₦airaland Forum

About 20 women from Bayelsa State were
yesterday burnt to death in a multiple
accident after visiting the first lady Dame
Patience Jonathan. It was gathered last night that the
accident occurred at Ahoada, in Rivers
State. It was said to have involved a
Toyota Sienna car, jeep and a bus with an
inscription, Peoples Democratic Party
Women Initiative. A security source put the number of burnt
victims at 20 adding that all the
occupants of the bus perished. The source who spoke in confidence said:
“The affected women were travelling in
the bus which went up in flames. They
were burnt to ashes. Only one of the
women was rescued.” It was learnt that the women paid a
solidarity visit to the first lady in Okirika
where they spent two days. The Bayelsa State Sector Commander,
Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC),
Mr. Vincent Jack confirmed the accident. He, however, said only nine persons burnt
to death, two died without been burnt
while many others were rushed to
Madonna clinic in the area. He explained that the accident occurred
when the tyre of the Toyota Sienna burst
and rammed into the bus carrying the
women. He said the jeep also rammed into the bus
in confusion, a situation that made the
bus to go up in flames.

Source: http://thenationonlineng.net/new/20-bayelsa-women-burnt-death-visiting-first-lady/

President Goodluck Jonathan has clarified that the security forces are not saying they will wipe out the Boko Haram insurgency before the General Elections. He clarified this at the Presidential Villa in Abuja yesterday while hosting members of the diplomatic corps. He said with three states suffering from insurgency, conducting elections there might be difficult, stressing that the six-weeks adjustment of the election dates would enable the security agencies to “clean up” affected states.
On the postponement of the elections, he said: “Security reasons were alluded. Some people asked, will Nigeria wipe out Boko Haram within six weeks if in six years, we were unable to do so? And I said no. The security people are not saying they will wipe out Boko Haram before elections will be conducted. But there are Boko Haram related-security issues and there were other security issues that were noticed during the period of campaigns which, if we don’t prepare properly and modify the security architecture we normally use for elections, the country may go up in flames.”
Jonathan also said: “Democracy can only be meaningful if people are allowed to select who rules them. In a situation where
you have maybe 30 percent of people having PVCs, that is some kind of security threat.” He said when security issues are mentioned, it is not limited to Boko Haram. “And the security people didn’t say they must wipe out Boko Haram before the elections will be conducted,” he added.
Jonathan added that even in 2011, there was the Boko Haram problem but elections were conducted. “So we’ll surely conduct elections as scheduled, I promise you, as scheduled and on the 29th of May, inauguration will take place to bring in the next president of this country,” he said.
Jonathan said Nigeria is now in position to tackle Boko Haram, especially with the position taken by the AU. “Our neighbours - Chad, Cameroon, Niger - are also keying in,” he said, adding that while in the past there was no intentional agreement or binding force, “Now the barriers have been handled and so we would move faster and in the next few weeks, you’ll witness significant changes.”
Jonathan had earlier said: “This is an interesting moment in our country. There two things that make it interesting. First, is
the issue of terror.” He continued that the rising challenge made it necessary to forge ahead on collaboration with Nigeria’s immediate neighbours and sub- regional allies. “Just like we boldly dealt with threat of ebola, we’re determined to decisively deal with insurgency and thereby secure our country,” he said.
The president also said the next crucial issue is that of the elections. “Of course, you’re aware of the colourful campaigns, especially those led by the key political parties, the PDP and the APC. There’s so much tension, especially when elections were readjusted. Initially, the international community thought that readjusting the elections would automatically mean shifting the date for inaugurating the new president.”

www.dailytrust.com.ng/weekly/index.php/top-stories/19040-jonathan-we-can-t-wipe-out-boko-haram-before-elections

