Television Nigerian

Mr Sullivan Chime, a former governor in Enugu state, has warned that it was deceitful for anyone to promise to restructure the country in six months and cautioned against falling prey to the antics of restructuring.

Chime told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Enugu that candidates promising to restructure Nigeria in the presidential polls were not truthful.

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, was reported to have promised to start the restructuring of the country from May 29 if he is elected.

Abubakar was also reported to have said that about 80 per cent of the restructuring of the country would be completed within the first six months of his administration.

However, Chime described the statements as a `deceit’ aimed at hoodwinking Nigerians.

The former governor said that in as much as he was not against restructuring of the country, it would not come easily.

He said that restructuring of any nation was a long term project and would never be achieved by any single individual.

He said that the clarification had become imperative as many people from parts of the country were beginning to fall for the bait.

“Let no one deceive you on this because restructuring of this country is beyond what the president can do alone. It takes a very long time to achieve that.

“Nothing can be as deceitful as that and you cannot be talking about restructuring without constitutional amendment,” he said.

Chime, who is a constitutional lawyer said that at the moment there was no legal framework that would support the clamour to restructure the country as the Nigerian Constitution did not recognise any form of referendum.

The former governor said that for the current structure of the country to be tinkered, it must be subjected to a well-defined referendum.

“As we speak there is no legal framework to guide us to the change of let us say a parliamentary system of government or any other one.

“It will take not less than 15 years for the country to be so restructured in the true sense of the word,” he said.

Chime also said that those who were advocating for the restructuring of the country should convince Nigerians on why the current structure should be altered.

“They should convince us why it is better than what we have now,” he said.

He said that President Muhammadu Buhari had shown enough commitment in leading Nigeria out of the woods and needed to be encouraged to continue his good works.

“Buhari is the best thing to happen to Nigeria now because he brought us back to what Nigeria used to be. This is not about sentiments,” he said.

The former governor condemned what he described as `politics of segregation or ethnicity’ saying that it had affected governance of the country.

Chime however, called on Nigerians to reject those that want to drag the country back to the dark days.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, said  it would not shift date for the presidential election, despite recent fire incidents that destroyed several Smart Card Reader Machines it originally configured for the 2019 polls.

The electoral body expressed its readiness to conduct the most credible elections in the history of the country, during the unveiling of a central election monitoring hub for Civil Society Organisations, CSOs.

The monitoring centre which is situated at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja, will be manned by the Nigerian Civil Society Situation Room and foreign election observation groups.

Speaking at the event, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, who was represented by one of his National Commissioners, Mr. Festus Okoye, noted that fire outbreaks that gutted election materials in three of its offices across the federation, constituted a set-back to its earlier arrangements for a smooth conduct of the 2019 polls.

However, he insisted that the set-back was not such that could significantly affect the election process, saying the commission had since made alternative plans to replace over 4, 695 Card Readers that were destroyed on Tuesday at INEC’s warehouse in Anambra State.

He said the commission would not postpone the impending elections for any reason.

According to him, “INEC will be open and transparent through out the entire election process. We are going to be upfront with information relating to our processes and our procedures.

Were ever we have challenges, we are going to be honest with the Nigerian people relating to our challenges.

“In relation to this particular elections, we had some challenges yesterday (Tuesday), but we were able to recover, and as I speak, we are moving all the Smart Card Readers required for the conduct of elections in Anambra State and we are not going to postpone the election in any part of Nigeria on grounds of some of these challenges

“As some of you are aware, this election will be conducted in over 120,000 polling units, and we also have over 50, 000 voting points. The voting points were created to ease the process of voting, especially for the Nigerian people. “

We have over 91 political parties that are registered in Nigeria and 73 of these political parties sponsored candidates for the presidential election.

“The process of collating the results manually will be issued out and INEC had decided that one collation officer per registration area cannot do the job and do it effectively and do it in such a way that the anxiety of the Nigerian people relating to who will be their next president will be addressed on time.

“Based on that, INEC has recruited two collation officers for each registration area and two collation officers for the 774 Local Government Areas.

“So, the collation officer for the presidential election is different. The collation officer will collate and proceed and since the presidential election will move from the registration area to the local governments and then to the state before it gets to the Federal Capital Territory to the national collation center.

“While the collation officer for the Senatorial and the House of Representative elections will move and stop at a certain point where declaration will be made.

In order for us not to keep the Nigerian people waiting for too long, we are going to have two collation officers in the 8,809 registration areas and two collation officers for the 774 LGAs in the country for the purposes of the first election.

