I am not suprised at your comment. But surely you sound more inteeligent than that Governor Nyarko not minding whether or not he has been a Naval or Airman officer. Most in the The Nigerian Armed forces including officers got to where they are historically because of contacts and connections.

I will let ordinary folks on this forum try to listen to that Governor from Adamawa, you will be shocked. A friend actually calls me yesterday at this Northern Governors meeting on AIT. He should have been speaking his local dialects rather than English. He is pathethic, infact an illiterate and quite frankly a disgrace to Nigeria. If that is your Governor that makes you an idiot for calling southerners idiot

Compare that to Aliyu banbangida, he doesn't speak Queens English but very coherent, intelligent and thoughtful. Although I am not surprised because he went to proper school and got a PHD.

For the North to progress, you need a lot of Aliyu babangida- Niger state Governor.

You will find that your comment is the one that is stupid once you have the opportunity to watch Gov. Nyarko speaks like a drunkard. He is the one with  2 'first ladies' attending diffrent functions.

That smarts isn't it.
***
Vigasimple,

unfortnately your reply makes me believe (by your own criteria) that you are pathetic, speak like a drunkard and should be speaking your local dialect rather than English. your english in that reply simply cannot be judged by any to be up to standard.

if you knew anything about the armed forces, you would know that no kind of connection would get you to the most senior rank. secondly, Nyako joined the military long before Nigeria succrumbed to the politics of 'i know who'. (At this point i would also like to add that you and everyone in your town only got your jobs because of connections,  see how silly that sounds?)

what, i have to say, i have always found curious about southerners is their belief that one's ability to speak english is somehow a determinant of their ability to govern or even prosper in life (now, that really IS the definition of pathetic).

you speak so highly of the Niger state governor, do you realise that about two months ago he awarded Nyako with the highest award bestowable by a state governor for Nyako's 'outstandable performance as a former governor of Niger state'?

Nyako does not speak english so your 'super-charged, southern intelligent brain' could never comprehend that.  

But remember my friend, those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. when you learn that 'very coherent, intelligent and thoughtful' way of speaking english after you attend 'proper school and get a PHD' come back here and critisize.

In the mean time, can you please tell us what makes Nyako a bad governor rather than why his english is such a disgrace to this country?

(by the way, i have heard him speak english several times on TV and other than his very thick fulani accent, it sounded a HELL of a lot better than yours,  no offence meant). not that it was (or would ever be) my criteria for voting in a governor.

vigasimple:

The governor of Niger state is a very educated and intelligent man and I take it that he took offense in the statement of 'the North being a parasite on the south on oil'.

Whether or not that the North is a parasite on the oil is one isssue another is the statement. we should all avoid statement that are inflamatory.


The truth is a that a lot of our brothers and sisters in the North need more education as the governor has rightly pointed out including the Governor of Adamawa state. If the governor of Adamawa is what they can produce as a Governor up north, then they have a long way to go.


The oil issues is one of the way the Niger Delta are trying to fight back as the local people did not see much benefits in what is being extracted from their backyard and fantastic development is happening in other areas especially in the North. That is what the unfairness which lead to that statement- which in my opinion is highly inflamatory.

As of today, well over 90% of our income is from oil, so the North can make more noise than they like, the fact remains that it is this oil monies that is propping their govt.


The south south will not need to go to hell with the Oil, the north should stop taking Federal allocation and allows the south south to have them for their own development. By the way I am not from the south south. so I am being objective.


Two wrong does not make a right, both are two extreme statements. we should be finding a way to work together not against each other.

what a very stupid comment to make.
have you been to the state and seen what he has accomplished especially compared to his predecessor?

not only did he rise to be a chief of naval staff, he is a very respected rtd admiral who did a great job as governor of Niger.


and please can you tell us how amazing your own state and governor are?

i am sick and tired of some southern nigerian idiots who seem to think they're better than everyone in the north.
we did vote for him and are proud of what he's doing.

when your state is up to standard then you can come back in here and make noise, for now please stick to what you know, that just so happens not to be Adamawa.

lol.

i thot it was one of those foolish jokes on this site.
this is damn right WEIRDDD.

no wonder their standing is terrible amoungst white supremist. they're so confused.

'to hate or not to hate?'

texazzpete:

@zillaxy
Righteous indignation is no substitute for common sense. i also live in Nigeria, and i can tell you what every Nigerian over three years old (apart from you) knows; The police are often crooked, true, but their presence there prevents total anarchy from happening.

they cause the anarchy where i'm from.
maybe ur from the niger-delta (or other the war zones) because in other places they are the root of the trouble.

or maybe age just isn't a good mark of common sense? (surely even 4 yr olds know that.)

i'll vote for a United States of Nigeria first, thank you very much.

or should that be United Tribes of Nigeria?

toshmann:

arm everybody, armed robbery will collapse. . . . . . .fine.

arm everybody, violence will rise. armed robbery will go down but people will kill for the minutest reasons.
a woman will cheat her husband and he gets annoyed and gbam!!!!!!!!! e don happen.
a student will fail an exam 2 times and he'll go to the lecturer and threaten him. he fails again and gbam!!!!!!!!!!!e don happen.
2 touts de fight for motor park and gbam!!!!!!!!!!!e don happen.
two students quarrel over a girlfriend and gbam!!!!!!!!!!!!!e don happen.
police go do their work and in the process annoy a group of university students then police officers go begin disappear one by one.
judge go try case for court come give judgement against someone and then gbam!!!!!!!!!!!!!e don happen. while armed robbery goes down, violence will rise. imagine university riot where students carry arms. hehehe
una forget say naija no even get common cctv to monitor security in case of any event

Ditto.
Toshmann and Ify i so agree with u guys, this is the point so many fail to understand. guns DO NOT make people safer.

