Can INEC redeem itself with Ekiti, Osun elections?

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By  Laleye Lashore

Democracy is the best form of government since it allows everybody to participate in the election that will produce the leaders. Democracy also assures the people of the protection of their fundamental human rights. The advantages of democracy are so many that almost all the countries of the world try to imbibe the democratic norm.

 
But there is no way democracy can be enthroned without free and  fair  elections. Democracy promotes development since  the government has to be people-oriented to continue to win  elections. The opposition,  on the contrary, always queries  the  actions of government to  put it on its toes ensure that  it  meets  the yearnings of the people.

 
The conduct  of good elections is essential in sustaining democracy. This is why, in assessing the Nigerian electoral system, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will be placed on the scale to see whether or not it has performed creditably well.

 
INEC did not enjoy much respect from Nigerians and the international community until former President  Goodluck  Jonathan began to assure Nigerians that his government was going to enthrone democracy in Nigeria by conducting credible and violence-free elections. The promise was taken by Nigerians with a pinch of salt.

 

There was apathy towards election in Nigeria before that promise; the peoples’ votes did not count.
Elections were always marred with irregularities. Chief among them was ballot-snatching, ballot-smashing, and ballot-stuffing. Political hooliganism was the order of the day, compelling many to stay away from the electoral process.

 
Things started to change for the better with the last governorship election in  Anambra  state when government stormed the state with an unprecedented number of security men. Yet, that election still showed some flaws.   Government started to regain the confidence of the people in the electoral system with the conduct of the  Ekiti  gubernatorial election.  The  Osun  governorship election that followed immediately after was also adjudged credible to a great extent.

 
Apart from its being peaceful, the  elections were  flawless; especially the  Ekiti  election, prompting even the loser, incumbent Gov.  Kayode  Fayemi, to waste no time in accepting its outcome and congratulating the winner, Mr. Ayo  Fayose. The  Ekiti  election  was described by everybody, including international observers, as  free and fair; it was credible and violence-free.

 

INEC was at its best as its actions before, during, and after the election were those of a truly independent umpire. This was carried over to  Osun  state.   People started taking Jonathan and INEC serious. For the first time, Nigeria began to earn respect in the international community as a country that can bring about the much-needed change in democratic governance in Africa.

 
How was this feat achieved? First, Jonathan appointed a former president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Professor  Attahiru  Jega, as INEC chairman. The former President said he had never met  Jega  until his appointment. Jonathan also gave  Jega  a free hand to perform his duties. BY and large, Professor  Jega  proved up to the task as Nigerians judged generally him to have delivered.

 
As earlier stated, one of the reasons why  Jega  succeeded because Jonathan and the ruling People’s Democratic Party gave him a free hand to operate. At no point was the government accused of trying to tamper with the process.

 

Everybody believed INEC had come of age and the hope for a better future for Nigeria’s democracy rose to an unprecedented level; what with a presidential election where an opposition party defeated the ruling party and the election generated no row among Nigerians – and there was peaceful transition from a ruling government to an opposition party.

 
Sadly, it appears today that INEC has fallen from the high pedestal to which it rose under the Jonathan PDP administration; as people now say, the electoral body, like the proverbial dog, is now back to its vomit. The last governorship elections in Rivers and Edo states left a sour taste in the mouth of Nigerians; compelling people began to begin to change their hitherto complimentary opinion about the electoral body.

 
The poor performance of INEC has dealt a blow on the purported anti-corruption stance of the  Buhari  administration as the people have described electoral malpractice and anti-corruption crusade as incongruous.

 
Meanwhile, there are apprehensions that what happened in Rivers and Edo and to some extent in  Ondo, where shameless vote-buying in open daylight was rampant, may seek to rear its ugly head in  Ekiti  and  Osun  states  next  year if care is not taken. Already,  Ekiti  state’s Gov. Ayodele  Fayose  has warned that  Ekiti  people will not take any nonsense from INEC, which has shown open bias to APC in every election since the  Buhari  administration came into power.

