you have to say about that?

    Yes, there was that gang up against Lalong in the election; the gang up was made up of some elites who felt he did well to deny them access to public funds, as it used to be in previous PDP administrations. You know in the past, these elites lived big on state resources and they don’t care if civil servants are paid salaries or not. Such elites never cared if there are provisions of social infrastructure for the benefit of the entire populace.

  • Facts and lies collide

    It’s true that facts don’t lie. But it looks like the website called www. factsdontlieng.com lied concerning the votes Atiku Abubakar, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, polled in the February 23 presidential election. In his petition to the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, Atiku claimed he won the election based on results obtained from the website.

    But the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in its response, said “the website described as www.factsdontlieng. com was neither created nor owned” by it.  INEC added that it “does not share information with such an unclassified entity.” The commission also said “any information purportedly derived there from which does not accord with the result as declared by INEC is not authentic but rather was invented for the purpose of this case.”

    Contrary to Atiku’s claim that he polled 18,356,732 votes  in the presidential election,  INEC’s  Director,  Information and Communications Technology, Chidi Nwafor, said President Muhammadu Buhari, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate,  “was duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the presidential election and scored at least one-quarter of the lawful votes cast at the election in 33 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, more than two-third of all the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.”

    Nwafor added that Atiku “did not win the majority of the lawful votes cast and did not satisfy the mandatory constitutional requirement to be declared winner having polled 11,262,978 and one quarter of all lawful votes cast in 29 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja” as against Buhari “who scored 15,191,847 votes cast and one quarter of the lawful votes cast in 33 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”

    It’s clear that Atiku and INEC are not on the same page. It’s unclear how the said factsdontlieng.com got its own version of the presidential election result. It’s also unclear why Atiku chose to rely on the website for the presidential election result.  Who runs factsdontlieng.com?  Where did the website get its figures from? Can the website prove that its version of the presidential election result is authentic?  Why does Atiku believe the website is more believable than INEC?

    It’s true that lies aren’t facts. In this case, facts and lies collide. When there is such a collision, lies die first.  Facts will always win in a clash with lies. It remains to be seen whether Atiku can prove that factsdontlieng.com is more credible than INEC.

  • PDP to Buhari: tender your WAEC certificate at tribunal

    The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has charged President Muhammadu Buhari to tender his West African Examination Certificate (WAEC) to the presidential election petitions tribunal.

    The PDP said if truly the President had the WAEC as he claimed, he should tender it before the tribunal, instead of allowing his campaign spokesperson, Festus Keyamo, to “insult” the sensibility of Nigerians with lame attempt at diversionary tactics.

    The main opposition party also called on Nigerians to note that by claiming that an aspirant does not need WAEC certificate, but the ability to speak English, to contest for the office of the President, the Buhari Presidency, through Festus Keyamo, has finally admitted that President Buhari does not have a WAEC certificate as he claimed in his INEC documentation.

    In a statement Monday by the spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party said it’s completely inexcusable for President Buhari to swear to an affidavit to claim an educational qualification he did not possess.

    “An attempt to deceive the public using a defective reading and skewed interpretation of a section of the constitution cannot exonerate President Buhari.

    “Moreover, Section 295 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) is very clear on issues of interpretations and reference to questions of law.

    “The PDP, therefore, maintains that the onus is on President Buhari, as ‘Mr. Integrity’ to tender the certificate he claims to possess before the tribunal instead of this lame diversion from Presidential aides,” the party said.

  • PDP protests INEC’s refusal to release electoral materials

    The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has protested the alleged refusal by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to release election materials used for the February 23 presidential election, as ordered by the Court of Appeal.

    In a statement Monday by the spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party cautioned INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, not to plunge the nation into a monumental crisis.

    The main opposition party said INEC, by this action, is blatantly standing in the way of justice and working against the will of the people in their quest to salvage the nation and reclaim their “stolen mandate” at the tribunal.

    “The continued refusal of INEC to release the electoral materials to the PDP and our legal team is completely provocative and shows that the commission is working in cahoots with the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Buhari Presidency to frustrate the PDP, our candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and majority of Nigerians from retrieving our mandate at the tribunal.

