₦airaland Forum

He is doing well but he is under serious pressure.

OK. It is on NTA now.

I think it starts by 8. Here is an online link to NTA: http://suncastv.ae/watch-now/nta-live-streaming
You have to register with your email address to gain access.

In order to provide a balanced answer to this question, I invite you to take a look at BBC's view of Buhari as appears in a December 2006 report. In this article, you will find the good and bad side to Buhari.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6192919.stm

Profile:MUHAMMADU BUHARI
Age 64
Military ruler of Nigeria from 1984 to 1985
Deposed in a coup
Poor human rights record
Seen as incorruptible
Muslim from northern Nigeria

Buhari had a mixed record during his time in power. Former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari does not seem to know when to quit.
Although he lost badly to President Olusegun Obasanjo in the last elections which he rejected as rigged, Mr Buhari appears undeterred in his quest to be an elected head of state.
And having secured the nomination of the main opposition party, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), he is once again edging closer to his goal.
Mr Buhari has already ruled Nigeria - from January 1984 until August 1985, in a period remembered for human rights abuses and a fight against corruption.
As a Muslim from Daura in Katsina State, he has had to deny allegations that he has a radical Islamist agenda given his support for Sharia law in the north.
This proved a problem for him in the 2003 polls, where he failed to secure much support among Christians in the south where he was viewed with some suspicion.

Record
The verdict on Mr Buhari's 20 months as Nigeria's leader is mixed.
About 500 politicians, officials and businessmen were jailed as part of a campaign against waste and corruption.
Some saw this as the heavy handed repression of military rule.
But others, and not just northern Muslims, remember it as a praiseworthy attempt to fight the endemic graft which was preventing Nigeria's development.
Largely because of this campaign, he retains a rare reputation for honesty among Nigeria's politicians, both military and civilian.

Neat queues
He also introduced a notorious decree to restrict press freedom, under which two journalists were jailed.
As part of his "War Against Indiscipline", he ordered the notoriously unruly Nigerians to form neat queues at bus stops, under the sharp eyes of whip-wielding soldiers.
Civil servants who were late for work were publicly humiliated by being forced to do "frog jumps".
However, his attempts to rebalance public finances by curbing imports led to the closure of businesses and many job losses.
Prices rose, while living standards fell, leading to a palace coup by Gen Ibrahim Babangida on 27 August 1985. Mr Buhari was imprisoned for 40 months.
Mr Babangida, who still retains an active role in Nigeria's politics, also wanted to speed up the restoration of civilian rule, which Mr Buhari did not see as a priority.

Even now, Mr Buhari defends his military coup of 31 December 1983.
"It is up to the people. If you choose correct leadership, there won't be any need for the military regime.
"The military came in when it was absolutely necessary and the elected people had failed the country," he said last October.

When Mr Obasanjo was a military ruler in the 1970s, Mr Buhari held the key post of minister of petroleum affairs but there is now little love lost between the former colleagues.

His coup ousted Nigeria's last civilian government, led by Alhaji Shehu Shagari, who won elections organised by Mr Obasanjo. And this has led to continuing questions about Mr Buhari's commitment to democracy.

What Buhari has achieved:

1. He succesfully destroyed Nigeria's attempt at democracy in 1983.
2. He has contested in 3 democratic elections and failed in every attempt.
3. He has been noted in the books of history as a human rights violator.
4. He fought against freedom of information and expression.

Odunnu:
With due respect Mr Akainzo, you are writing thrash, Sir.

Odunnu, Thank you for bringing that to his attention. I also like the way you put it politely. Good job.

@ danjohn,

I suggest you don't bother much about Gen[b]Buhari[/b]'s complaints because he has an interest here. The only way he will accept your model is if you report one where his candidate has 150% in NE, 200% in NW, 90% in NC, 90% in SW, 80% in SS and 80% in SE. Anything less is unacceptable to him. You also have to make sure GEJ doesnt get any vote in the model. He will not mind if ACN gets the remnant.

