kellysopy:

How are u sure Goodluck is gonna be sworn in as president till the next election. yaradua is immortal, he's gonna
bounce back soon to take his birth right and porbably contest in 2011.

Meanwhile, the former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Mike Aondoakaa, was also seen at the Abuja airport last night on his way out of the country.

He was said to be heading to somewhere in Europe “to rest” a day after he lost his high-profile job in a minor cabinet reshuffle.

ChinenyeN:

So then why are people saying Jonathan is Ogba, and then saying that he is Ogbia? I just want to be clear on which one he is.

9ijaprince:

Yaradua is gone for good. Lets focus on our acting president.

Timehin:

Oyb, my opinion is that yaradua is incapacitated but some powerful interests in connivance with SAUDI GOVT., PDP, SOME NORTHERN POLITICIANS decided to keep him incommunicado pending d next election so as to shop for a replacement.

mama-gee:

Yaradua is not news anymore, we want news about our acting president.

Presidency: crises not over-Good Governance Group
Written by Salihu M. Lukman
Thursday, 11 February 2010 10:49




By conferring on the Vice President Goodluck Jonathan the status of Acting President the National Assembly seems to have bowed to public pressure. Transferring presidential power to Goodluck Jonathan is the right thing to do. But the manner in which the National Assembly invoked Section 145 has not completely resolved the constitutional crisis. The federal legislators merely created a constitutional fiction to redress constitutional violation by President Yar’adua and members of his Kitchen Cabinet. While the legal and Constitutional basis of the decision to empower the Vice President are inherently flawed, the fact remains that Nigeria has taken a step back from the abyss by the legislators’ decision and the consequent assumption of Acting President by Mr. Jonathan. But the fear remains that this fiction may fail unless reinforced with reality of Section 144 of the Constitution.

As a group dedicated to the institutionalization of good governance at all levels, 3G believes that the only way to truly resolve the crisis surrounding the Presidency is for the Executive Council of the Federation (EXCOF) under Acting President Jonathan to as a matter of urgency and national importance, determine the exact whereabouts of President Umaru Musa Yar’adua as well as his exact state of health.

3G believes that the absence of President Yar’adua from the country for nearly three months without passing through the established procedure as provided in the laws of Nigeria is a clear breach of the Constitution that should not by simply brushed aside. It is a critical breach of security for a President of a country to be supposedly holed up in a hospital in Saudi Arabia without top government officials, including the Vice President and security chiefs, knowing his whereabouts. It is also disheartening that a resolution of the Senate to President Yar’adua to send to it a letter of vacation received no response and the Senate did not bother to inquire whether the resolution was delivered to the sick President.

If the President Yar’adua is incapacitated and therefore unable to send a written memo as required by the Constitution, then it raises serious questions about criminality and duplicity that demand answers. For instance, who signed the supplementary budget? Who has been authorizing presidential decisions in the name of President Yar’adua for 78 days? Have the security Chiefs made efforts to ascertain the state of President Yar’adua? And who took the decision to not only keep the nation in the dark, but also embarked on a campaign of falsehood to misinform the public? These questions require urgent answers if our democracy is to survive and grow.

For the avoidance of doubt, the Good Governance Group hereby calls on the National Assembly pursuant to its oversight power under Section 88 of the Constitution and the Executive Council of the Federal under Acting President Goodluck Jonathan to urgently:
(1) Establish the exact whereabouts of President Umaru Musa Yar’adua and determine the exact status of his health;

(2) Identify the different persons behind the decision to transfer the President abroad and the various roles they may have played in misinforming the public;

(3) In the event that President Yar’adua is considered medically unfit or incapable of carrying out the functions of President, to declare him so and swear in Acting President Jonathan sworn in as President and Commander-in-Chief.

In the meantime, the Good Governance Group calls on the Acting President to recognize this moment as a transformative moment and redeem the promises of electoral reform and war against corruption which President Yar’adua thoroughly compromised. The Good Governance Group offers the Acting President a hand of fellowship at this defining moment to move fast and unwaveringly towards comprehensive and genuine electoral reform that will ensure that Nigerians have a real opportunity to effect genuine and democratic change of leadership at all levels of government in 2011. The Good Governance Group will continue to mobilise Nigerians to demand democratic accountability and constitutional governance at all times.
The struggle continues.