“Secondly, we are going to conduct elections in all the IDP camps. During the continuous voter’s exercise, we asked all the Resident Electoral Commissioners in all the States with IDP problems, to document all eligible voters in the IDP camps.

“Those who lost their PVCs on account of misplacement, we replaced all their voters card, having satisfied ourselves that they were registered voters.

We also registered new voters in the various IDP camps. “So we have made robust arrangement for them to vote because we don’t want to get any Nigerian disenfranchised.

“Thirdly, in relation to the role of the military in this election, the Electoral Act was amended in 2015 to give INEC specific functions in relation to deployment of the Nigerian Police Force and the military in elections.

“For this election, we are utilizing the services of the Nigerian Air Force in lifting sensitive materials like ballot papers and result sheets to the various states and to the various Central Banks and they are also lifting sensitive materials to difficult terrains.

“Likewise, for the riverine areas, INEC will hire gun boats that will escort both the sensitive materials and the election personnel.

The gunboats will be in the front and back to protect some of the young people that are going to be engaged in this elections.

“That will be the extent to which we are going to use the Nigerian military for the purpose of this election.

“Having said that, let me also reiterate the fact that the Nigerian military is also involved in internal security operations in almost 32 states of the federation and they are going to remain and do their internal security operations which has absolutely nothing to do with the conduct of these elections.

“On behalf of INEC we want to thank the CSOs and international observers, and we pledge that we are going to corporate with everybody to give Nigerians an election they will be proud of”, Okoye added.

He however enjoined observers to give accurate report of the elections. Meanwhile, in her speech, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, said the United Kingdom would not hesitate to take stern actions against anyone found to have instigated violence in any part of the country during the elections.

She noted that the UK government had earlier issued a statement to remind all the political actors about its visa policies.

“Anyone who is found to incite violence or encourage violence could be subject to visa ban or have their assets seized, and in the worst case scenario, face prosecution”, Laing added.

She expressed concern about what she termed as “horrible cases of hate speech” during presidential rallies of the leading political parties in the country.

In attendance at the occasion included the Ambassador of the United States of America, Mr. Stuart Symington, and representative of the United Nations, Mr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas.

Earlier in his remarks, convener of the Nigerian Civil Society Situation Room and Executive Director of Policy and Legal Advocacy Center,   PLAC, Mr. Clement Nwankwo, stressed the need for security agencies to adopt a non partisan stance throughout the elections.

He further urged the foreign election observers to disregard the “body bags” comment of the Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, even as he knocked FG over its failure to denounce and distance itself from El-Rufai’s position.

Vanguard

As preparations heat up ahead of the 2019 presidential election, the Nigerian Democratic Forum, a pro-democracy group has raised the alarm over plots by the United State, United Kingdom governments and European Union to imposed Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party on the people through backdoor.

The group said the international community had perfected plans to make sure Atiku is announced winner of the presidential election slated to hold on Saturday, February 16.

NDF made the claim at a press conference held in Abuja on Wednesday.

Speaking at the press conference, the Director of Publicity for the group, Steven Chukwu, warned that any attempt to impose Atiku on Nigerians would be highly resisted.

Chukwu called on the Federal Government in liaison with INEC should to urgently convene a forum to remind the observer missions in the country of the roles they were accredited to play while advising them to desist from engaging in illegal activities that undermine the stability of Nigeria.

He also urged Nigerians to be at alert to defend their country from intruders.

Full text of his speech below.

The National Democratic Front (NDF) had in recent weeks raised the alarm on several occasions as to the manipulations being carried by countries that are abusing their accreditations to observe the elections in Nigeria.

The countries we have identified in this plot are the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) whose member, France has shown a disproportionate level of belligerence towards Nigeria.

These countries have been in the business of issuing coordinating statements that are intended to criminalize the incumbent President, His Excellency Muhammadu Buhari, who incidentally is the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

These countries have stepped beyond all known diplomatic bounds to the extent that they want to decide how Nigeria runs its domestic affairs, including how to run the judiciary and even what to do about its fight against corruption.

The plot of these countries was to force the government into a state of inertia following which Atiku Abubakar and the PDP will claim victory at the polls while the current government will be deemed illegitimate. This plot failed because they never expected Nigerians to catch up with their trick and kick against same.

The outpouring of condemnations from patriotic Nigerians forced the PDP, US, UK and EU to beat a hasty retreat to re-strategize. We have confirmation that their incentive will not allow them give up the plot to force their desired outcome on the elections even when this is a glaring violation of all known laws.

We were initially at a loss as to why the trio are desperate to install Atiku Abubakar as the next president of Nigeria even when he does not enjoy the support of Nigerians, who know his antecedent as a rent-seeking corrupt politician with a history of parcelling out the country’s economy to his foreign cronies. The discreet investigation we commissioned intelligence consultants and researchers to conduct have turned out the incentives for this countries.

