Nigeria News
[Chido Onumah] 2015: Who will defeat Jonathan?
By Chido Onumah
Let me say from the outset that it would be scandalous and a grave mistake for the opposition – and by this, I refer to the All Progressives Congress (APC) – to look toward any of the gladiators in the current war of attrition in the People’s Democratic Party, Aminu Tambuwal, Babangida Aliyu, Sule Lamido, etc., as a candidate for the presidency in 2015. With all due respect to these men, and not minding the fact that there are PDP elements in the APC, it would not only smack of unseriousness, but would leave voters no choice in 2015.
Having exorcised the incubus of a PDP takeover of the opposition, let’s pose the fundamental question: who will defeat President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015? We need to pose this question frontally and be sincere in our answers. That is the only way the opposition can assess its strength and chances as we head into the battle of 2015.
Too often, we hear the beer parlour assertion that, “President Jonathan is incompetent; he has to go in 2015”. Clearly, President Jonathan has performed woefully; but when was the last time incompetence cost anybody reelection in Nigeria? It didn’t happen with Shehu Shagari in 1983; certainly, not with Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007.
What is needed, therefore, is a comprehensive strategy to defeat PDP in 2015. And top on the agenda would be the urgent need to market a national candidate who provides a clear and credible alternative to President Jonathan. If free and fair elections were held today (even though the PDP would never permit free and fair elections), chances are that President Jonathan will emerge victorious. I say this with all sense of responsibility.
This is not Nigeria of June 12, 1993, even though Bashir Tofa, the defeated presidential candidate of the National Republican Convention (NRC) in that election and now a chieftain of APC would want us to forget the election and its significance.
Of course, I sympathize with Tofa. I would bury any thoughts of that election if I had been in his position. It is not easy on one’s reputation and psyche running a presidential election and getting trounced in your home constituency. That must go down as one inglorious record for the Guinness World Records.
Back to reality. The country is fractured today as never before. There are still many out there who will vote on the basis of religion; many who will vote because of money, ethnicity and other mundane considerations. Of course, we have to grant them their right to poor judgment. That is the nature of democracy.
There are those who have argued, from their limited understanding of the issue, that one way of addressing the minorities’ question in Nigeria is for President Jonathan to go for a second term whether he deserves it or not. These are the issues that will come to play whether we accept them or not. It is this fracture – add money and rigging – that will determine the outcome of the 2015 election.
So, is the opposition ready to compete in 2015? The answer, of course, will depend on who you ask. Even though the PDP appears like a party that faces imminent implosion, the campaign for 2015 has started in earnest, the glib talk by the president and his handlers notwithstanding.
Nigerians are yearning for an alternative to Goodluck Jonathan; not just an alternative, but a credible alternative. Talking about the presidency in 2015, the APC, undoubtedly, is a party of immense potentials. But if elections were held today, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd) is perhaps the only person with the pedigree, name recognition and national appeal who can give President Jonathan and the PDP a run for their money.
However, Gen. Buhari has not shown enough statesmanship to make him a winning candidate across the country. By his actions and inaction, the former head of state seems to be saying, “I don’t need the vote of majority of Nigerians to be elected president”. Lately, Gen. Buhari has been assailed by those who accuse him of making “unguarded and insensitive” statements. His handlers have repeatedly affirmed that he is a victim; one who is misunderstood and often misquoted. It may well be true. Leaving aside the issue of his comments, the expectation is that for a man who has run for president thrice and plans a fourth attempt, Gen. Buhari ought to be much more visible and active across the country.
He ought to be out on the street either comforting victims of various acts of terror across the country and offering them hope and a new vision for Nigeria or dousing the perception that he is a provincial leader. He has earned that right. Perhaps he ought to take a cue from Uzor Orji Kalu, a man who should be on trial for his ruination of Abia State.
We may not like it, but the truth is that after 14 years in power the PDP has managed to reach every nook and cranny of the country. The opposition needs do much to ingrain in the mass of our people the need for a better and workable alternative.
Time is certainly running out.
Globalising Media & Information Literacy
Next week (June 26-28), the global media and information literacy (MIL) movement will converge on Nigeria for the Global Forum for Partnerships on MIL (GFPMIL), incorporating the International Conference on MIL and Intercultural Dialogue.
With the theme “Promoting Media and Information Literacy as a Means to Cultural Diversity”, the conference which draws upon over 40 years of UNESCO’s experience in MIL, is a joint initiative of UNESCO, the Federal Ministry of Information, the Government of Saudi Arabia, the Swedish International Development Agency, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, and other key stakeholders around the world.
The GFPMIL will be a permanent mechanism and seeks to globally reposition MIL around the core objectives of: articulating key strategic partnerships to drive MIL development and impact globally focusing on seven development areas: 1) governance and citizenship; 2) education, teaching and learning; 3) linguistic and diversity intercultural dialogue; 4) women, disabled and other disadvantaged; 5) health and wellness; 6) business, industry, employment and economic development; 7) agriculture, farming, wildlife protection, forestry and natural resources conservation.
With Africa as a Global Priority for UNESCO, the International MIL and Intercultural Dialogue Conference will focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa and will be the first global partnership project in this domain. It will set the way forward for future partnerships, enabling the MIL community to speak as one voice on certain critical matters, particularly as it relates to policies.
Let’s hope that Nigeria’s participation will go beyond the conference to embrace this global phenomenon that seeks to provide the vital life skill for students and youth to become critical thinkers and consumers of information and media messages and, therefore, active participants in their societies.
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Chido Onumah is the Coordinator, African Centre for Media & Information Literacy, and writes from Abuja. [email protected]
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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.
Source: Citizens Platform
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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
Nigeria records 55 new COVID-19 infections, total now 165,110
Military, Police Ring Abuja to Forestall Boko Haram Attack
UFC: Usman gets N584m after beating Masvidal
Insecurity: Lagos bans occupation of abandoned buildings
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