₦airaland Forum

Dee60:
Afenifere cannot score 3 per cent of votes in Yorubaland.

The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) will lead the military to the North-East to fight the Boko Haram insurgents if voted into power on February 14, his running mate, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN), said on Monday.

Osinbajo expressed concern over deepening insecurity in the country and accused President Goodluck Jonathan of reneging on his promise to protect Nigerians.

Fielding questions from a group of youths at a town hall meeting in Abuja, the APC vice presidential candidate said Buhari as President and Commander-In-Chief would lead by example.

The town hall meeting held under the aegis of Act Now Professionals.

Osinbajo told the gathering how the Buhari-led government would end insurgency in the country, especially in the North-East states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.

He also explained how the APC-led government would rescue the over 200 female students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, seized since April 14 2014; equip the military and give the country a sense of protection.

Osinbajo said, “The first priority is security and to question what has gone wrong in the military. Then, funding the military adequately and ensuring that the Commander-In-Chief leads from the front. But when he was Commander-In-Chief, Buhari led from the front as a soldier. You cannot lead from the rear. You cannot fail to go to where the insurgency is taking place and that is what Buhari has been saying.

“I think that the major problem with the question of security is again that it was not prioritised by this government. It was not taken seriously enough from the beginning. When you have a situation, you do not politicise the insurgency like that. You do not point to the opposition and say it is the opposition that is sponsoring it until General Buhari almost lost his life when Boko Haram attacked him.

“We must start by understanding that there is a war going on in that part of the country and what the government need to do is to get the nation behind it, not pointing accusing fingers at wrong places.

“We need to look at the whole question of funding and equipping the military. The military at the moment is not equipped. I worked with Femi Falana on the mutiny of some solders and what is the complaint of those soldiers who were charged with mutiny? Their complaint is that they were not given equipment and they wanted them to go to battle. So, how do you say that? How does anybody think that you can fight the insurgents without ammunitions?”

The APC vice presidential candidate said that there would be no hiding place for perpetrators of graft as the country’s laws that forbid looting of public treasury would be activated.

According to him, the APC will run a transparent government where public officials would be accountable to the people.

Osinbajo said creation of jobs for the country’s youths remained on top of the agenda of the APC if elected into office.

“Jobs and creation of employment opportunities have been major issues in the manifesto of the APC,” he told the audience.

He re-echoed the party’s earlier promise that the Buhari-led government would place jobless and poor Nigerians on monthly stipends of N5,000 and N7,000 respectively.

“The idea is to take 2.5 million people out of poverty every year. We will give free healthcare to children. We will follow the example of Osun State where such has been done successfully,” he said.


http://www.punchng.com/news/buhari-ll-lead-military-to-fight-bharam-osinbajo/

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, has maintained that the commission cannot disqualify the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj.Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), even if he does not present his senior school certificates in the future.

Jega, who spoke on Wednesday night during an interview on a Channels TV programme, titled, Straight Talk With Kadaria, said those asking the commission to disqualify Buhari were free to go to court.

He said the Electoral Law permitted that if any presidential candidate cited any documents that he could not produce, he could swear to an affidavit.

On the eligibility of Buhari and the calls for INEC to disqualify him, Jega said, “When a political party presents a candidate and he meets all the requirements of submission -deadline and the forms- INEC cannot reject such a candidate.

“There is a provision that the candidates should provide documentary evidence of whatever qualification they have cited, but the law also permits that if you cite documents and you don’t have photocopies, you can swear to an affidavit and in this case, INEC by the provision of the section 31 of the Electoral Act cannot disqualify an appropriately nominated candidate of any party. We can deregister a political party, but the law says we must accept any candidate; it is a matter for the court, they are free to go to the court.”

The INEC boss also allayed fears over cloned Permanent Voter Cards, allegedly made to rig the forthcoming elections.

He said any cloned PVC would be detected by the card readers.

He said, “They can attempt to clone our cards but they cannot succeed. The card reader would detect any fraud. We are 100 percent sure that no cloned card will be used.”

Responding to a report that the Department of State Service had access to INEC’s database, Jega also dismissed the claims.

He said although the DSS approached INEC to carry out investigations on certain electoral crimes, the commission didn’t release the private data of voters to the DSS.

He said, “By law, we are supposed to protect the secrecy of the voters and we have a lot of information in our database. We have not made our database accessible to anybody. The DSS came to investigate, they asked questions and we are willing to assist any security agency to do a thorough investigation to determine whether there is a crime or attempt to commit a crime.”

Speaking about his plans after the end of his tenure in June, Jega said he would go back to teaching.

“I came into this job, I did my best. I think five years is okay for anybody to make a change and allow some other people to take over and do their best. I am grateful to the Almighty God who gave me the opportunity to discharge these duties well. I supervised the 2011 elections that were adjudged one of the best elections in the country. We are the only administration that has conducted two elections consecutively and we are doing everything possible to make all a success. I will return to teaching after my tenure ends.”


http://www.punchng.com/politics/inec-cant-disqualify-buhari-jega-insists/