The driving force for their support of Atiku Abubakar is worrisome and calls for any Nigerian that desires to still have a country after the elections to stand up against the re-colonization of Nigeria. What the investigation found out included:

The economies of the identified countries and regional bloc have tethered on the verge of meltdown since President Buhari came into office in 2015. There is anecdotal evidence that the High Street shops in the UK suffered a slump in December of that year simply because looters in Nigeria were unable to patronize the stores as they were unable to steal money to spend in that country, many of the shops have since folded up. Almost four years later, other sectors of all the meddling countries have taken hits from not having cash injection bankrolled with stolen funds from Nigeria.

Their situation became desperate because other African countries are beginning to follow in the examples of President Buhari, which means another four years of his leadership style will leave the US, UK and EU in dire economic situations while Africa would have made progress in truly being liberated.

The predicted dis-integration of Nigeria was meant to occur in 2015 but President Buhari has held the country together even against a foreign sponsored Boko Haram/ISIS terrorists. The proposed fragments of micro-client states that would resulted from a break-up of Nigeria were meant to be owned by these countries but this has not been possible. The actualization of this objective is what Atiku has ironically referred to as restructuring, in which he would explore pseudo legal means to splinter the country to satisfy his sponsors. The prospect of Atiku not winning to implement this destructive phase of partitioning Nigeria is something that the trio are not willing to accept.

Atiku has struck deals to sell key national assets to these countries through their nationals that will act as proxies. The assertion by Atiku that he will sell the NNPC to his friends was made in fulfilment of the requirement that he commits to selling Nigeria to these countries in exchange for their support to get him into office. It was desperation over the prospect of this deal unravelling that made Atiku wrote for the intervention of his foreign masters when a Chief Judge that would have validated the sales was suspended for corruption.

Legitimizing same sex marriage is another key deal that Atiku Abubakar has signed up to implement when the coalition of US, UK and EU forcefully install him in office. The practice, which is against the same sex marriage law, is something that these countries had wanted President Buhari to allow. But his refusal to pursue the repeal of the act is a sore point the western countries, who are concerned that their LGTBQ nationals could be caught on the wrong side of the law when in Nigeria.

The backlash against the interference in the domestic affairs of Nigeria has forced the US/UK/UE coalition to draw up a new plot that will lead to the same result of dubiously installing Atiku as president in opposition to the wishes expressed by Nigerian electorates at the polls. Details available to us show that:

1The US, UK and EU election observers will jointly reject the result of the Presidential Election, even though there is nothing conferring such powers on them. They will issue a joint report in addition to the individual reports that will conclude that the election did not meet acceptable standards and that Atiku Abubakar of the PDP would have won if the election was transparent.

These claim would be backed up by the previous jaundiced statements they had issued about the elections. They will then recommend to their government to only recognize and transact with Atiku Abubakar as Nigeria’s president.

Representatives of the US, UK and EU have met with the Atiku Abubakar strategy team to agree on the modalities for rejecting the election or disrupting the official declaration of results. He has been coached on how to declare himself the winner of the election with a promise that correspondents of foreign media organizations from these countries are on standby to amplify this treasonable message for him. To ensure he escapes the likelihood of being arrested and tried for treason, the EU has volunteered to shelter Atiku in one of the diplomatic properties of an EU country in Abuja from where he would be spirited into a foreign country if the government adequately responds to thwart the plot.

The media organizations from these countries have been commissioned to carry reports that question the integrity of the election even before it is held. They will report on the position to be announced by these countries while ignoring or underplaying the official votes announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). They will also violate the requirement that there shall be no exit polling of elections, which they will achieve using the social media to release misleading results that marginally place Atiku in the lead. The UK was selected to be in the lead for this being that it owns the BBC that has launched broadcast in Pidgin and other indigenous languages that are guaranteed to reach more Nigerians.

4. The international media will then promote stories that Nigerians have taken to the streets to demand that Atiku should be declared the winner. This will be followed by reports that security forces are deploying disproportionate violence to contain the protests. Under the guise of training local partners, these countries have trained several protest leaders with the objective of being able to launch simultaneous anti-government protests across the several cities of the country in order to overwhelm law enforcement agencies and make them incapable of containing the sponsored protests.