    “INEC and the APC are apprehensive that the materials, particularly the forms EC8D and EC40G covering the nation in addition to the report of the Smart Card Readers used in the presidential election will show at the tribunal that the PDP and Atiku Abubakar clearly won the presidential election.

    “The PDP has been reliably informed of how the APC and some compromised top officials of INEC have been boasting that they will never allow these materials and documents to be released to the PDP legal team”, the statement added.

    The PDP dismissed claims by the APC and INEC that forms EC8D, EC40G and reports from the Smart Card Readers were not specifically captured in the said order of the court.

    Read also: PDP wins Rivers supplementary elections

    The party, however, insisted that the court was unequivocal in its order that all materials used for the election be made available to the PDP legal team.

    “For the avoidance of doubt, the Court of Appeal, among other orders, directed INEC to release and allow our legal team to inspect, scan, forensically audit and make copies of forms EC4OA, EC8A, EC8AVP, EC8B, EC8C, EC8E and all other electoral forms and materials including, but not limited to ballot papers and voters registers and materials used for the conduct of the presidential election, held across Nigeria on the 23rd of February, 2019, for the purpose of instituting and maintaining an election petition,” the party said.

    It noted that the refusal of INEC to release forms EC8D, EC40G and the reports of the card readers was a deliberate and vicious disobedience to the orders of the court for which the management of INEC should be charged for contempt.

    The party called on Nigerians to note that INEC, having allegedly rigged the election in favour of APC, is now seeking ways to frustrate its petition at the tribunal.

    “We therefore charge INEC, having been exposed, to end its shenanigan and release these documents without further delay,” the PDP concluded.

  • 9th NASS: Gender rights activist urges more leadership role for women

    A gender rights activist and politician, Mrs Ann Agom-Eze has called for the inclusion of more women legislators in the leadership of ninth National Assembly (NASS).

    Agom-Eze made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abakaliki on Monday.

    She said that apart from the positions of Senate President and Speaker of House of Representatives, other leadership positions including deputy senate president and deputy speaker, among others, could be allocated to women.

    The gender rights activist said that women had got all it took to be good leaders of the national assembly.

    She said that the ninth national assembly would be more vibrant, resourceful and more focused for effective governance, if more women were saddled with more leadership responsibilities.

    Agom-Eze urged the leadership of the two leading political parties, APC and PDP, to ensure that female legislators elected under their platforms were elected into the leadership positions of the two chambers.

    “As managers of the homes, women have gotten the requisite skills to show good leadership and these virtues have been displayed by women who have been appointed into leadership positions in the country in recent past.

    “The Oby Ezekwesilis, Ngozi Okonjo-Iwealas, late Dora Akunyilis, among others, were women who excelled in their different positions as ministers and leaders.

    “I believe that female legislators will do excellently well, if given the opportunity.

    “I am therefore calling on the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and their People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to allocate leadership positions to women in the Senate and House of Representatives upon inauguration.

    “The era when women were given the back seat is over. Women should be encouraged to come out and showcase their leadership prowess by being elected into leadership positions,’’ Agom-Eze said.

    The former Permanent Secretary and aspirant for the Ebonyi South Senatorial seat in under APC further urged female lawmakers-elect to reach out to their male counterparts to negotiate for leadership positions.

    “I believe that the female legislators in both the Senate and House of Representatives can get what they want if they can come together, reach out to their male counterparts and negotiate with them.

    “Power is gotten through struggle and also by negotiation and in this particular instance women can get what they want through negotiation” she said..

    The gender rights activist said negotiation was the best approach, considering the fewness in the number of the elected female lawmakers.

    She expressed confidence that the in-coming national assembly would work in synergy with the executive arm of government to ensure smooth administration of the country.

    The politician appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to include more women in his government in his second term administration.

  • Atiku: Cameroonian citizenship claims reckless, says PDP

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has dismissed as diversionary, claims by the All Progressives Congress (APC) that Alhaji Atiku Abubabar is a Cameroonian and not a Nigerian.