Alora, do you know where we can get the detailed INEC list of all the candidates and parties presented for the elections? (on state by state basis).

Buhari will be a good traditional or religious RULER (not leader).

Presidency is for more refined leaders.

My guess is that Utomi is on the road to taking up a powerful position in the next government. I believe he will contribute to the improvement of our systems.

Mr. Buhari, you are trying to rewrite history and that is not possible. Go to your history books. Everything is there. Let me educate you a little. You can thank me later.

This is from your history books:
"[size=14pt]The Buhari government introduced a comprehensive package of austerity measures. The austerity measures made it difficult for local industries to procure essential imported raw materials, leading many of them to close or to operate at greatly reduced capacity. Many workers were laid off, and government itself retrenched many workers to increase its "cost effectiveness." All of these actions were accompanied by high inflation. The price of basic food items rose, and life became increasingly difficult, even for the affluent[/size]."

I know you will ask for an online link so here is another source:

An Extract:
Insurmountable economic problems plagued the Buhari regime as petroleum prices collapsed in the face of expanding foreign debt. Buhari instituted austerity measures that caused severe hardship to the average Nigerian. In addition, political corruption continued unabated, with politicians escaping to Western countries with millions of dollars in government money. In an effort to stop dissension, Buhari instituted restrictions on the press, political freedoms, and trade unionists. By August 1985 even the military had had enough, and Ibrahim Babangida took control of the government.

More reading for your delight: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/83801/Muhammad-Buhari

KnowAll:
[size=14pt]WHAT OF IF U CANNOT GET TO WORK EVERY WHERE IS ALL JAMMED UP WON'T U GO BACK HOME. THAT IS WHAT THE CPC WOULD TURN LAGOS INTO WHEN IT ENTERS TOWN.[/size]

Nice picture of what he will do if elected! Just as he did in the 80's. MASSIVE INCREASE OF UNEMPLOYMENT, CLOSE DOWN OF BUSINESSES, ECONOMIC FAILURE!

I think the election process itself will create some problems. Let me explain,

The procedure is to accredit voters from 8.am. to noon after which no other voter will be accredited. If this is the case, we will inevitably record very low turn out in centres where the officials are less efficient. The situation will be such that centres with lots of voters will have risk of people getting automatically disenfranchised. The registration process took several weeks to conduct. Now, we have just a few hours. In addition, logistics problems and several other things may eat into the accreditation time. In effect, we may have several states recording about 50% turnout!

This will have a huge effect on the election results if not properly controlled.

Adamuhassa:
“If Buhari wishes to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the citizenry whom he has so cruelly wronged, he should first scuttle his ambitions,, To insist on another taste of power, after such a history of gross abuse of power is an insult to any nation that values freedom and human dignity"
Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka

The words of a wise man.

Comparing Ribadu and Buhari is like comparing Mercedes Benz SLK of today to Pegout 504 of the 80's.

GEJ will win.

Ribadu will get encouraged from this election knowing that many Nigerians like me believe in him.

Buhari will finally retire from his favourite job: Contesting and losing elections.

GenBuhari, history thinks otherwise.

[size=14pt]It is well known that his attempts to rebalance public finances by curbing imports led to the closure of businesses and many job losses. Prices rose, while living standards fell, leading to a palace coup by Gen Ibrahim Babangida on 27 August 1985.[/size]

You cannt rewrite history because of your candidate. He had his chance and he blew it. Same way he blew the nation's best shot at democracy.

Those waiting for Buhari to take over and then lock every other "corrupt" person in jail should keep dreaming on. This is not a military coup. It is an election. People like Buhari are made for coups not elections. Elected people do not lock people up indiscriminately. The legal system does the job. Buhari does not have the handle of such democratic tools. Those boxers in Senate will use him to clean the floor silly. GEJ or Ribadu and the rest of them young guys may look weak but they have a better handle of the modern governance tools than the old man.