 
Two recent damning reports on INEC officials however leave sour tastes in the mouth. The first was the report of an investigation set up by INEC itself into the Rivers election.

 

Its findings were damning as it found that security agencies that  were supposed to provide security became the private armies of political gladiators for a fee and INEC officials that were to maintain the sanctity of the electoral process also lent  themselves  to be compromised to make the election tainted.

 

The second was the report of the EFCC which accused some INEC officials of accepting bribes from politicians to compromise the sanctity of elections placed in their care. These, indeed, are ominous signs that we may be back to the evil days of brazen rigging of elections in which the votes of the electorate amounted to nothing.

 
The  2018  Ekiti  election  – and immediately after it  Osun  – provides  an opportunity for the electoral body to repair its badly-damaged image. It is hoped that the electoral body will seize the opportunity to turn away from its brazen partisanship on the side of the APC so as to disabuse the minds of Nigerians about its fall from grace to grass.

 

The ruling APC must move away from its win-at-all-costs politics. It must allow for free and fair elections, without which it would not have come to power.  It was  particularly  the  Ekiti  governorship election in 2014 that convinced the whole world that INEC had met the world standard in electoral umpire. Next year’s election affords another opportunity for INEC to turn a new leaf, reclaim its lost glory, and have a good mention in the annals of history.

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Defeating Boko Haram: We must act now to save lives and build peace – UNSC

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By Tobias Ellwood & Matthew Rycroft

We are delighted to be visiting Nigeria this week, especially during the UK’s Presidency of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

We agree with new UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that the UNSC must prioritise preventing conflict and sustaining peace. That is why we are focusing our Presidency on conflict prevention in Africa, starting with a UNSC visit to the Lake Chad Basin.

Nigeria itself has long played a major role in international efforts to tackle conflict and build peace. Many Nigerians will be familiar with images of the famous blue helmets and berets worn by UN peacekeepers.

But they may not know that more than 2,100 Nigeria military and civilian personnel are currently deployed on UN peacekeeping missions in countries including Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Sudan, South Sudan, Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

We applaud Nigeria’s contributions to UN, ECOWAS and AU efforts in support of peace. The world saw the value of Nigerian leadership in this respect again in January, when President Buhari played a leading role in brokering a peaceful resolution to the political crisis in The Gambia.

Of course, Nigeria also faces its own threats to national and regional peace and stability. The UK strongly supports Nigeria’s campaign to tackle the scourge of Boko Haram’s violent extremism and terrorism, and its cooperation in this fight with neighbouring Lake Chad Basin countries.

We are very proud that the UK is training Nigerian troops fighting Boko Haram. The UK is also providing life-saving assistance for those affected by the conflict. In 2016, £70 million in UK aid for North-East Nigeria provided food to more than 1 million people, treatment for 34,000 children at risk of dying from malnutrition, and access to clean water and sanitation for more than 135,000 people.

Nigeria and its neighbours must maintain their military efforts to defeat Boko Haram, and do all they can to ensure that aid reaches those in need. But lasting security and stability will require a broader approach.

As the UN Secretary General said in his first address to the UNSC this year, we cannot take peace for granted – it requires difficult decisions, hard work and compromise.

Communities and governments will need to find ways of working better together to address a range of underlying causes of conflict: countering extremism; addressing the effects of climate change; protecting and promoting human rights; tackling corruption, and creating economic and educational opportunities.

Nigeria’s recent pledge at the Nigeria and Lake Chad region conference in Oslo to spend US$1 billion dollars supporting Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and reconstruction in the North-East of Nigeria is welcome. Such leadership is required from Nigeria to help address the urgent and longer term needs the North-East faces.

Building peace also requires wide participation, starting at the grassroots and engaging civil society, faith leaders, youth and minorities. The involvement and empowerment of woman and girls at every level will be indispensable.

All too often, women and girls suffer most in conflict, and are not represented in the pursuit of peace. But we know that when they are involved in negotiations, the chances of peace increase by 20% to 35%.

The UK will continue supporting Nigerian-led efforts to counter violent extremism and terrorism and build peace, just as we support Nigerian initiatives to tackle corruption and achieve sustainable and inclusive economic growth.