Edo State governor, Adams Oshiomhole,
has given automatic employment to 20
victims of the last Nigerian Immigration
Service (NIS) recruitment tragedy of March
15, 2014, and also gave the sum of N2
million to the widower and children of the late Mrs. Sandra Amu who died in the
commotion. This is coming almost a year after the
Federal Government promised automatic
employment to those injured in the
exercise and three employment slots to
families of those who lost their loved ones
in the recruitment fiasco. Disclosing the employment offer during a
meeting with the family of the woman
who lost her life and eleven of the 20
persons who sustained injuries during the
ill-fated recruitment held at the Samuel
Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin City on Satur­ day, March 15, 2014, Oshiomhole said, “It
is unlawful for people seeking
employment to pay money. It is the
employer who pays the consultant and
not the applicant. That transaction was
mainly illegal collection and it is extortion. “I think it is important that people don’t
exploit office power to compound the
problem of those who are already down.
What we can, without prejudice to
whatever plans the Immigration Services
or the Ministry of Internal Affairs is making, is to see how we can assist in
terms of employment. “The government will also provide the
family of the deceased with legal
representation so as to sue the Immigra­
tion authorities for the loss of life. Each
time people are reckless with human lives
and they go home and sleep, it is why we talk about the culture of impunity, where
people can do anything and go free.” He continued: “We are also going to offer
the graduates employment opportunities
in our Information Communication
Technology Agency if they are interested
in that. In that case, you need to take
their documents and they start work by Monday. However, if the Immigration
option opens up, you are at liberty to
move from one job to another”, he said. Earlier, Coordinator of the group, Mr.
Edmond Osuma had told the governor of
their challenges since the Immigration
recruitment exercise of March 14 2014 that
since the incident happened it has been a
serious problem getting in contact with the Controller of Immigration. He solicited the assistance of the governor
to enable the group see the immigration
authorities and requested the governor’s
magnanimity to alleviate the hardship of
the victims. The victims told the governor that while
they paid one thousand naira each,
online, before going for the recruitment,
they are yet to get a refund one year after
the tragedy.

sunnewsonline.com/new/?p=104791

With the storm over the shift of polls yet to settle, the Presidency has run into a fix over what to do with four of its governors said to be secretly working for the success of the opposition in the rescheduled elections.Saturday Vanguard learnt yesterday that the Presidency became convinced that the
four governors were not sincerely working for the success of the ruling party after reviewing their activities in relations to the presidential campaigns in their respective states. It was gathered that an appraisal carried out by security agents and placed at the disposal of the ruling party clearly indicated that PDP would lose election in the affected states because of the activities of the governors. A competent source told Saturday Vanguard in Abuja that both Jonathan and his party were upset that the governors were hiding under the party to work for the APC, thereby making it difficult for them to be promptly dealt with in line with the constitution of the party. The source said that although the action of the four governors drawn from the North West and North East of the country had been discussed extensively by the Presidency and the PDP, the party and the
president were in a fix on what to do with ‘traitors’ because of the impending elections. The President is said to be particularly irked by the action of one of the PDP governors from the North East, who did not only give the sum of N25 million in support of the opposition candidate campaign but also directed his officials to give maximum logistics support to the Buhari Campaign team during their campaign in the state on February 3 this year. The same governor, it was learnt, however showed what a presidency source described as a ‘lukewarm disposition’ to the Jonathan’s Campaign team by not mobilising enough support for the presidential rally in his state and arriving late to the venue of the campaign. The governor is said to have unwittingly exposed disloyalty and disdain to the President and his party by coming to the venue of the rally six minutes before the arrival of the presidential team, thereby leaving several things undone and ending up embarrassing the first family and his party when they went to campaign in the state on January 31. The governor is reported to have delayed the inauguration of the Presidential Campaign Team in the state until the eve of the presidential visit thereby making the team headed by a former Senator from the state, to hit the rocks in his effort to ensure a successful rally in the agricultural state. As a result of the sympathy of a North East governor for the
APC, he is said to have displayed a lackadaisical attitude towards the visit of Jonathan to his state last month. During the visit, the president was said to have been miffed by the near empty stadium that he noticed upon his arrival for the campaign in the state that is close to a desert. The Presidency, Saturday Vanguard also learnt, was also hurt that none of the governors had shown remorse over their ‘betrayal’ by not speaking out against some of the wrongs openly committed by their agents against the presidential campaign teams in their respective states. It was gathered that the Presidency was seriously disappointed that none of the affected governors had openly condemned the stoning of its presidential campaign train in their states while some of them turned round to blame some senior officers of the Presidency for the attacks. The APC, which is fully aware of the tacit support of the four governors, almost went to make a formal announcement that they were set to defect but they were said to have persuaded the party not to do so, promising instead to quietly work and deliver their states to the opposition because of Buhari’s factor. Asked what the Presidency would be doing to sanction the four governors, the source hinted that the Presidency was confused on what to do to them given the need to put its house in order and pursue the elections as a united party. The source said that it would be counterproductive for the Presidency and the PDP to take any disciplinary action against the governors at this stage since the elections were already around the corner. The development came as it emerged last night that the move to ‘discipline’ Prof Jega for alleged sympathy for the APC would be dropped if he jettisons the use of the card readers and permanent voter cards, PVCs for the elections.