On a lighter note, if he is indeed intimidated by people like Okonjo-Iweala, how will he fare when Zeinab Badawi* of hardtalk starts drilling him.

* Edited

The story serves to confirm something. You cannot separate the people in Nigeria from the issues facing Nigeria. Some are so deluded to think that we have one holy superhero that doesn't talk to the rest of them sinners!!! Hey wake up. Everybody you see up there is connected one way or the other. Buhari, IBB, OBJ etc attend meetings together. They discuss issues like men. They do not have to be childish in keeping malice. They have more in common than we can ever know.

Focus on issues and not vague superhero stunts. Intelligent people will vote people who CAN deliver on the key issues facing us as a Nation. People who can bring economic growth. During Buhari's era, Nigeria plunged into huge economic crises due to his austere measures. Ribadu has surrounded himself with great minds. His VP is one of the best VP's in this election. Check out his background. The records are there. You don't need to look too far to see them. These are the kind of people that can bring in the right experience for the job.

He may also be a sexist! You never know.

Sky Blue:
No need to get hypertensive. Your link is not working

Sky Blue, thanks for bringing that to my notice, I have corrected the link. Just in case, here it is again:

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201103302111978

This is another report from Guardian:

Ringim said:
"For the avoidance of doubt, I want to make it clear that anybody within the vicinity of this election process that is found to be doing any act or behaving in any manner inimical to the peaceful conduct of this election shall be arrested and shall be prosecuted. The much talked about distances or that people would be allowed to stay or not, they would be allowed to stay there as long as they conduct themselves peacefully. Anybody that is found to be in a position to threaten the conduct of the election shall be arrested and prosecuted"

Source: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43208:council-of-state-okays-plan-for-elections-as-worries-mount&catid=1:national&Itemid=559

From what I can gather from the stories, INEC and the Police had two different views about the issue. The idea should be to keep everyone at a reasonable distance from the ballot boxes as well as allow a clear view for everyone to monitor events closely. BTW 300m will be difficult to enforce. I doubt if some of those guys on ground even know what 300m is!

See as una don turn me to Jega and Ringim! If you are looking for blood to spill, look elsewhere! Meanwhile, we need to confirm the report first. I posted a link to a different story on punch website in my last post. Apart from that, is it not required that each party presents a representative to witness the counting and sign off results?

^ That question should be directed to Ringim and Jega.

This is what punch says: Voters can witness vote counting – INEC, Police

http://www.punchng.com/Articl.aspx?theartic=Art201103302111978

Voters interested in witnessing the collation of votes at polling centres during the general elections are free to do so.
But such freedom is with a proviso: their conduct must be peaceful.

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega and the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Hafiz Ringim, announced this after briefing the National Council of States on the preparations for the elections in Abuja on Tuesday.
They warned that anyone caught behaving unruly at any polling unit would be arrested and prosecuted.

This is a more reasonable directive than the initial one. They need their space and the INEC staff are safer that way. If every party has a representative at the polling booth, there should be no fear. All eyes and cameras should keep focus on the ballot even if it is from the distance.

Power generation capacity hits 4,000mw, as Egbin bounces back
Wednesday, 30 March 2011 00:00 By Sulaimon Salau

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=43100:power-generation-capacity-hits-4000mw-as-egbin-bounces-back&catid=94:energy-report&Itemid=592

THE bouncing back of the nation’s biggest power plant, Egbin thermal plant after the successful restoration of one of its faulty turbines, has buoyed the national power generation to about 4,000mega watts (mw).

The Minister of State for Power, Arc. Nuhu Wya, who disclosed this during the commissioning of Hydrogen Station at Egbin Thermal Station in Ikorodu, Lagos recently, said that plans are in the pipeline to put all the six turbines in the station on-stream to operate at full capacity of 1,320mw before the end of the year.