Salihu M. Lukman
Group Organizing Secretary

ChinenyeN:

Okay, some people here are saying Ogbia, some are saying Ogba. Which is it? and which one is Jonathan from?

ziddy:

If the 'Ibo' is not a synonym for a fraudulent & greedy man why are you guys hurriedly claiming the Ogbia people for yourselves now? simply because Jonathan is now Acting President.

From my knowledge of the Ijaws, they tend to give their kids any names that catch their fancy regardless of tribal/language differences. Ask Jonathan the meaning of 'Ebele' you'll be surpised he doesn't even know

Thugs hired by Charles Chukwuma Soludo, governorship candidate of the PDP, today attacked election observers accredited by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The attack took place  early evening at Barn Hotel, Awka where the election observers as well as Mr. Soludo are lodged.
Soludo’s thugs unleashed physical assault on the monitors when the leader of the election observers, retired Colonel Bello Fadile, became suspicious after he noticed some people filling out accreditation forms in the hotel bar. The forms are only meant for INEC-accredited poll observers, but Mr. Fadile saw that the group had 300 forms that were being filled out. Fadile accosted them and asked who gave them the forms. They asked who he was and he explained that he was the leader of INEC’s election observer team. Realizing that they were in trouble, the group told Fadile that they got the forms from Soludo’s campaign team. They also disclosed that Soludo and his deputy were lodged in the hotel.

Fadile and another observer, Femi Aduwo, immediately called in the police to arrest the group. Unknown to Fadile, Soludo’s team had also called for reinforcement.

The moment the police arrested the group with the forms, Soludo’s thugs surrounded the election observer team as well as the police and unleashed a savage attack on them. Fadile's clothes were torn while Aduwo received a machete cut on his head before the police rescued them.

At the height of the assault, some members of the election observer team called Soludo’s room to appeal to him to intervene, but the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria refused to show up. Instead he sent his deputy who appeared and asked the observers to run for dear life, stating that the Soludo campaign “has no control over our boys.”

The police managed to spirit the observers to the state CID office in Awka where they are still sequestered at the time of writing this report.

Wale Fapohunda, one of the members of the observer team, told Saharareporters that their group made disturbing discoveries from Soludo’s thugs. He told our reporter that the State CID seized and is possession of the “accounting records” of the Soludo thugs, which includes how Soludo plans to pay off DPOs in Awka in order to enlist law enforcement officers in rigging tomorrow’s governorship election.

Late last night, two highly reliable sources told Saharareporters that Mr. Soludo, who amassed a huge fortune during his tenure as CBN governor, had paid $5,000 as bribe to each INEC administrative secretary. The sources revealed that the bribes were paid through INEC commissioner Victor Chukwuani who met with the administrative secretaries yesterday.

INEC chair Maurice Iwu was not seen at the meeting, but our sources said he gave his blessing to the distribution of Soludo’s largess. Mr. Iwu has been avoiding being served with copies of a court ruling that INEC, as presently constituted, lacks the constitutionally mandated quorum to organize elections.

INEC currently has only four commissioners instead of 13. Five commissioners are required to form a quorum, but Mr. Iwu, whose tenure should have expired last year, refused to allow Ishmael Igbani from Rivers State to rejoin the commission’s board even though Mr. Igbani was reappointed, presented to the Council of State, and cleared.

A source at INEC told us that Iwu (with Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa’s support) blocked Igbani’s name being sent to the Senate for approval. “Professor Iwu does not trust Igbani to go along with his games,” said the source, adding that Iwu “feels more comfortable wheeling and dealing with Chukwuani and Philip Umeadi Jr. who are his lackeys.”

Saharareporters also learned yesterday that Chris Uba, younger brother of the Labour Party governorship candidate Andy Uba, was coordinating the last minute doling out of bribes on behalf of his brother at his house,  number 7 TY Danjuma Street in Asokoro Abuja. Our source said Mr. Andy Uba, an aide to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, had voted N1.3 billion to buy as many voters cards as possible and also to bribe polling officers.

Our correspondent in Anambra reports massive police presence throughout the state ahead of tomorrow’s ele

Sam Milla:

i m not sure the man is still breathing,