www.vanguardngr.com/2015/02/presidency-dilemma-four-govss-secret-alliance-apc/

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has raised alarm about the postponement of presidential elections and has publicly endorsed former head of state
Muhammadu Buhari’s campaign to unseat
President Goodluck Jonathan. Gen Obasanjo was in Nairobi to launch a
1,500-page autobiography highly critical
of Jonathan, a former protégé whose
ascent to the presidency he helped to
engineer. The book has been banned in Nigeria pending libel hearings brought by an ally of the president. “The signs are not auspicious” in the wake
of the six-week postponement of the
general election, said Gen Obasanjo, who
remains an influential, if contentious,
figure at home. “I don’t know whether a
script is being played,” the Financial Times of London reported. Coming from a founding member of the
ruling People’s Democratic Party, his
public endorsement of the main
opposition challenger underscores the
extent to which Jonathan has lost backing
from sections of the establishment, FT said. Nigerians were due to go to the polls this
Saturday, with the campaign of Gen
Buhari gathering steam in what was
expected to be the country’s closest
electoral contest since the restoration of
civilian rule in 1999. But the Independent National Electoral
Commission last weekend postponed the
vote until March 28 after security chiefs
said they could not safeguard the polls
while launching a regional military
campaign to reclaim territory from Islamist extremists. The delay should also enable biometric
voter cards to be distributed to the
millions of voters who have yet to receive
them and who were at risk of being
disenfranchised. This is the first time Gen Obasanjo has
come out openly to support Gen Buhari,
72, who ruled Nigeria briefly in the 1980s
after taking power in a coup and has tried
three times since to win the presidency,
including once against Gen Obasanjo. “The circumstances [Buhari] will be
working under if he wins the election are
different from the one he worked under
before, where he was both the executive
and the legislature — he knows that,” said
Gen Obasanjo. “He’s smart enough. He’s educated enough. He’s experienced
enough. Why shouldn’t I support him?” He also believes Gen Buhari would be well
equipped to combat corruption and
restore fighting spirit to an army that has
struggled in the face of the onslaught by Boko Haram, which has seized a swath of territory in the northeast. “It’s a question of leadership — political
and military,” Gen Obasanjo said of the
crisis facing the army. “I think you need
to ask [Jonathan] how has he let [the
army] go to this extent . . . Many things
went wrong: recruitment went wrong; training went wrong; morale went down;
motivation not there; corruption was
deeply ingrained; welfare was bad.” The former leader also expressed dismay
at the extent to which billions of dollars in
oil revenues had “all disappeared” since
he left office, when reserves had reached
$45bn and the government had $20bn
more in rainy day savings. Nigeria’s economy, Africa’s largest, has
taken a battering since last year with the
plunge in oil prices. Speaking ironically of
the negative impact of this on
government reserves, Gen Obasanjo
added: “There’ll be less in the pot, for stealing or corruption.” However, the hold-up has raised fears among civil society and opposition
activists that the government might seek
to use security concerns as a pretext to
extend its mandate beyond a four-year
term that ends on May 29, and risk
plunging the country back into the hands of the military rather than tempt fate at
the polls. Jonathan and the army have publicly
pledged to abide by the constitution. Gen
Obasanjo said in an interview: “I sincerely
hope that the president is not going for
broke and saying ‘look dammit, it’s either
I have it or nobody has it’. I hope that we will not have a coup . . . I hope we can
avoid it.” Gen Obasanjo, the military ruler in the late
1970s, returned to power as elected
president between 1999 and 2007 after his
release from prison where he was held as
a political prisoner by Sani Abacha, the
penultimate and most brutal of Nigeria’s military dictators. He was instrumental in Jonathan’s ascent
from state governor to the presidency. But
relations between the two men have
soured since he chose Jonathan as a vice-
presidential candidate in 2007 and backed
him as president when Umaru Yar’Adua, the incumbent, died in office three years
later. Gen Obasanjo, 77, continues to play an
active international role but says he has
no ambition to return to the political
centre stage. “I am an old man and I’m
enjoying what I’m doing now . . . And then
you forget I am a farmer; I have to manage my farm.”