    Describing the claims as reckless and groundless, the PDP accused the APC of calculated attempt to trivialise and divert attention from the compelling issue of governing party’s alleged criminal rigging of the 2019 presidential election.

    Atiku, who was the candidate of the PDP in the February 23 presidential election, had dragged President Muhammadu Buhari who won the election to the tribunal seeking to upturn the poll verdict, as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

    In a statement Sunday by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said the Cameroonian tag on Atiku was a disingenuous and woeful design by the APC to overburden, distract and bog down the presidential election petition tribunal with trivialities, lies and falsehood, so as to derail the course of justice.

    The statement said, “Such diversionary tactic has however only helped in further exposing the fact that the APC has no answers to the plethora of overwhelming evidence before the tribunal that the election was won by Atiku Abubakar and the PDP.

    “Whereas Atiku Abubakar’s citizenship by birth, even under our constitution, cannot be contested, it is indeed the biggest irony of the year, that Atiku’s citizenship is being disputed by individuals whose ancestry has always been a subject of debate.

    Read also: INEC: Atiku spreading fake election results

    “These individuals include those who, being not sure of their origins; have no love for Nigeria and even refused to be on the side of our nation at the 1985 summit of the defunct Organization of Africa Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa.

    “Such persons prefer to deploy our national resources for infrastructural development in affiliated places outside the shores of Nigeria, when our country is in dire need of attention.

    “The apparent links were further manifested in the participation of aliens in the campaigns of a particular Presidential candidate in Kano.

    “Moreover, this claim by APC appears to contain explanations as to why its administration has remained insensitive to the challenge of insurgency, general insecurity and economic travails of Nigerians in the North East, particularly in Adamawa, Yobe, Borno and Taraba states.

    “In any case, Nigerians should not despair as the PDP and Atiku Abubakar will not be distracted in the pursuit of our mandate. The PDP has implicit confidence in the competence of our legal team to handle the diversionary antics and technicalities of the APC to unnecessarily overstrain the tribunal and derail the course of justice in the matter”.

  • Our NASS aspirants free to negotiate with PDP members, says APC

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Sunday cleared the way for its members in the National Assembly to negotiate with members of the opposition in their bid to occupy principal positions in both chambers of the legislature.

    The party said it was democratic thing to do.

    APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Lanre Issa –Onilu, said in a statement the party was not averse to its members seeking cooperation with other legislators as it was confident in their ability not to betray the party.

    There has been reports of Senator Ahmed Lawan holding meetings with members of the opposition but Issa- Onilu said Lawan was adopted by the party for the position in the first place because of his ability to carry everyone along, which is needed for such position.

    He also disclosed that the party will announce its zoning arrangement for the National Assembly leadership in the coming days.

    The statement reads: “We are inundated with reports of our members in the National Assembly holding consultations with members of the opposition over the election of leaders into the 9th National Assembly. Let me state that our party has no objection to such consultations.

    Read also: 9th NASS: Our challenges have no party, tribe or religion, says Ekweremadu

    “It is a normal democratic practice world over to stretch hands across the divides.  And contrary to some media reports, the actions of our members do not contradict the party’s position. APC has comfortable majority in both chambers. Therefore; we have the number to produce the leadership.

    “But democracy recognises the importance of the opposition especially when you do not have two-third which would be required at some very critical situations.

    “For us as a ruling party, we understand that a stable and peaceful National Assembly would enhance our capacity to deliver more for the people of Nigeria.

    “So the party is not averse to negotiation by Senator Ahmed Lawan and our other Senators-elect working to fulfil the position taken by our party.

    “It is important to note that one of the key considerations for adopting him as the party’s candidate for the Senate Presidency is his ability to carry everyone along.

    “On top of that, the party has confidence in him not to compromise the progressive ideology of APC.

    “So clearly, Senator Ahmed Lawan is capable of conducting his negotiations within the prism of APC’s objectives.”

    On the issue of zoning and leadership of House of Representatives, Issa-Onilu assured the party will put to rest ongoing agitations and “will soon release the zoning arrangements for the principal positions of the incoming 9th National Assembly.