The National Democratic Front (NDF) condemns in the strongest terms possible this renewed bid by the US, UK and EU to colonize Nigeria in this age and time; it is irresponsible, racist and a calculated attempt to commit genocide against Nigeria in order to provide comfort for their own citizens. We invite all peace loving citizens of earth to do same because the plot they are trying to implement in Nigeria would prove catastrophic for the entire human race. These countries must be prevailed upon to adhere to the terms of election observation that requires that they are not seen or heard and have no business aligning with any candidate irrespective of their existing deals with the candidate or his political party.
NDF consequently demand that:

The US, UK and EU observer missions cease and desist from further implementing the plan to illegally declare Atiku Abubakar as the winner of the election. Nigeria has election legislation that define the procedures for declaring winners when polls have been conducted and we expect that these countries will cease being barbaric in their approach and respect these laws.

As things stand, the neutrality of any reports that the US, UK and EU observer mission file from their observation of the election are already in doubt so their continued presence in Nigeria is of no consequence. They must therefore immediately leave Nigeria having compromised their positions. The blood of any Nigerian that dies from the violence will be on the hands of these countries and on the conscience of their citizens that have failed to ask that the kind of interference going on in Nigeria be discontinued.
4. Nigerians and the international community should henceforth disregard any comments, statements and or utterances from the US, UK and EU observer missions as lies told in furtherance of manipulating the presidential election to declare Atiku Abubakar as the winner.

Nigerians should be at alert and be prepared to defend their country against the colonization by countries that want to resume looting their resources through the imposition of a puppet president. The preparation should involve meeting the slaves of the US, UK and EU on the streets should they persist to violating the sanctity of the ballot box.

The security and law enforcement agencies should place Atiku Abubakar with his associates under watch in order to keep track of what members of the US, UK and EU observer missions or their link persons he is plotting treason with.
The National Democratic Front (NDF) will continue to monitor the situation and keep Nigerians updated on the subversive activities of these foreign countries.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) has advocated laws to empower women to run for political offices.

The Deputy Representative of UN women, Mr Lansana Wonneh made the call at a stakeholders Consultative Meeting on “Women Participation in Elections Support Bill, 2018’’ on Friday in Abuja.

Wonneh said that there was the need for Nigeria to deliberately formulate laws to enhance women participation in politics in line with global best practice.

He said that women’s inclusion in politics was about their human rights, yet most parliamentarians don’t understand or agree why the Women Participation in Elections Support Bill, 2018 should be signed into law.

“Some arguments are structurally redundant, at this time and age, I do not expect that people in parliament will think like that, we have seen ministers and prime ministers around the world that do well so why can’t we learn from that.

“In Africa, Nigeria is leading in almost everything but it is appalling to see that she is one of the countries with the lowest participation of women in parliament.

“A small country, South Sudan is leading this country in the areas of progressive development by the clear commitment to include women in governance, countries like Rwanda, Ghana among others are doing better than Nigeria in inclusive governance.

“We need to do everything to ensure that gender equality is adhered to, particularly in decision-making because it is fundamental for economic reasons.’’

According to Wonneh, the best places that resources are distributed are in decision-making because the parliamentarians decide on budget, what is allocated and where.

He said if “there are no women seated on decision tables, if women were not given opportunities to play roles, it then means that they would have nothing to take away.’’

According to him, it is predominantly because of that reason that poverty has become the face of women in Nigeria since resources are hardly accrued for the right purposes.

Mrs Onyinye Ndubuisi, Lead Governance Department, UNDP said the organisation decided to support the passage of the bill because of low participation of women in politics in Nigeria.

Ndubuisi said that though Nigeria was a signatory to many international treaties that support women in politics like the 35 per cent affirmative action, there were no local laws to support i

She said that women were disenfranchised and their mandates were taken from them so the Women Participation in Elections Support Bill when passed would guarantee them space in politics

Ndubuisi said it was disheartening to hear lawmakers argue during the second reading of the bill that women participation in politics had no correlation with economic development.

She said that the UNDP was supporting the commission in ensuring the passage of the bill because such project was laudable and involved the whole country.

Prof .Joy Ezeilo, former Special Rapporteur  on Rights of Women said the bill sought to prescribe women quota for elections into the senate ,House of Representatives, State Houses of Assembly among others.

Ezeilo said that the bill would support and enhance women participation and representation in certain elective office, adding that it would mandate political parties to have one third of candidates as women.

She said there was the need for Nigeria to deliberately work toward the inclusion of women in governance because it would give the nation relevance internationally.

Former chief of army staff, former minister and Afenifere leader, General Alani Akinrinade has described as “an insult to our collective intelligence” former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s endorsement of Atiku Abubakar as his choice in next week’s election.

Akinrinade who took out a page in the Punch newspaper on Thursday to advertise his condemnation of Obasanjo’s political choice, advised Nigerians not to trust Obasanjo’s sense of judgment.