www.dailytrust.com.ng/daily/top-stories/46725-obasanjo-why-i-am-supporting-buhari

Governorship candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State,
Chief Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike, has
accused Governor Chibuike Rotimi
Amaechi of running the most corrupt
administration in Nigeria. He alleged that between January and
November 2014, Amaechi squandered
over N298billion that accrued to the state
from the Federation Accounts and loans
obtained from various commercial banks. Wike, who spoke at the PDP governorship
campaign rally in Port Harcourt, further
alleged that between December 2014 and
January 2015, the governor, through the
Government House and the Office of the
Secretary to the Rivers State Government expended N11 billion, believed to have
been channelled into the campaign
machinery of the presidential candidate of
the All Progressives Congress (APC)
General Muhammadu Buhari. He said that the massive corrupt
expenditure of the over N300billion just
for 2014 and the first month of 2015
excludes the internally generated revenue
of Rivers State, which has been pegged at
several billions of naira monthly. Giving a breakdown of the alleged mass
corrupt practices by Amaechi, the PDP
governorship hopeful stated that between
January and November 2014, the Amaechi
administration received N185billion from
the Federation Account. Wike further stated that within the same
period under review, the administration
took loans from Zenith Bank, Guarantee
Trust Bank, Access Bank and Fidelity Bank,
totalling over N112billion. He said, “These are facts duly obtained
from government sources. They are not
newspaper reports. They are authenticated
facts of revenue received by the outgoing
government of Rotimi Amaechi. Before
the people of Nigeria is the most corrupt administration ever seen in this state. An
administration that has shortchanged our
people. “From the details of expenditure at our
disposal, these funds have been used to
sponsor opposition activities and the
campaigns of General Muhammadu
Buhari. Most of the money were
channelled to non-existent or non functional projects, with the funds
pocketed by the outgoing governor. “For instance, Amaechi paid N500 million
for a non existent new Bridge in
Abonnema. He paid N2 billion for the
Trans-Kalabari road where nothing has
been done by his administration. For the
Port Harcourt Centenary celebration, Amaechi expended almost N1 billion and
he released N1.7billion for the production
of international passports.” The former minister of state for Education
stated that the outgoing administration
expended N330million for the protection
of Rivers State from terrorism. The governorship hopeful said the lack of
accountability in the Amaechi
administration explains why he is fronting
known cultists to take over the
administration of the state. He noted that
the Rivers State political leadership and the followership have jointly resolved
never to allow another corrupt
administration to emerge from the
outgoing Amaechi’s corrupt regime. Also speaking at the rally, deputy national
chairman of the PDP, Prince Uche
Secondus, alleged that Amaechi had
procured Army, Naval and Police uniforms
to be distributed to his political thugs
from the state and others imported from the north to ensure that they rigged the
election if it had been held on February
14, 2015. Secondus said the same procurement of
uniforms was carried out by APC
governors, adding that the plan of the
APC was to plunge the nation into a
needless crisis. But the Rivers State government has
challenged the governorship candidate of
the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the
state, Chief Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike, to
provide proof of his allegation that the
administration of Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi is corrupt. The state commissioner for Information
and Communications, Mrs Ibim Semenitari,
disclosed this in a chat with LEADERSHIP
in Port Harcourt while reacting to the
allegation by Wike. Semenitari said the allegation was a ploy
by the former minister of state for
Education to draw the attention of the
people of the state away from the fact
that he does not have any programme for
the state. She said, “We believe that Mr. Wike has
no locus to back his allegation. We
challenge him to provide proof. We think
that what is happening is that Mr. Wike
has nothing to tell Rivers people. “He has no programme and he has no
agenda. He wants to draw the attention of
Rivers people away from serious issues. He
wants to take their eyes away from his
numerous perfidies. We really don’t want
to dignify him.”

leadership.ng/news/411549/wike-to-amaechi-you-are-the-most-corrupt-governor-in-nigeria

Even Jesus was hated by the pharisees

A senator alleged yesterday that President Goodluck Jonathan had been secretly plotting to avoid election and extend his tenure by two years on the grounds that Nigeria is at war.