The UK is committed to standing by Nigeria’s side as a friend and partner in difficult times, because a more secure, stable and prosperous Nigeria is good for Nigeria’s citizens, good for the UK and good for the world.

 

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Benin preacher declares self ‘Perfect’, ‘God’s Holy Spirit’

‘Here, they treat us like chickens!’

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•Nigerian women and child migrants, others raped, beaten and detained in Libyan `hellholes’ – Report 

By Lin Taylor

 

Women and children making the dangerous journey to Europe to flee poverty and conflicts in Africa are being beaten, raped and starved in “living hellholes” in Libya, the United Nations children’s agency (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.

The Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy has become the main crossing point for asylum seekers and economic migrants seeking a better life in Europe, after a clampdown on sea crossings from Turkey.

There were a quarter of a million migrants in Libya as of last September, most of whom languish in unsanitary, disease-ridden detention centres which UNICEF described in its report as “no more than forced labour camps … and makeshift prisons”.

Armed groups have taken effective control of official detention centres for migrants amid the political chaos that now reigns in Libya and they also run their own centres, competing and cooperating with criminal gangs and smugglers, according to the United Nations.

“For the thousands of migrant women and children incarcerated, (the centres) were living hellholes where people were held for months,” the report said, last week.

In interviews with more than 100 women and children, nearly half said they had been raped or abused several times during their journey, it said. Most of the children said they were beaten by adults along the way, with girls suffering more abuse than boys.

“Here (in the detention centre) they treat us like chickens. They beat us, they do not give us good water and good food,” said Jon, a 14-year-old boy who travelled alone from Nigeria to escape the militant group Boko Haram.

“So many people are dying here, dying from disease, freezing to death,” he was quoted as saying in the report.

“PAY AS YOU GO”

UNICEF said women and unaccompanied child migrants rely on people smugglers to get to Europe, often under a “pay as you go system”, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation, trafficking and violence, including prostitution and rape.

Smugglers typically demand thousands of dollars from migrants for a risky journey across the desert before cramming them onto ill-equipped boats for a perilous crossing of the Mediterranean.

“The route is mostly controlled by smugglers, traffickers and other people seeking to prey upon desperate children and women who are simply seeking refuge or a better life,” said Afshan Khan, head of UNICEF’s refugee operations in Europe.

Having largely closed off sea crossings between Turkey and Greece last year, the European Union is searching for ways to stem the flow of migrants from Libya.

This month European leaders offered Libya money and other assistance to try to reduce the numbers departing across the Mediterranean. Aid groups criticised the move, saying such plans exposed migrants to further risks and abuses within Libya.

Last year, a record 181,000 migrants crossed between Libya and Italy, the U.N.’s migration agency reports. More than 4,500 people drowned, and at least 700 were children, UNICEF said.

“Children should not be forced to put their lives in the hands of smugglers because there are simply no alternatives,” said Khan in a statement.

“We need to address globally the drivers of migration and work together toward a robust system of safe and legal passage for children on the move, whether refugees or migrants.

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Nigerians heading to church to find love

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Thousands of people began to arrive at the Nigerian megachurch just after dawn on a cool morning, looking for love and hot tips on how to avoid “dating devils”.

The “singles summit” is one of several offered by hugely popular Pentecostal churches in the west African nation, where marriage is a cornerstone of society to which most people aspire.

With the relentless hustle and bustle of city life, and challenging economic conditions in a period of recession, there’s often little time to seek out love.

But the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries aims to change all that at its vast Prayer City complex, opposite an amusement park off the Lagos to Ibadan expressway.

Its Gen218 programme — named after the Bible verse in Genesis where God says “It is not good that the man should be alone” before making Eve — promises to teach participants tricks for picking the right partner and avoiding pitfalls.

The lucky ones may actually find a boyfriend or girlfriend.

Michelle Michaels, a 37-year-old public servant in a brown striped dress, was among the crowds at the summit one Saturday in February.

“Obviously I’m a single, not married, searching and all that,” she told AFP.