“I am warning Nigerians not to fall prey to Obasanjo’s antics again.  Remember the saying – “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”.  How many times has Obasanjo fooled Nigerians?”, Akinrinade said.

“Some of us who knew him in the military and were privileged to see him operate during the civil war know if there is one thing Obasanjo is not blessed with, it is a good sense of judgment.

“Nigeria unnecessarily lost thousands of soldiers because of his poor judgment at the war front. But for  the paucity of arms, ammunition and food, the Biafrans would have turned the tide against the Nigerian Army.  Alabi Isama has done justice to this topic in his book – The Tragedy of Victory – so one need not repeat.

“Take a look at history through the clandestine manoeuvres in 1979, he foisted on Nigeria a reluctant Shehu Shagari at the expense of a cerebral Obafemi Awolowo or Nnamdi Azikiwe.  After his second coming, he so manipulated the electoral system such that he fraudulently installed an unhealthy Umaru Yar’Adua as president alongside another reluctant character in the person of Goodluck Jonathan as the deputy.  He denied every other interested member of his party while employing all sort of machinations including threat and blackmail. 

“Then came 2015, he told Nigerians Muhammadu Buhari is the best man for the job.  As he has done to every presidential candidate he installed or supported, a few years down the line, he says Buhari is unfit for the job again.

“What do you say to a man who once gave a damaging testimonial against an employee now coming back to tell you to follow the same employee as the CEO of your organisation?  What do you say to a man who once said: “with what I know of Atiku, if I support him to be president of Nigeria, God will not forgive me”?

“What do you say to a man who once gave a damaging testimonial against an employee now coming back to tell you to follow the same employee as the CEO of your organisation?  What do you say to a man who once said: “with what I know of Atiku, if I support him to be president of Nigeria, God will not forgive me”? What do you say of a man who once tore his party card in the open glare but is now promoting the same party?  What do you say of a man who said he was going to create a “third force”, fooled some impressionable characters to buy into such idea and later left them in the lurch to return to his vomit?  The Bible says something about such people – “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways” – James 1:8.

“Obasanjo is not a man whose judgement can be trusted. Period! I am warning Nigerians not to fall prey to Obasanjo’s antics again.  Remember the saying – “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”.  How many times has Obasanjo fooled Nigerians?

“But I don’t blame him. I blame the Nigerian media who have continued to give him an undeserved attention, thereby misusing their agenda-setting function. The Nigerian media appear to have forgotten they are indeed the fourth estate of the realm. They are gatekeepers.  They owe Nigerians the responsibility of keeping this irritable man where he belongs – waste-bin of history.  Like his daughter – Iyabo – reminded him in her letter, Nigeria does not belong to him. He should allow Nigerians choose who they want and stop goading the citizenry for his own selfish interests.”

The Lamido Adamawa, Alhaji Muhammadu Barkindo-Mustafa, the powerful monarch of the home state of Atiku Abubakar, has endorsed his rival, President Muhammadu Buhari for a second term, appealing to all Nigerians that Buhari needs more time to actualise his dream for the country.

Atiku of the Peoples Democratic Party is the main challenger of Buhari of the All Progressives Congress in the 16 February election.

In late November 2018, the Lamido installed Atiku as the 7th Wazirin of Adamawa, a chieftaincy position that pundits expected ought to earn Atiku the political sympathy of the monarch.

It appears the permutations were off the mark as the Lamido has now left Atiku in the political wilderness, in his home base.

The monarch has now dashed Atiku’s hopes with the ringing endorsement of President Muhammadu Buhari in next Saturday’s election.

“Mr. President there is no doubt that much has been achieved during your present tenure, but certainly you need more time to actualise your dream for a better Nigeria”, the Lamido told President Buhari when he visited him in his palace in Yola on Thursday.

“The giant strides and inroads you recorded in various fields of our endeavours such as economy, security and fight against corruption, which still remain the cornerstone of your agenda, would not have been made possible if not for your resilient, focus, passion and love for the country.

“This therefore calls for all and sundry to rally round you and allow you to get to the next level to enable you consolidate the various laudable programmes of your party”, the Lamido said.

It is now clear that the endorsement of the powerful monarch may have punctured Atiku’s hope of mining the monarch’s influence to win his home state of Adamawa. Atiku as the presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria in 2007, failed to win the state.

Atiku faces an uphill task to win the state next week, analysts said.

From voting records, President Buhari since 2003 has never lost Adamawa state, even under PDP organised elections, one of which, the 2007 election, the late President Umar Yar’Adua confirmed to be flawed.