Senator Babafemi Ojudu (APC, Ekiti Central) told members of the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) that President Jonathan had been making spirited moves to court National Assembly members into approving his agenda for the two-year tenure elongation.
Ojudu made the revelation while addressing the ARG gathering inside the Trenchard Hall of the University of Ibadan with the theme “The change Yoruba will vote for.”

Also, a top political source yesterday in Abuja corroborated Senator Ojudu’s allegation, saying President Jonathan may shortly declare Nigeria to be in a state of war and seek extension of tenures of current elected public officials for another six months.
However, the Presidency did not respond to request by Daily Trust for comment on the allegation.

Jonathan’s spokesman Reuben Abati, Public Affairs aide Doyin Okupe and Political Adviser Rufai Alkali neither answered several phone calls made to them nor replied text messages.
Senator Ojudu, in his submission, said: “If anybody thinks there is going to be elections on March 28, the person is deceiving himself. All the people that are close to me, especially my friends, I told them a year ago that there would not be election and that they are just deceiving us.

“Some of us who are perceptive have seen this in the body language of our colleagues; the body language of the Senate President himself, David Mark. When we came back from the summer recess last year, he said that for him, it’s not time for election. We should not be thinking of elections now, rather we should be thinking of fighting Boko Haram. The moment we took him up on that, he reversed himself.

“There are conscious attempts at lobbying some of us to work against having elections. Therefore, where they have got to now is the preliminary stage.

“We will resume next week Tuesday. I can assure you, they may likely bring a motion asking us to adjourn or postpone the elections for six months because there is an ongoing war.
“The constitution allows this. The constitution states that where and when there is a war in any corner of the country, the President can bring a motion to the National Assembly to postpone the elections for six months in the first instance and this can be passed by just a simple majority.

“If you think at this time they may not get simple majority, you may be wrong. This is because 80 per cent of the senators and House of Representatives members are not returning, not out of choice. Perhaps, I am the only person who is not returning out of choice in the entire National Assembly. All others attempted but they did not make it.

“This may surprise you, we are all broke. If they say we want to give you two more years as it is being quietly requested by Jonathan, virtually everybody will vote for that.”

He said Jonathan had been pleading that the National Assembly should allow him to continue for two more years because he feared that if the election holds and a northern Muslim wins, there may be problems in the Niger Delta.

He added that Jonathan also argued that if he wins there would be problem in the north.

“Therefore, the solution is for him to do two more years and at the end ... you can have northern-northern and Muslim-Muslim candidates.

“That is their logic and that is what they are working towards. Left to us, they know it shall not pass. We must have to start crying out now and be strategic in our planning,” he said.

“We are about entering into a very long night in Nigeria. It is a very sad thing that whenever we thought we have made a progress, we take ten steps backward. This is what is happening now.”
Daily Trust heard that plans had been concluded to present the request to the National Assembly ahead of members’ resumption next Tuesday.

“We have been told that the president will forward the request to us in the National Assembly in which he will declare that Nigeria is now in a state of war as foreign troops under the multinational joint forces of the African Union are now in Nigeria,” the source said.

“The presence of the foreign troops must be backed by appropriate legal instrument and that is why the relevant constitutional provisions must be invoked,” the source said.
The president, sources said, will request the National Assembly to approve the six months tenure extension in accordance with the provisions of the constitution which allow for elongation of tenure of political office holders if the nation is in a state of war.
A source in the legislature told Daily Trust that already, “monies have been made available to induce lawmakers into approving the request. Again, they know that 65 percent of the National Assembly members do not have return tickets and many of us may be willing to approve the extension,” the source who is ranking lawmaker said.

Daily Trust gathered that the initial six months extension would be used as a smokescreen for subsequent extensions as the president will request for three more extensions to make it two years.

When contacted, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Business Senator Ita Enang declined to comment saying “I am not aware of it and I won’t talk about what is not before us.”
However, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume (APC, Borno) said any such request must be approved by 2/3rd majority of each chamber of the National Assembly and “as far as I am concerned, it won’t scale through. We will defeat it. APC has majority in the House and they (PDP) do not have 2/3rd majority in the senate,” he added.

Interim government as plan B

Another source said if the tenure extension plot fails the Presidency would resort to “Plan B”.

