Several calls were made to Mr.Oshiomhole but both his phone numbers were unreachable. Further calls and text messages were made to Peter Okhiria, his spokesperson, but were also unreturned.

Bintus2much:

I had always believed in Jonathan before he became president but with all his poor performances and misconduct that are beginning to come to light now he is nothing to write home about.

Time2Think:

Examples? Try and convince us not to vote for GEJ.

PapaBrowne:

234 NEXT don fall my hand oh!! How can they come this low because of Ribadu ?? I expected this to come from Saharareporters!!
What kind of journalism is this Anyway, na election period! Even in America. during the election period, there were folks springing up everywhere claiming they had homosexual relationships with Barack Obama!

PapaBrowne:

^^^^
Gbawe, this thing is about power! Everybody wants the Job!! Jonathan wants to retain his Job, Ribadu wants his job, Buhari wants his Job and all the progressives and regressives want to at least have a free pass to the seat of power!!  And that is understandable! But it is very uncultured when for the sake of power, folks loose every sense of ethical rectitute like 234next has just done here! It is completely distasteful especially when it is coming from a respected journal like 234next! The saddest part is that Nigerians are a gullible bunch and would beileve any gibberish!!

I have noted time without number that I support Jonathan for very simple reasons! Power Road map and pro private sector policy!  I have gone past the stage of expecting a lot from any Government!
Just an example- Fashola is the greatest Governor in this era and he has probably done his best! But truth is Lagos has barely changed! The grinding poverty is still the order of the day in Lagos! Lagos is still one of the filthiest places in the world! Life is still so cheap in Lagos! And all this is after four years of the best Governor the country has seen in recent times!
That tells me something- For change to come to a society, it is not just fighting corruption that would bring that change! It is actually the change in the hearts of the people that is most critical for development!  Buhari and Ribadu are selling their campaigns on fighting corruption and that surely doesn't cut it for me!
Anybody expecting his candidate to change Nigeria in 4 years is living in a monkeys paradise!! We should be more realistic and objective in our expectations!!

9ijaMan:

These are theories you keep posing. The trith of the matter is: What has GEJ contributed meaningfully to the life of the average Nigerian in his 12 years in government?
If you cannot come up with reasonable explanation and answers, you gibberish about others wanting to take his job holds no water.

hercules07:

@Papa

Pro Private Sector policy? Please read up on Oby Ezekwesili's writeup (somewhere on Nairaland) and you will see that a good private sector is not good enough, you need to fix the public sector first. The power road map is getting derailes or how do you explain him signing contracts on power station construction when that was meant to be done by the Private Sector.
We need someone who is ready to clean up the public sector first and then we can have a good private sector.

Gbawe:

thank you my brother !!! I am shocked at Papabrowne's naiveness . No genuine Nigerian should be that naive. We are the people used to empty promises . We have a terribly underdeveloped nation as proof of empty promises . Let us not forget that , on paper and pledge-wise , no Government has ever appeared bad . It is the sincerity and will to implement the solutions that have always been the problem of Nigeria. The formula we Nigerians must devise to gain leaders who will have the political will to get things done will include looking at the history of our leaders!!!!! We can't just pick individuals who have been mediocre their entire career and expect miracles because they have made promises!!!

Do we never learn from the past? If his mediocre history is not bad enough , look at Jonathan's actions/inaction in office. The PIB is sinking further into obscurity everyday with millions being spent frivolously by those expected to do solid groundwork towards it expedited passage into law. No Sovereign wealth Fund many months after $1 billion was withdrawn from the ECA , as seed fund, for its inception. My brother , if everyone involved is on the same page of integrity and goodwill, why is the Sovereign wealth bill taking so long? How about electoral reforms? Two presidents (Yar Adua and GEJ ) have seen the Uwais panel recommendation that electoral offenders be punished and disqualified as a powerful deterrent against election rigging. What did Yar Adua do if not sanction the rigging of Oni back into power ? what has Jonathan done if not assist election rigging with how he worked for Uduaghans re-election?  Is this the unacceptably slow and decietful pace we can expect from the GEJ Government if it gets 4 years? Now that they should have a point to prove , towards winning our votes,  they are unacceptably slow and incompetent . How will they become when they have 4 certain years?   