    “The party will also make its position clear in the coming days on the principal positions in the House of Representatives.”

  • PDP plotting secret voting to take over 9th National Assembly, APC senators-elect allege

    Some All Progressives Congress (APC) Senators-elect are suspecting the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of plotting a secret ballot voting system to hijack the leadership of the National Assembly.

    APC senators-elect, who pleaded anonymity, said the PDP was perfecting this plot ahead of the inauguration of the 9th session in June.

    There is disquiet in PDP itself as interest groups root for different candidates as the next minority leader of the Red Chamber.

    Three candidates are already in contention for the position. They are the current deputy senate president Ike Ekweremadu, Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi West) and Senator Ayo Akinyelure (Ondo Central).

    An APC senator-elect accused the PDP of “already laying political landmines in the path of APC” with a view to having the legislative gavel by proxy.

    The source said: “While the opposition party cannot reinvent the wheel in terms of the colouration of the legislature during the 9th session of National Assembly, it is trying to foist on the winning party, the Senate in particular, APC candidates that would do its bidding, using the Rule Book of National Assembly to achieve it.

    “In implementing the plan, members of the opposition, with a large war chest made available by those being investigated by anti-corruption agencies, are ready to infiltrate National Assembly bureaucracy to perfect their plan.”

    A ranking APC Senator said: “PDP is using their chieftains. They will begin the implementation of the two-pronged plan by engaging the top echelon of National Assembly bureaucracy and some APC Senators-elect for their buy-in on the need to continue the use of the forged 2015 Rule Book, especially its secret ballot provision, which paved the way for the emergence of the current Senate President, Bukola Saraki against the directives of his then party-APC

    “You know the former Clerk of the Senate allowed the forged Rule Book to be used during the inauguration of the 8th Senate as he capitalised on the absence of APC Senators in the red chamber and to complicate the situation Senator Saraki insisted on using the forged book after he was sworn in as the Senate President.

    “Remember that secret voting provision was smuggled into the forged Rule Book used for the 2015 elections despite our protest because secret voting is alien to parliamentary practices. When it comes to voting in the parliaments worldwide, open voting is used.

    “What is now expected of the current Clerk of the National Assembly is not to use the forged book for the inauguration of the 9th Session of the Senate, come June this year.

    “What happened in 2015 inauguration will not repeat itself because we shall all be present during this year’s inauguration and we shall not allow the forged Rule Book to be used. We will insist on open voting as practised in all parliaments in the world and the National Assembly bureaucracy has already been put on notice.”

    A senator-elect explained: “We underrated the capacity of PDP to go to any length to achieve its aims and objectives during 2015 elections of presiding officers of the National Assembly while we were totally naïve about the crucial role of the bureaucracy in the scheme of things in the legislature, a situation that turned the table in favour of the opposition despite being in the minority. We are aware of their political manoeuvres and ready to expose sources of funds for their National Assembly intervention.”

    Ekweremadu, Melaye in contention for minority leader

    Three Senators elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are leading the race for the Minority Leader position in the forthcoming 9th session of the Senate, according to feelers from the party.

    Topping the list is the outgoing Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu.

    Also in contention are Senator Dino Melaye  (Kogi West) and Senator Ayo Akinyelure (Ondo Central).

    Rooting for each of them are diverse groups in the PDP.

    Sources told The Nation that while the party leadership appears to be heavily in favour of Ekweremadu emerging as minority leader in view of his vast experience, some other groups in the party have different ideas on who should occupy the position.

    The party leadership’s decision, it was gathered, may not be unconnected with the desire for a strong personality to lead the PDP in the next dispensation, as part of a larger plan to hijack the leadership of the National Assembly at an appropriate time.

    A party chieftain from the Southeast said the PDP believes Ekweremadu has the ability to keep the APC on its toes.

    “The PDP plans to give the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) serious opposition in the next dispensation,” the party chieftain said.

    “We want to prove that we have what it takes to be taken serious as a real alternative to the APC by Nigerians. We can only do these when we live up to the people’s expectation from an opposition party, especially in the national assembly.