He said this entails setting up an interim government to be headed by a former Nigerian leader or an ex security chief.

Sources said the idea of handing over to an interim government is the last card to be played by the presidency as hopes for the president’s re-election keeps dwindling.

Daily Trust gathered that the postponement of the polls to March 28 and April 11 was meant to stretch the time to the minimum 30 days to May 29th as stipulated by the constitution so that any further delay would make it difficult if not impossible to hold elections.

Daily Trust also gathered that the security forces may not be able to contain the Boko Haram insurgents within the next six weeks as they requested but that the crisis may take a different and more dangerous dimension thereby creating chaos or even anarchy in the north.

This scenario, according to those familiar with the plot, would be orchestrated to make it impossible for the election to take place within the constitutionally stipulated period of time.

Source :
http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/daily/top-stories/46722-jonathan-plots-2-year-extension-senator

MillionDollars:
''WORKING ON MY MUSIC ALBUM, JOIN YOU GUYS SOON''

Omonjoe:
I also got a message to come for training on 6th if I ve bn verified BUT I DIDN'T GO FOR VERIFICATION because I DID NOT RECEIVE A MESSAGE FOR SCREENING THAT TIME....pls wat shld I do? my state is Edo state

Possibly the worst year of my life was 1984. I was 10 years old and blissfully
unaware of the changing face of Nigeria’s
political landscape. And a rather
unyielding face it was – that of
Muhammadu Buhari who had recently
overthrown Shehu Shagari, a democratically elected president. For
Buhari, this was a necessary coup d’etat
because Nigeria was being overrun by corrupt politicians. However, his regime
would have a devastating impact on my
family’s fortunes. For the first time, at the close of the
school term in Edinburgh, my father
wasn’t there to pick us up. My older
brother, aged 15, took charge and we
made our way to Heathrow. Touching
down in Nigeria, it was my mother who met us at the airport. She didn’t smile,
perhaps couldn’t; her mouth was turned
down at the corners like she was being
flattened by existence. Something was
wrong, clearly. I waited until we were
settled in the car and piped up: “Where’s Daddy?” Without turning to glance at me,
my mother answered: “He’s in jail.” She
always had an aversion to bullshit but
even, for her, that was pretty cold. For the
rest of the journey, I thought about my
Daddy who returned the cash to the phone company when our account was
credited with thousands of naira; Daddy
who, born into abject poverty, personified
what it meant to work really hard and
make your own dreams come true, in a
hopefully new meritocratic Nigeria. On getting home, one of my older
brothers explained that Buhari’s deputy,
the uncompromising, much-feared
Colonel Tunde Idiagbon, had commanded
that all government contractors in Ogun
state had received a notice to appear before a special committee. My dad
honoured the invitation and presented all
the papers to show that it was in fact the
government that owed his company
money. He was given two options: to pay
a large amount (that no one quite understood how they arrived at) or go to
jail. On principle, my dad said he wasn’t
going to pay money that he didn’t owe.
He was not alone. I have a group of
friends with whom I am forever bound by
this shared ordeal of seeing our fathers treated like criminals. And as it was for
many, this period signified the beginning
of financial ruin. My father spent six months in jail and
came out a different man. For one, he
started clapping at our solemn family
devotion in the mornings, something we
never did. He explained that that was what
they did in prison. He was never a big talker but seeing him work at adjusting to
normal life was painful for everyone
around him. Before his release, the two giant crushers
and all the machinery and equipment that
belonged to his civil engineering firm
were liquidated. As children, our lives
changed too. We were placed in state
schools and said goodbye to our privileged lifestyles. My dad is 87 now and he’s an active
member of the local advisory board of the
All Progressive party, the opposition party
that has recently adopted Buhari as the
presidential flag-bearer, 30 years after his
first outing as a military head of state. Like many Nigerians, my father was
saddened when he heard President Goodluck Jonathan claim that “stealing is not corruption”. With 24% unemployment,
there are limited opportunities for young
people, making them easy fodder for
militants in the southernmost parts of the
country and dreaded religious
fundamentalists in the north. People clamour for leadership. For the last three weeks, I have been
travelling with the presidential campaign
team and I have had the opportunity to
listen to people and interview them. I have
also had a personal need to understand
this man Buhari who has run for the highest office a record three times. At the
beginning, I admit I had doubts and
misgivings. It’s hard not to when you’ve
been stung before. But after several
conversations with him, I have come to
understand what the mass hysteria is all about and why Nigerians would vote for
this soft-spoken but highly principled 72-
year-old. It’s quite simple and, having worked as a
schoolteacher for years, I can use a school
setting in my analogy. Kids like a teacher
to whom they can give the runaround but
when it’s crunch time, they favour an
environment where the teacher is firm, one where clear boundaries have been set.
Having a president who is widely
described as “clueless” may have seemed
to many like an opportunity, but the
goodwill that Jonathan enjoyed in 2011
has been frittered away. These days, governors in the opposition parties are
starved of funds and harassed when they
don’t do the bidding of a first lady who
campaigns for her personal candidates.
Many Nigerians believe that it is time to
return to one of the few faces of anti- corruption in Nigeria’s political history.
Even my wrongly-imprisoned Dad would
recognise that Buhari’s ambition was to
stem corruption. Unlike many Nigerian past presidents,
Major-General Buhari does not have a
huge mansion. You won’t hear about him
owning a bank or sitting on the board of
banks. Neither does he own expansive
farmland. In fact, he wrote to the minister of finance requesting that he only receive
10% of the allowance that all past
presidents receive on a monthly basis.
Overwhelmingly, his lack of greed and
personal venality means people trust him.
Within a democratic dispensation, whatever excesses Buhari’s
singlemindedness at tackling corruption
might have shown 30 years ago can and
will be curbed. He has surrounded himself with a brilliant,
savvy team of young Nigerians and I
much enjoy the passion with which he
talks about his three main priorities:
unemployment, insecurity and education.
For some Nigerians, he might not be an ideal candidate but for many more,
people want anything but Jonathan. And
even better it’s someone that they feel
they can believe in.