“But it’s more about getting it right,” she added, turning serious.

“Marriage can be a disaster. The rate of divorce is very high nowadays and I don’t want to be part of it.”

– ‘Aggressive prayer’ –

With an astonishing maximum capacity of more than 200,000 people, Prayer City bills itself as a “24 hours a day, 7 days a week, non-stop” venue facilitating “aggressive prayer”.

By 8:30 am the singles summit was well under way, with a dapper singer in a suit and red tie belting out majestic soft rock ballads that were more Coldplay than Kumbaya.

Half an hour later, there was dancing in the aisles. By 10:00 am, many were crying. Some were sprawled motionless and face down on the floor in apparent rapture.

The summit appeared to be reaching a climax but in fact hadn’t even started: superstar pastor Daniel Kolawole Olukoya’s appearance was still four hours away.

A range of churches offer singles summits but the substance is more or less the same.

It includes frank advice about the realities of married life, while divine guidelines are prescribed such as abstaining from sex until marriage, and there’s a lot of praise.

Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo of the Kingsway International Christian Centre held his own event earlier last month, teaching from his bestselling book “Don’t Date Devils”.

On a different note, husband and wife team Bisi and Yomi Adewale, from the Family Booster Ministry, host singles events on the theme “12 Relationships You Must Avoid At All Cost”.

“The singles are not only going there to hook future sanctified partners but also to acquire the spiritual endowments and secular skills on how to become future rich husbands and wives,” said Nimi Wariboko, a professor at Boston University’s theology school who studies Pentecostalism.

“The summits are also places of pleasure, spaces where one can intensely party in the name of worship and experience huge emotional release without guilt.

“It’s a bundled service package directed at a segment of Nigerians eager to cross over from one stage of life into another.”

– Traditional to modern –

While the church may appear conservative in some ways, specifying that women must cover their hair on religious premises, for example, it’s liberal in others.

The Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries condemns forced marriage, child marriage, polygamy and inherited marriages, which see a widow passed on to another family member and are still common in Nigeria.

In this way, the church helps guide young professionals as they adapt their traditional customs to modern life.

“There has been an evolution from arranged marriage to marrying for love, and of course a shared love of Jesus Christ is a way of legitimising a choice of who to marry,” said Daniel J. Smith, an anthropology professor at Brown University in the United States.

That said, Olukoya still emphasises patience, since hasty vows can result in an unhappy marriage to what he calls a “baby husband” — someone who “loves his mother more than the wife” — or an “acidic wife” — a woman whom, “when she talks, you feel like committing suicide”.

“Being a single isn’t a bad thing,” said Oluboyede Oluwatosin, a thoughtful 31-year-old technician attending his first singles summit.

“It’s good to be married but you don’t just jump into marriage, there is some training you need. If you jump into marriage, you will surely jump out.”

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Obasanjo library: SERAP seeks law on disclosure of donations to fund presidential libraries

Outrage in Kano as bride gives birth to baby boy a day after marriage

Policemen batter 31 year-old trader in Onitsha

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By Nwabueze Okonkwo
ONITSHA – A 31-year old trader, Tochukwu Emelahi, is being hospitalised following multiple injuries he sustained when some policemen attached to Awada Police Division, Obosi, Anambra State, allegedly brutalised him for daring to interfere while they maltreated a bus driver.

Residents of N0 1 Chizon Street, Awada, where the victim resides, told journalists that trouble started for Tochukwu during last Saturday’s environmental cleanup exercise when some patrol teams from the Division allegedly engaged in mass arrests and extortion of commuters for violating the sanitation exercise.

In the course of arresting people that morning, the police allegedly descended on a bus driver, Nnaemeka Francis, with bus registration number HAL 347 YG, and teargassed him for refusing to cooperate when Tochukwu who was standing nearby watching the whole scenario interjected asking the police whether they wanted to kill the man.

“My offence was that I shouted “Do you want to kill him?”. They immediately swooped on me asking me what was my business in what they were doing. They hit me with gunbutts, kicked me and pummelled me like a thief being attacked by a mob”, Tochukwu said.