Even the privatisation promise Papabrowne hinges his blind support on is already looking fraudulent with how it has already been diluted with insincerity as we are now seeing a regression towards the past with the FEC now doing a U-turn by awarding power contract when the same FEC had previously stopped all spending on power till a holistic privatisation roadmap , backed by law , is in place !!!How much more insincerity and blatantly duplicitous actions do folks like Papabrowne need to see before they realise GEJ is no different to past leaders who made promises they had no intentions of keeping?

PapaBrowne:

Without wanting to sound arrogant, it is easy for any reader to decipher btw me and you, who the naive one is!! Reread what you've just written and you will find that much of what you've placed at the desk of the executive actually belongs to the legislature!!

And these are some of the problems I keep stressing that many Nigerians, yourself inclusive, by virtue of a lack of qualitative reasoning are failing to see!! I used the Fashola example to bring out a very candid point but you've chosen to ignore it!! Fashola is the best public servant of this dispensation, but after 4 years of Governance, lagosians are still experiencing grinding poverty, gutter type quality of living and the cheapest value for life you can find anywhere in the world!! The reason is that the work of development is collective and is the responsibility of all and sundry!! Fashola, just like Jonathan cannot solve many of the problems we are expecting them to solve!
The Ezekwesili article brought out some salient points and I wish you have the capacity to understand what she has written in that article.

Governance is a function of different arms! There is the executive, the legislature and the civil service!! Stop blaming the executive for what the legislature is failing to do!!

You have wronged us'

By Jethro Ibileke

March 7, 2011 03:25AM
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Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole yesterday denied reports of accusing President Goodluck Jonathan of multiple voting during the 2007 general elections.

NEXT carried a report yesterday based on a US dispatch leaked by whistleblower site, wikileaks. The dispatch quoted US officials as saying Mr Oshiomhole said the vice president voted four times during the 2007 elections. But the state governor, in a press statement signed by his spokesperson, Tony Iyare said the vice president referred to by his boss was a former military vice president, Augustus Aikhomu.

The presidency also reacted to the story yesterday by accusing NEXT of ‘deliberately waging a malicious campaign of falsehood and calumny aimed at impugning the integrity of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.' The Edo statement said, in parts: "Our attention has been drawn to a story of the NEXT on Sunday , that the Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole told some US diplomats in December 2008 that President Goodluck Jonathan voted four times as Vice President in the April 2007 election.

"It is obvious that there was a clear mix-up in the story as the person in reference is the former military Vice President, Augustus Aikhomu, whose name was tendered in court for voting four times during the epic case to regain the mandate popularly given to Mr. Oshiomhole by the Edo people and not President Goodluck Jonathan. "In addition, what was tendered in court was the electoral register bearing the names of voters in Edo State which had nothing to do with Mr. Jonathan who voted in Bayelsa.

"Why we still ponder over the import of the strange linkage to the President, we are particularly moved not to suspect that NEXT is opening its flanks to the whims of mischief makers or some unscrupulous elements who deliberately wish to drive a wedge between Messrs Jonathan and Oshiomhole.

"We wish to place on record that there was no where either in the tendered court documents or the brief with the US diplomats where President Jonathan's name featured for voting four times. We want to plead that the media should endeavour to verify its facts painstakingly before going to press in order to avoid causing unnecessary disaffection." However, it is unclear why the wikileaks cables quoted by NEXT would be referring to Aikhomu as vice president in 2007.

Call for redress

The spokesperson to the president, Ima Niboro on his part alleged that NEXT was waging a campaign against Mr Jonathan. "In his largeness of heart and magnanimity, President Jonathan ignored all previous attacks on his person and family by NEXT but the newspaper has gone too far this time," Mr Niboro said.

"The Presidency therefore demands a full retraction of the offensive allegation of electoral malpractice against President Jonathan and an unreserved apology to the President published by the newspaper with the same prominence as today's false report. "If this is not done in short order, we will pursue every legal means available to seek redress for the president and the presidency."