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders
seem to be hanging on tenaciously to
their puerile stand that All Progressives
Congress (APC) presidential candidate
Gen. Muhammadu Buhari has not come
clean on its academic qualifications. It emerged yesterday that the PDP
Presidential Campaign Council
manipulated a Cambridge University e-
mail to justify its claim that Gen. Buhari’s
West African School Certificate’s
statement of result was forged. PDP Campaign Council spokesman Femi
Fani-Kayode has been accused of
doctoring an e-mail from Cambridge. An accountant and blogger, Mr. Suraj
Oyewale, claimed in a message published
by Premium Times that the e-mail received from Cambridge by his friend,
Sodiq Alabi, was doctored by Fani-Kayode
to achieve another purpose. Fani-Kayode
has not disputed this claim. Oyewole said: “The controversy over the
secondary school results of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) presidential
candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari,
continues as the University of Cambridge
has said that Hausa Language, which is one of the subjects listed by Buhari, was
not offered in its examinations in 1961. “The disclosure was contained in a
statement from the office of the Director
of the PDP Presidential Campaign
Organisation claiming it came through an
e-mail dated Thursday, January 22, 2015
from the institution’s Archives Delivery Service Officer, Jacky Emerson, to one
SODIQ ALABI who requested for
confirmation if the examination body
offered Hausa Language in the 1961 West
African Certificate Examination it
organised. “Emerson, in his one-sentence reply, said:
“According to the Regulations for 1961,
African Language papers, including those
for Hausa, WERE NOT included for West
African School Certificate. “This development may have further cast
doubts on the certificate which is
purported to be General Buhari’s. He is yet
to react to the assertion by the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential
Campaign Organisation that the document (the published certificate) was
forged and illegally
procured.” (Capitalizations mine) Sodiq was shocked such falsehood was
attributed to him by Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode
and wanted misrepresentation. “Sodiq Alabi (sodiqalabi@ hotmail.com)
had written an email to Cambridge
Assessment, the brand name of University
of Cambridge Local Examinations
Syndicates, on January 22, 2015, 13.31
hours, to confirm whether Hausa was truly offered by it in 1961 examinations. By
4.10pm same day, Jacky Emerson
(archives@ cambridgeassessment.org.uk),
Archive Services Delivery officer of
Cambridge Assessment, replied thus: “Dear
Sodiq Alabi, According to the Regulations of 1961, African Language papers, WERE
SET for West Africa School Certificate.” “A screenshot of this email exchange was
shared with us on Facebook by Sodiq and
it went viral on the internet. “The email triggered other Nigerians to
send emails to Cambridge Assessment for
independent confirmation and the school
came out with a statement on its website
the next day. In the release titled,
‘Statement in response to Nigerian Presidential election enquiries”, the school
stated, ‘The organisation also confirmed
that according to the Regulations for
1961, African Language papers, including
those for Hausa, WERE SET for the West
African School Certificate.” Here is the link to the Cambridge Assessment website
where this confirmation was published:
http://cambridgeassessment.org.uk/news/
statement-in-response-to-nigerian-
presidential-election-enquiries/. “It is however surprising that Femi Fani-
Kayode went ahead to alter the content of
Sodiq’s email in his press statement to,
‘According to the Regulations for 1961,
African Language papers, including those
for Hausa, WERE NOT included for West African School Certificate.’, and still
quoted the email as the source. “It is very unfortunate that this is the man
speaking for the President’s re-election
campaign. How do we believe every other
‘fact’ he has quoted has not been altered
as well? It is a shame. He added: “This is not the first time
President Jonathan’s men are forging or
altering documents to demonise anyone
perceived as the President’s ‘enemy’. His
New Media Assistant, Reno Omokri, was
also busted in February, last year, when he hid under a pseudonym, Wendel Simlin,
to send false but damaging reports to
newspapers to demonise the then just
suspended Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. A dig
into the source of the computer used in typing the document showed it was a
certain Reno Omokri that authored it!
Source: thenationonlineng.net/new/revealed-pdp-chiefs-forged-buhari-document/