Tochukwu said he was able to identify some of the policemen. One of them bore Udeme Effiong; another was Olocbon Sunday and Stanley Oyinna.
He called on the Police authorities to ensure that those who abused him will not go scot free.

When the reporter contacted the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Awada Police Station, CSP Babalola Adewuyi, for comments, he said the officers have briefed him that the man in question threw pure water sachet at the police when they were performing their lawful duties but he has ordered for proper investigation over the incident.

Meanwhile, the recorded video of the police brutality has since gone viral on the social media platform.

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Yoruba and the cog of gerontocracy

FG’s Whistle-blower policy yields fruit, recovers US$151m, N8b looted funds

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The Federal Government has said that its Whistle-Blower policy is greatly yielding fruits as it has recovered US$151 million and 8 billion Naira looted funds.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a statement on Sunday, said government’s Whistle-blower policy has started yielding fruit as it has so far led to the recovery of US$151 million and 8 billion Naira in looted funds, th.

The Minister said the looted funds, which do not include the $9.2 million in cash allegedly owned by a former Group Managing Director of the NNPC (which was also a dividend of the whistle-blower policy), were recovered from just three sources through whistle-blowers who gave actionable information to the office of the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation.

The biggest amount of $136,676,600.51 was recovered from an account in a commercial bank, where the money was kept under an apparently fake account name, followed by 7 billion Naira and $15 million from another person and 1 billion Naira from yet another.

”When we told Nigerians that there was a primitive and mindless looting of the national treasury under the last Administration, some people called us liars. Well, the whistle-blower policy is barely two months old and Nigerians have started feeling its impact, seeing how a few people squirrelled away public funds. It is doubtful if any economy in the world will not feel the impact of such mind-boggling looting of the treasury as was experienced in Nigeria.

”Yet whatever has been recovered so far, including the $9.2 million by the EFCC, is just a tip of the iceberg,” Alhaji Mohammed said.

He appealed to Nigerians with useful information on looted funds to continue to provide the authorities with such information, saying confidentiality will be maintained with regards to the source of the information.

The Minister also reminded Nigerians of the financial reward aspect of the policy, saying ”If there is a voluntary return of stolen or concealed public funds or assets on the account of the information provided, the whistle blower may be entitled to anywhere between 2.5% (Minimum) and 5.0% (Maximum) of the total amount recovered”.

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Fayose and the re-emergence of PDP in the South-West

Philippine slum fire renders 15, 000 homeless…Read full details

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Residents look on as a fire destroys hundreds of houses at an informal settlers community in Delpan, Tondo, Manila on February 7, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / NOEL CELIS 

As many as 15,000 people are homeless after a huge fire engulfed an overcrowded slum in Manila, destroying thousands of homes and sending residents fleeing with their few possessions.

The inferno started in a sprawling slum near the port late Tuesday and raged for about 10 hours, as hundreds of firefighters from across the Philippine capital hauled their hoses across rickety, tin roofs to reach the flames.

As the blaze whipped across the squalid area, sending a huge plume of smoke billowing into the night sky, residents ran for their lives carrying refrigerators, religious icons and other valuables.

Others, desperate to save their homes, used buckets of water to douse the fire.

About 3,200 homes, many made from little more than scrap wood, were destroyed and four people were injured, Edilberto Cruz, a fire investigator looking into the cause of blaze, told reporters Wednesday.

“The houses in that place are all (made of) light materials. That is why the fire was quick to spread. We are just lucky that no one was killed,” he said.

Manila city government officials told AFP that between 9,000 and 15,000 people from the area, which is hit by fires almost every year, were left homeless.

At daylight thousands of people gathered on surrounding streets, warily guarding the belongings they had managed to salvage in the chaos while they waited for food and other aid to arrive.

Temporary evacuation centres have been set up at nearby gyms and schools.

The Manila fire department said such fires were common in the city’s densely populated slums where many residents still use candles to light their homes.

Nearly a quarter of Manila’s 13 million residents live in slums due to poverty and a shortage of low-cost housing, studies have found.

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