Commending the staff of the Egbin thermal station for their efforts in sustaining the operations of the station, Wya also said the station’s generating capacity stood at 1,100 mega watts (mw), while the national generation hits 4,000mw, noting that although about 3,800mw are presently supplied to national grid due to frequency control necessitated by distribution intake.

According to him, the improvement was aided by the restoration of the additional unit of the station ST-01 (with the capacity to generate 220mw), which crashed in December 2009.

Egbin operates on six turbines with each generating 220 mw, but two of the units (one and six) have been put off for several years due to a major fault, thereby reducing power generation from the plant.

Apparently agog with the restoration of one of the units, the minister said: “Five out of six of the turbine are now running, only one of them (ST-06) is not working and most of the major components needed are available here in Nigeria, we need to re-engineer our procurement plans within this year and the chief executive officer of Egbin has promised to do that. Each of those turbines is capable of giving 220 mw, which translated into 1,100 mw.

“When we say we have 4,000mw some people call to say no it is a lie, but it’s true. This station Egbin presently has the capacity to generate 1,100mw, but in the process of delivering power to the people, it is fluctuating. Indeed, Nigeria has had over 4,000mw of electricity now, but what we are sending out in the average is 3,800mw because of the frequency control that regulates the supply.” he explained.

Besides the restored turbine, the power station also commissioned a new Hydrogen plant that is positioned to aid the power generating set used by the station and boost its reliability.

According to the Acting Chief Executive Officer, Egbin Electric Power Plc, Mr. Mike Ilo Uzoigwe, the turbine repairs gulped the sum of N1 billion while the new hydrogen plant gulped N922 million.

The new plant has two trains (A and B) each with a cell capacity of 13.5 standard meter cubic per hour (stdm3/hr) and a bank of eight bigger gas cylinders with a capacity of 312.5stdm3/hr.

Before the commissioning of the facility, Uzoigwe said his workers have had course to source for hydrogen from Delta Power Station to sustain power generation at Egbin.   “Though we had five of our six units running through this period, but without a functional hydrogen plant our station reliably fell to as low as 30 per cent, even though we still had a capability of 1080mw.

“Let me use this opportunity to promise you that as soon as we are able to put all necessary funds together, we will start the final stage of repairing ST-06. By your usual support (minister) we are planning to bring back ST-06 and then we will have available from Egbin power station the full installed capacity of 1,320mw,” he assured.

Not to forget the myopic ones ^ whose thinking is centered around PDP. To them, everything you say HAS TO BE about PDP. Wake up!!!

This may sound like a joke but it is exactly what is happening right now in many places. Voters registration cards are being bought from voters. Voters cards cost from as low as N500 to N10,000 or more depending on your poverty level or power of negotiation. Very sad development.

Why are there so many NEGATIVOPIC people here? People that only see negative things. Open your eyes to the positives once in a while. It helps balance your mental status.

birdman:
If you vote for GEJ, you are confused.
If you vote for Ribadu, you are severely confused.

You have just confirmed that you are extremely confused!!!

GEJ can debate with whoever so it doesnt really matter whether it is Utomi with him on stage or not. The mood of the debate is not a Mr. A vs Mrs B thing. If you notice, each person is allowed to make his point independently and is not about throwing words at each other. We as the audience are to decide who is better for us as we like.

My arguement is simple. If the ONLY thing that people claim Buhari can do is riddled with so much uncertainty even before the election, what will happen after?
How can intelligent people base all their support on something that has no substance? I am yet to hear any concrete plan about how he intends to go about his one-man-riot in this age of democracy. We shouldnt be debating about Buhari at all. We should be thinking about Ribadu and perhaps Utomi! Those two are miles ahead of Buhari. If you watched the BON debate today, you will see why people like Buhari should not even be contesting in the first place. When people like Ribadu, Utomi etc are there, how can we be mentioning Buhari! Buhari will do very well as a traditional ruler or a religious adviser or something of the sort. But him being the president of Nigeria is an insult.