Buhari passed Cambridge/ WASCE, says
Defence Minister  0 BY OUR REPORTER ON JANUARY 25, 2015 COVER The Minister of Defence, General Aliyu
Gusau, another schoolmate of General
Muhammadu Buhari has confirmed that
the presidential candidate of the All Pro­
gressives Congress in forthcoming
February 14 election actually sat for and passed Cambridge/ WASC examination in
1961. Gusau gave this affirmation in an
interview he granted to an online medium,
Greenbarge Reporters.com. He said: “You know that I’m not a
politician but the truth needs to be told
that I have known Buhari since 1960. He
passed through the school that I also
attended. He sat for his Cambridge/ WASC
examination and came out with Division 2. He then joined the Army, rose to become
Major General and Head of State.” The Defence Minister spoke in response to
the dust raised by the initial inability of
Buhari to present his school certificate to
the Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC, thereby setting off a
firestorm of disapproving comments from a broad spectrum of Nigerians, even as
many others stoutly rose to his defence
over the matter. Gusau wondered why the old students
association of the school, had not
promptly risen to defend Buhari over the
allegations. “We had just formed an association of old
students of Katsina Provincial School,
right from when it was a Middle School till
date. And His Royal Highness, the Emir of
Katsina, who is an ex-student of the
school, invited some of us as the rep­ resentatives of different sets, to his palace
and we decided to even form a secretariat.
I thought that the secretariat of our
association should have clarified the
status of Buhari’s certificates long before
it took this dimension, Gusau said.” He recalled that he met General Buhari in the
Katsina Provincial Secondary School when
he was enrolled into the School in January
1960, the year Nigeria gained Inde­
pendence. “General Buhari, at that time was in form
five. I stayed two years with General
Buhari at the school. They passed out in
1961 and we passed out in 1964. Buhari
had leadership qualities since secondary
school; in form five, he was a House Prefect. “Their set went up to form six but we were
the first set that finished school at form
five. Normally, out of those in form five,
the school authorities used to pick House
Prefects and when they get to form six,
House Captains were chosen from those who were House Prefects. In Buhari’s case,
he was a House Prefect in 1960 when we
joined. By 1961, when he was in form six,
he was chosen to be the Head Boy of the
School. “There were four Houses during our time
in the school; Magaji House, Kaura House,
Alkali House and Durbi House. Buhari was
the House Prefect of Magaji House in
1960, Justice Umaru Abdullahi was the
House Prefect of Alkali House, the late Mamman A Zango, who became a
policeman, was House Prefect of Kaura
House while the late General Shehu Musa
Yar’Adua was House Prefect of Durbi
House. By 1961, all of them became the
House Captains of their respective Houses but Buhari became the Head Boy.” source: sunnewsonline.com/new/?p=101751