Nigeria News
Veteran Mugabe vows to ‘surrender’ if he loses vote
HARARE (AFP) – Veteran Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe pledged Tuesday to step down if he loses fiercely contested elections in the country, as his rivals claimed they had evidence of vote-rigging.
“If you lose you must surrender,” the 89-year-old firebrand said at a rare press conference in Harare on the eve of Wednesday’s presidential and parliamentary vote.
Mugabe, through a series of violent and suspect elections, has ruled Zimbabwe for 33 years without interruption since it gained independence from Britain.
But he denied any attempts to rig the vote, declaring: “We have done no cheating.”
Mugabe: vows to surrender if he loses vote tomorrow
He faces a major challenge from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, his reluctant partner in an uneasy power-sharing government forged after the last bloody polls in 2008.
Tsvangirai, though buffeted by sex scandals and allegations of party corruption, has drawn tens of thousands of supporters to his campaign rallies.
But Mugabe’s challengers fear the wily old crocodile of Zimbabwean politics will seek to win what is likely his final election through fraud or violence, if necessary.
Few believe the military — which remains squarely behind the one-time liberation hero — would recognise a Tsvangirai victory.
But Mugabe dismissed widely reported comments from commanders who said they would not salute a president Tsvangirai.
“It’s just those one or two, they are not the army. And they are not the authority anyway, that was their own view,” he said.
Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change on Tuesday handed over what they claimed was documentary evidence of plans to rig the election to observers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
The dossier, which was seen but could not be independently verified by AFP, listed around 125 duplicate or questionable voters gleaned from examining the electoral roll.
The MDC received a copy of the roll less than 24 hours before polling stations open, and only in printed form, rather than digital.
“It is very clear to us there are shenanigans to try and rig this election, to try and interfere with the outcome of this election and to subvert the will of the people,” junior minister Jameson Timba told AFP.
“We have seen a lot of duplicate names in the roll, where you see somebody is registered twice, same date of birth, same physical address but with a slight difference in their ID number,” Timba said, adding that this had occurred for a number of constituencies.
Mugabe admitted that delivery of the roll was one of the logistical “hitches” in the runup to the vote. “I only got my copy of the voters roll yesterday,” he said.
No one at the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission was available to comment.
However, an SADC observer, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak to the press, said the MDC dossier raised serious questions.
“It’s not normal. If the roll had been released two weeks ago, these kind of problems would have been fixed.”
The dossier will only serve to fuel longstanding suspicions that the chaotic state of the voters’ roll could be used to pad Mugabe’s vote tally.
In June, the Research and Advocacy Unit, a non-government group, said after examining an incomplete roll that it included a million dead voters or emigres, as well as over 100,000 people who were more than 100 years old.
Around 6.4 million people are eligible to vote in Wednesday’s first round, and results are expected within five days.
Credible opinion polls are rare, but according to one survey by the US-based Williams firm in March-April, Mugabe could be in for a rough ride.
In a survey of 800 Zimbabweans, 61 percent said they had a favourable view the MDC compared with 27 percent for Mugabe’s ZANU-PF.
The poll showed Tsvangirai leading in seven of 10 provinces and that only 34 percent of those who voted for Mugabe in 2008 back him for president this time around.
Amid recovery from an economic crisis that saw mass unemployment and galloping inflation, Mugabe loyalists insist their hero is “tried and tested”.
“We have won already. It’s a walkover,” said ZANU-PF supporter Jestara Mziwanda.
At campaign rallies, Mugabe promised further indigenisation of foreign-owned assets.
He has also painted his rival as a foreign stooge and warned Zimbabweans against change, citing the fallout after uprisings in Egypt and Libya.
At Tsvangirai’s rallies, supporters have directed a chant of “game over” at Mugabe.
He has promised to create a million jobs and has used Mugabe’s advanced age as campaign fodder, asking: “How can you let an old man push a plough when there are young people around?
“I want Mugabe to enjoy his retirement in peace and quiet,” he said, in a hint that Mugabe could be granted immunity if he relinquishes power.
Many in the military, government and Zimbabwe’s lucrative diamond trade have their fortunes tied to Mugabe’s survival, so a peaceful exit seems unlikely.
“Many expect a Mugabe victory, because ‘ZANU doesn’t lose elections’,” the International Crisis Group said.
“Conditions for a free and fair vote do not exist,” it said. “A return to protracted political crisis, and possibly extensive violence, is likely.”
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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
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