    “To this end, we have considered that the current leadership of our party in the Senate, as represented by the highest ranking senator there, Senator Ekweremadu, be retained in the 9th assembly. We are sure that if he remains the leader of the PDP senators, the APC will be kept on its toes until we take over the assembly.”

    Another party leader said Ekweremadu “solidly fits the bill. We need a man like him to stand up to the APC senators.”

    But PDP stakeholders in the Southwest and the Northcentral are projecting other senators for the plum opposition job.

    One source said: “it is incorrect to say there is any crisis in the PDP over this issue.

    “Yes, people are suggesting various opinions as regards who should be the Minority Leader even when the party’s national leadership is advocating a particular direction for obvious reasons.

    “But other opinions are welcome and that should not be interpreted to mean there is a crisis.”

    Some interest groups in the Southwest recently cautioned the PDP leadership against taking the position of Minority Leader away from the zone.

    The Southwest PDP Frontiers (SWPF), led by Asipa Iyanda Adeoye Ogunfojuri, in a statement by him and  Ameen Adekanye  warned the party against  repeating  the alleged  ill-treatment meted out to  the zone during the struggle for the position of national chairman.

    “We are speaking out early enough to avoid being told that we kept mute when it mattered, for that was what we were told after the Southwest was disgraced out of the PDP national chairmanship race,” they said.

    “The position of Minority Leader in the senate is currently being held by the Southwest, and since nothing has changed as regards the zoning at the national level, it shouldn’t be taken away from us.

    “It is worrisome to see that the body language of many of our leaders suggests the possibility of the position being used to compensate another zone for whatever reason.

    “The Southwest will no longer agree to be sacrificed within the opposition party, more so when we have eminently qualified persons that can serve in the said capacity.”

    The Nation also gathered that some PDP stakeholders from the Northcentral recently met leaders of the party in the zone and expressed their desire to have Senator Dino Melaye supported to lead the PDP caucus in the senate.

    According to sources, the stakeholders pleaded with the leaders against supporting any arrangement that denies the zone a chance to produce the next Minority Leader of the Red Chamber.

    “The Northcentral too is pushing for Dino Melaye. In their opinion, the Kogi West senator is eminently qualified and equipped to lead other PDP senators. They also argued that since the zone will be losing the senate presidency currently held by Senator Bukola Saraki, it is just proper that it be compensated with the Minority Leadership in the interest of equity,” our source added.

    When the 9th assembly is convened, the Southeast PDP will have at least 11 Senators having lost one seat each in Anambra, Abia and Imo states. One other seat in Imo is still in contention.

    The Southsouth PDP will have about 15 senators following the loss of one seat each too in Bayelsa, Edo and Delta states. Party sources said the majority of the senators from the two zones may support the party’s choice.

    The Southwest boasts of only three PDP senators-elect.

    The party got a senate seat each in Ondo, Oyo and Osun states during the last national assembly elections. Dr. Kola Balogun was elected to represent Oyo South while Chief Francis Fadahunsi will be representing Osun East. Both are first timers.

    Senator Ayo Akinyelure (Ondo central) is returning for a second term.

     

     

    He was first elected in 2011, but lost his re-election bid in 2015. He is a ranking senator and sources say he is the candidate of many Southwest PDP leaders and chieftains for the position of Senate Minority Leader in the next dispensation.

    “He is the man they want as replacement for current Senate Minority Leader, Biodun Olujimi, who will not be returning to the senate,” said a party source.

    The Northcentral will have about five senators in the next dispensation as it could only manage to add a seat each from Kogi and Plateau states to the clean sweep it got in Benue State. The surprise loss of all the three senatorial seats in Kwara, including that of Senate President Bukola Saraki, depleted its numerical strength in the Senate.

    Melaye will be the only ranking senator from the zone in the 9th assembly. Senators-elect Gabriel Suswam (Benue northeast), Yisa Orker-Jev (Benue northwest) and Abba Moro (Benue south) are all going to the Senate for the first time.