‘Supreme Court judges took bribes to validate Yar'Adua/Jonathan election'

By Elor Nkereuwem

March 7, 2011 05:28AM
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We had just had elections in 2007 that, by most accounts, were possibly worst ever, and the legitimacy of the presidential poll that the authorities had declared won by Umaru Yar'Adua and his running mate, Goodluck Jonathan, hung in the balance.

Justices of our Supreme Court, the final arbiters of the disputed election, immediately became the objects of affection of interested politicians, who proceeded to shower them with cash to make sure they confirmed the legitimacy of the election of Messrs Yar'Adua and Jonathan, according to secret US diplomatic cables leaked to the whistleblower site Wikileaks and made available to NEXT.

According to the cables, filed to Washington by then US ambassador to Abuja, Robin Sanders, the source of this information was none other than the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole.

Following a two-hour meeting with Mr. Bankole on May 5, 2009, Ms. Sanders filed a report to the US State Department in which she said the House Speaker told her he had proof that the venerable justices were bought and paid for with cash supplied by the former governor of Delta State, James Ibori.

According to Mr. Bankole, Mr. Ibori, a convicted criminal, who is being held in preventive detention in Dubai while awaiting extradition to London to face the latest in his many corruption trials, got the then newly appointed federal attorney general, Michael Aondoakaa, to serve as bag man, delivering the cash to the unnamed Supreme Court justices.

Mr. Bankole also told the US ambassador that by accepting bribes to reach a legal condition favourable to President Yar'Adua and Vice President Jonathan, the supreme court justices had "tasted blood".

The cables made exclusively available to NEXT are part of a cache of more than 250,000 US diplomatic reports leaked to Wikileaks, the whistleblower web site now under legal siege in Europe and whose work has caused major embarrassment for the US government.

While the revelation from Mr. Bankole cannot be independently verified by NEXT, the cables themselves are indisputably authentic and the U.S government has never cast doubt on the accounts.

On May 6, 2009, a day after the meeting with the Speaker, Ms. Sanders filed a report to her principals in Washington, detailing her interaction with Mr. Bankole, whom she described as "sometimes elusive, but certainly ego-driven."

"Bankole claimed that he had proof that most of the judges had lined their pockets throughout the entire process of rerunning state elections, including the Supreme Court decision on President Yar'Adua's case in November 2008," the diplomatic cable read.

‘It is not true'

When contacted on Sunday, Mr. Bankole did not deny that he had met with the US ambassador but claimed he was misquoted.

"He could not have said what was attributed to him," Mr. Bankole's spokesman, Musa Ebhomhiana, said by telephone. "He is not an INEC official and could not have said that about the election. But how can you believe whatever Wikileaks says, given the damage it has been doing around the world?"

On his part, Mr. Aondoakaa said Bankole's allegation is ‘rubbish'. "I don't know whether he really said that or why he said it," the former AGF said by telephone. "But let him come out in the open and say it. Then, I will know what to say or do."

Mr. Aondoakaa denied that he passed bribes to the justices. "Yar'Adua is not a man who gives bribe, and Ibori did not give me a kobo to give to anybody. I didn't do anything like that."

The justices involved in the case could not be reached on Sunday.

When contacted, Sunday Olorundahunsi, the chief registrar at the Supreme Court who also doubles as spokesperson for our highest court, wouldn't comment on the statement credited to Mr. Bankole. Immediately our reporter posed his question to him via telephone, Mr. Olorundahunsi terminated the call. He did not answer subsequent calls.

A former Chief Justice of the Nation, Muhammadu Uwais, declined comment on Mr. Bankole's comment, saying he had retired at the time the Supreme Court decided the case.

Justices of the Supreme Court and other senior judges have lately been enveloped in the stench of another election scandal, in which senior judges have accused one another of manoeuvring to reassign judges in a way that friendly justices can determine the outcome of election cases.

The 2007 presidential election was characterized by irregularities and violence and was rated by both international and domestic observers as the worst election ever held in the country.

