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Re: Edo PDP and bedroom-based election monitors- By Abdul Mahmud

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By Ahmed Mahmud

The advertorial titled, ‘’Edo PDP and bedroom-based election monitors’’, signed by Julius Ihonvbere, Secretary to the Edo State Government, and published by ‘The Nation’ newspaper of Wednesday May 8 2013 provides a sad reading. That a former University teacher who passes himself off as a professor could in a cavalier manner turn truth on its head,  highlights what power does to those who acquire it by accident. Let me be charitable here, Ihonvbere of the yesteryear of alternative radical politics would not have penned such trite just to appeal to his new party, the Action Congress of Nigeria. I shall however leave the interrogation of his transformation to students of contemporary politics.

There are many reasons why the outcome of the April 20 Edo local government area council election is disturbing. One of these is the denial of the rights of voters and its portents for the social contract.  A government of the people by the people and for the people implies that the relations of governance are shaped by the consent of the governed. Thus, the social contract that embodies the sovereignty of the governed is also at once an indicator of the very essence of democracy. And it is on this basis the governing classes exercise their borrowed powers according to the dictates of the governed.

The local government area councils’ election that Ihonvbere strenuously tried to garnish as ‘’ free, fair and credible’’ violated the rights of voters. No matter the spin he placed on the reports of groups with indisputable links to the Edo State Government, the shorthand of what transpired on April 20th 2013 remains that voting didn’t take place in many parts of the state, particularly in the Afemai nation, where fictitious results were credited to his party. If voting did take place, Ihonvbere should explain why the youths of Uzebba, his hometown, barricaded his country home; and why he was forcefully imprisoned for hours before a detachment of armed mobile policemen from nearby Saboginda-Ora freed him? Why Auchi youths threw stones at the Comrade Governor? And why AbdulRazak Momoh, an ACN member of the Edo State House of Assembly, turned up with his heavily armed Congress of Progressive Change supporters at Bilaldin Hotel, Ughioli-Aviele, to retrieve ballot papers and boxes that were allegedly snatched by Gani Audu, the Executive Director at the Governor’s Office?

In his advertorial, Ihonvbere described the Edo election as ‘’free, fair and credible’’. How could he have described an election that never took place in many towns and clans as free, fair and credible? Perhaps to plant a foothold in his new party, he chose to be brazenly immodest. Truth is: ballot boxes and papers never arrived at the polling booths in many towns and clans, including my South Ibie community where voters were cajoled to solicit the insufferable charity of the Comrade Governor’s mother who foisted a nonentity on the local party. This was inspite of the fact that the deeply Islamic community rooted for a woman as her councillorship candidate. Today, a community which boasts of Professors IB Bello-Imam, Mustapha Danesi, Ahmed Yerimah, Kenneth Oyarebu, Musa Anavberokhai, Nasiru Obagha, Clement Mahmud and Anselm Iyamah; and other illustrious sons like Senator Kassim Oyofo, Chief Anavberokhai, Chief Haruna Osumah, Colonel Yakubu and the maritime lawyer, Tony Dania,is represented in the Council of Etsako-West Local Government by a certain Abdulazeez Asemokhai who party apparatchiks secretly admit has no school certificate.

Yes, the Action Congress of Nigeria has since 2007 won all elections conducted in the state. Sadly, its electoral invincibility has also imbued arrogance in its leaders, to the extent that internal party structures are subverted to accommodate the interests of the Comrade Governor and his mother. Fearing the protest votes of members who openly threatened to vote for the Peoples Democratic Party, following the imposition of candidates in Etsako, the big goons of the party connived with the Edo State Independent Electoral Commission (EDSIEC) and deployed the old tactic the Peoples Democratic Party developed during the Igbinedion era and mastered so well during Osunbor’s stint as governor. The tactic of ensuring that election never held, and fictitious results declared. What a travesty of democracy.

What is that was problematic with the report of the group Ihonvbere dismissed in his advertorial as ‘’hungry and misguided’’? Ihonvbere knows that the benchmarks for adjudging elections are shaped by the material facts that are available for observations, pre and post-election. So, between the groups he hurled up as official truth-bearers and the one that comprised of those he described as ‘’charlatans and commercial bedroom-based observers’’, voters who forcefully imprisoned him in his home and those who threw stones at the Comrade Governor because they were denied the right to vote occupy the middle as the ultimate bearers of truth. No amount of sepulchral white-washing can beatify rotted bones.

Local councils are the cash cows of governors who seize the third tier of government and convert them into conduits for siphoning off funds into their secret bank accounts. To maintain the boundaries of political control through patronages, governors work at anything and everything to ensure control of these local councils. This explains why they rig the internal democratic structures of their parties to secure the loyalties of their lackeys.

How should Edo people view the Comrade Governor’s claim to enthroning the democratic culture that is often couched as ‘’one man, one woman and one vote’’? The April 20 local election presents the governed with the material evidences to dispute the Comrade Governor’s claim. His unwillingness to affirm the rights of voters highlighted his aversion for the social contract. On April 20, he exhausted the goodwill of the governed and reversed the changehe promised Edo people. Yet, Ihonvbere expects democrats of conscience to defend him because he bears the appellation, comrade.

 

Abdul Mahmud is the President, Public Interest Lawyers League (PILL). He writes in his private capacity.

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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.

Source: Citizens Platform

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Kano Transfers Over 1,000 Almajiris To Different States Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

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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

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COVID-19: ‘Bakassi Boys’ Foil Attempt To Smuggle 24 Women Into Abia In Container

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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

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Nigeria News

Woman Kills Her Maid Over Salary Request

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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.

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Boko Haram Attacks: Buhari Summons Urgent Meeting Of Service Chiefs

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President Buhari and the Service Chiefs in a meeting. (File photo)

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

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