    Another fresher is Istifanus Dung from Plateau north.

    This perhaps informed the choice of Melaye as the candidate of some major stakeholders in the zone.

     

  • Enough of off-season campaigning

    Even over one month after the presidential election, both parties still operate as if the election had not been held. It is expected that opposing parties would seize opportunities to criticise the other party periodically, but both All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seem to have been making a career of castigating each other as if it is a democratic virtue to just talk ill of the other party. If leaders of the two leading parties are not tired of repeated complaints about each other, the average voter is, because the average voter is eager to see the blueprint for the next four years, rather than be subjected in the media to trading of blames.

    Although it is consoling that none of the two major candidates involved in the presidential election had engaged in throwing of brickbats at each other, several leading members of the parties have been talking as if the election is yet to hold. The APC is not tired of reminding citizens about what they believe are inadequacies of PDP while the latter seizes every opportunity to cast APC as a party that has robbed it of victory in the recent election.

    If PDP is eager to cry over election results while its election petition is still in court, such whining may be more understandable than hearing the ruling party at the beginning of its second tenure complain about how bad the past governments of PDP had been. Psychologists would have assessed PDP as suffering from negative emotions stimulated by what Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky once characterised as Loss Aversion, the notion that negative emotion caused by loss is more than double the feeling of pleasure produced by success.

    The latest manifestation of campaign after elections is the poster named ‘Pukka.’ Pukka has been reported as marketing the qualities of the PDP presidential candidate in the recent election and whose electoral petition has already been submitted to the election tribunal. The photographs reported to be in Abuja and Yola describe Atiku as the real and the right. But it is remarkable that former Vice President Atiku has dissociated himself from the poster. Spokespersons of the two major parties should not do anything to create additional difficulties for emergence of some measure of bipartisanship that can bring progress to the country after the courts have treated the petitions currently before it.

    Remarkably, the first statement of Atiku’s media adviser: “Our attention has been drawn to posters of Abubakar, presidential candidate of PDP in the 2019 election being circulated in Abuja. We disassociate the former Vice President of Nigeria from the said posters in circulation.  is starkly more mature and appropriate than the one by another supporter: “I have not seen the posters. I am just hearing it from you. We are not aware of it. aWhatever it is it not connected to the PDP campaign organisation. Further, disassociating the former vice president from the Pukka poster is more logical than the literal interpretation of the Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman of INEC: “Is there anything like party name or logo on it? If a poster does not contain any of these or ‘vote for a person’ the commission does not see it as campaign.” Elections are over and so should campaigns be over. It is time to allow the judges to concentrate on their assignments.

    Also inappropriate are direct and indirect references by APC’s officials to PDP’s failures, after APC had ruled for four years since Jonathan’s presidency and had also won election to rule for another four years. Ordinarily, the APC shouldn’t have any reason to worry about PDP at a time that it is planning to commence its second term four years after the PDP. After all, if majority of voters had believed that PDP had acted sufficiently in the interest of the electorate in 2015, the APC could not have been the party to produce the president in 2015. What then is the use of a party that had just won a second tenure to continue to paint the losing party as a problem?

    For the sake of the future of APC as a party that has so far acquired the profile of a ‘progressive party’ in relation to the PDP, the ruling party ought not to be involved in any blame game. It should be busy crafting messages that can mobilise all citizens toward to the Next Level, the new metaphor for proper and productive governance. Continuing to complain that Jonathan’s administration had about double revenue from petroleum sales during his tenure in relation to what Buhari has earned in his first term shows how the APC is yet to move out of the campaign mode. APC’s image makers are over dwelling on the negative (the failure of PDP in power) while it should be emphasising the positive: elaborating and popularising policies in plan for upliftment of citizens in the next four years.