Dissatisfied with the outcome of the election, two contestants, Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) and Atiku Abubakar of the Action Congress (AC) dragged Mr. Yar'Adua to court, asking that the election be annulled.

In February 2008, the Court of Appeal upheld the election. The appellants then took their case to the Supreme Court. The seven-member panel of the Supreme Court concurred with the appellate court in November that year.

The four Judges who voted in favour of Mr. Yar'Adua were Legbo Kutigi, who was the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) at the time; Aloysius Katsina-Alu, the current CJN; Niki Tobi; and Dahiru Musdapher. Justices George Oguntade, Maryam Mukthar and Samuel Onnoghen, in a minority judgment, held that the election failed substantially to comply with the law.

Bribing the Judges

According to Mr. Bankole, the cable reported, the late president was actively involved in the bribery process and made special arrangement to ensure that the judges swing judgment in his favour. Mr. Ibori was the money bag while Mr. Aondoakaa, was the conduit.

Ms. Sanders explained that the disclosure by the Speaker was a confirmation of earlier reports the U.S. Mission in Nigeria had received regarding how the Supreme Court decision was manipulated to favour the late president and his then deputy (who is now president).

"We had also heard during the entire Supreme Court process on the Yar'Adua case that the judges had been heavily influenced and paid off," Ms. Sanders said in her report, quoting Mr. Bankole as saying ‘he had no faith in the transparency of the judiciary'.

There were reports in the media at the time that as much as $30million was spent to bribe the Supreme Court judges. But there was no concrete evidence to back the claim.

The Speaker reportedly said the judiciary had over-stepped its bounds in most of the rerun gubernatorial elections, and had "tasted blood," with its new found power to influence state elections and power politics in Nigeria.

Ms. Sanders also said that the Speaker's revelation was a confirmation of Mr. Aondoakaa's corruption as well as an explanation for why Mr. Yar'Adua refused to fire the former AGF in spite of the widespread calls for his removal.

"The Ambassador asked what this particular minister [the AGF] had on the president," the cable further reported. "Bankole said without hesitation he was the money conduit from Ibori to the Judiciary as regards to the President's Supreme Court case.

"The Mission was always aware that Yar'Adua would not touch him [the AGF], but also did not believe that the President was unaware of the AG's corruption. Evidently not only was he aware, but also had to use the AG as the avenue to secure the Supreme Court decision, if Bankole's comments are true," Ms. Sanders said.

Reacting to the revelation, Jiti Ogunye, a lawyer and activist said, "If Bankole says he has proof, he should bring it forward. He is the Number 4 citizen of this country. If he has proof and he has been sitting down like a lame duck and is not bringing it out to help the country, what are we to make of him? That is not a statesman. If there is that allegation, the public ought to be helped by the provision of evidence."

9ijaMan:

When I read you 7 reasons why Buhari may not win, I thought you were reasonable. Now I know you are just as clueless as the GEJ you support.
When did the job of awarding of contracts become the job of the legislature or the civil service? Or is it the legislature that will stop Jonathan from rigging elections? What is the stance of GEJ on the Uwais report?

It's worse for an ignorant person to refer to others as being ignorant. Why not read and comprehend his post before you jump at him!

PapaBrowne:

Without wanting to sound arrogant, it is easy for any reader to decipher btw me and you, who the naive one is!! Reread what you've just written and you will find that much of what you've placed at the desk of the executive actually belongs to the legislature!!

And these are some of the problems I keep stressing that many Nigerians, yourself inclusive, by virtue of a lack of qualitative reasoning are failing to see!! I used the Fashola example to bring out a very candid point but you've chosen to ignore it!! Fashola is the best public servant of this dispensation, but after 4 years of Governance, lagosians are still experiencing grinding poverty, gutter type quality of living and the cheapest value for life you can find anywhere in the world!! The reason is that the work of development is collective and is the responsibility of all and sundry!! Fashola, just like Jonathan cannot solve many of the problems we are expecting them to solve!
The Ezekwesili article brought out some salient points and I wish you have the capacity to understand what she has written in that article.

Governance is a function of different arms! There is the executive, the legislature and the civil service!! Stop blaming the executive for what the legislature is failing to do!!