    Another instance of senseless preoccupation with campaign verbiage is recent discussion by some northern political and cultural leaders. The new election-linked agenda setting has many subthemes: the claim that the North has enough votes to stay in control of the federal government without needing votes from other regions; the rejection of rotational presidency as from 2023 on the basis that APC as a party does not have rotational presidency in its constitution, just as there is no space for the concept in the 1999 Constitution. Popularisation of such motifs may spark new controversies that can cause confusion among voters who had voted for President Buhari under the belief that the presidency would move south and thus to another type of the many worldviews in the country. If the sermon that the North can rule Nigeria without the other regions is being flown just to test waters, it is an unwise sermon—whether the message had been constructed by APC pundits with interest in keeping federal power in one region or by PDP intellectuals with the desire to keep power in the North after 2023.

    It is not as if it makes any difference whichever region produces the president in 2023, particularly in a political culture that pays inadequate attention to how to stimulate and sustain a stable and harmonious multiethnic state and, in the process, transform it into a progressive modern nation-state capable of seeking and finding solutions to the problems confronting majority of the country’s citizens. What is worrisome about the premature discussion of who qualifies to be presidential candidate in 2023 is the nuisance value that such theme may generate.

    As if it is not bad enough for the three regions in the South to struggle over which region captures the opportunity to produce the president in 2023, those who have chosen to throw up the suggestion that 2019 may very well be the end of rotational presidency show little concern for its political implications. For too long, Nigeria has had to grapple with distractions from the most important goal: finding a political culture that can transform centrifugal into centripetal forces capable of creating one of the world’s largest truly modern multiethnic federal state.

    It is conceivable that the principle of rotational presidency may not be the best solution to the country’s many problems, it has since its inception in 1999 brought a measure of political stability, such as the country had not known until 1999. It may be too soon and too risky to throw away this baby with the bath water.

    Calling for cancellation of rotational presidency may feel unpleasant to many regions just as calling for restructuring has been to some regions since 1993.  There is no better time for patriotic Nigerians to urge promoters of rule by one region to desist from restoring monopolisation of power that spawned rotational presidency in the first instance.

     

  • Supplementary polls: PDP leads in Rivers

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Saturday conducted supplementary election in four local government areas of Rivers State, with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) reportedly sweeping the four House of Assembly seats in contention.

    The election took place in all the units of Abua/Odual and Gokana local government areas, but was conducted in some units in Ahoada-West and Opobo/Nkoro local government areas.

    Electoral materials arrived as scheduled in most of the units that the elections took place, with some voters arriving at the polling units before 8 in the morning to cast their votes to their preferred candidates.

    INEC said the exercise was peacefully unlike the March 9 governorship and House of Assembly election which witnessed violence, which was the main reason INEC canceled election in the affected council areas.

    An INEC staff who spoke in Port Harcourt, Davies Iluebbey said although there was an early downpour in the state, yet materials for the polls arrived the units early enough.

    “In Abua/Odual, we have enough electoral materials, and the Presiding and Assistant Presiding Officers (POs and APOs) have left with their electoral materials to the polling units” he said.

    Read also: INEC delegation visits family of late ad hoc staff in Rivers

    “There was heavy rain that delayed the process, but voting has started because accreditation and voting are going on simultaneously”.

    According to Iluebbey, although 14 political parties are on the ballot for the Abua/Odual State Constituency Assembly election, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and African Democratic Congress (ADC) are the two leading political parties in the contest.

    “So far, the election is going on peacefully in all the 181 polling units of the 13 Wards in the LGA. The total number of registered voters in the LGA is 88, 561,” he said.

    Another INEC staff, Mr. Samuel Udezi, who os the electoral officer in Opobo/Nkoro LGA, said that the election was going on smoothly at the time he spoke.

    He said: “We have no issue for now, we have deployed all the materials to the POs and we are even going round to supervise them. I am currently in Ward 7, Unit 18 and the accreditation and voting are going on peacefully for now,” he said.

    Meanwhile, the Rivers Police Command said there was calm in the four Local Government Areas of the state where Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is conducting the State Constituency Assembly supplementary election.

    DSP Nnamdi Omoni, the Command’s Public Relations Officer (PPRO), said: “There is calm in the four LGAs; there is no report of any incidence for now.

    “Police personnel and officers from sister security agencies are on ground to ensure that the election is conducted in a peaceful atmosphere.”