4 Him:

what a very silly idea. The police at present is ill-equiped to battle crime and you want to disarm them so robbers can now have a field day?
The real irresponsible crooks are those your brothers in power who loot the nation and leave the police poor and unable to do their jobs because they can't get fuel to run their cars, bullets to arm their weapons and enough salary to boost flagging morale.

®Th£ Sly®:

What a shitload of bunkums!!!!
Ok then when they have been disarmed. . . .they would be using your teeth to combat robbers right?

oh please! how many times do i have to tell the 'american wonders' to shut their mouths when people who ACTUALLY live in Nigeria talk.
unlike you, i talk from experience. it would be great if u could do the same.

i have been in a bus park when a police officer killed two people. the first guy for not handing over his marijuana, the second for daring to protest.
my darling aunt was robbed, the next day she went to the station to report it (she's the only person in nigeria i know who has ever done such a silly, useless act) and guess who was an officer there? the leader of the pack.
how many times in Nigeria have people been killed by the police for nothin? not too long ago in Abuja six Igbo kids (early twenties) got massacred by the police coz a girl in the group didnt want anythin to do with a senior officer (he asked her 'out' i.e wanted to have a sexual relationship with her).

almost everytime i travel within the country, the police stop me for the 'dash' i'm supposed to have ready for them. i wont comply but for the fact my driver once had a gun pointed in his face. the stories are uncountable. even during the riots in Kaduna, the police would come to houses just after the riots and arrest boys only to send word for their parents to pick the dead body! lets not forget all the atrocities committed when the police get sent to 'calm' a situation down in towns in central Nigeria.

how dare u start to lecture me about police in MY country?

nobody is saying morale is not low, and i pray to God that is tackled but until that happens do not give despirados guns! coz guess what? with no system to monitor or check bad behaviour this is precisely what u get. innocent nigerians killed by power drunk savages!

the UK, and almost all European countries have special units who are armed but the average policeman does not have a gun. they are much safer countries and the crimes generally get solved. obj stupidity in arming officers allowing them to intimidate, commit crimes or sell their guns to criminals is of concern to alot of NIGERIAN. but seeing as u are not one i dont expect u to understand what we are going through in my country.

noicemaker o~shi!

1 gun per thousand should be what we strive for.

disarm the extremely irresponsible group of crooks called the police, and our troubles will be sorted.

Dis Guy:

so how many Nigerians do you know that will willingly accept a single bedroom dingy house
that is basically put together with pre-fabricated materials?
even as a gift??

i think if u had actually read the article u wud not respond this way.

the point isn't just the make shift houses they are building now (which by the way after massacres in nigeria, many would welcome) but also the speed they are rebuilding the 'concrete' houses. by june!
how many nigerian govt have built houses for the poor in 2yrs? much less under 2 months?

New town springing up in quake-hit province
Workers promise homes for 20,000 by July in wake of Chinese disaster A survivor of the May 12 earthquake in central China walks past newly constructed temporary housing in the earthquake-hit area of Dujiangyuan, Sichuan province, on Tuesday.

The challenge of rebuilding China
May 27: NBC's Ian Williams reports on how one village is trying to recover following the China quake.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By Jill Drew
LEIGU, China - With as many as 14 million earthquake survivors in urgent need of housing, China is beginning to rebuild from scratch.

It is doing so in places like this mountain plain in Sichuan province, where workers are erecting a new town of blue-roofed homes for 20,000 people. Construction got underway here late last week, less than three miles from Beichuan, a town wiped out in the 7.9-magnitude quake.

Fields of wheat and corn have been overrun with earth-moving equipment as construction crews assemble long rows of cookie-cutter houses with walls of Styrofoam sandwiched between two pieces of sheet metal. Builders vow the new homes will be ready by the end of June.

Would-be residents began arriving over the weekend. Originally from nearly two dozen villages scattered around Beichuan county, the people were bused here from an emergency shelter at a sports stadium in nearby Mianyang city. Among the first earthquake survivors to be moved to what is expected to be a permanent relocation site, they are living for now in a sea of government-provided tents next to the construction zone.

Finding room to build
Beichuan, nestled in a sliver of valley surrounded by mountains, will not be rebuilt because authorities deem the area too hazardous. Nearby Leigu, however, is situated along a broad, fertile expanse farther down the valley. Before the earthquake, it was a farming town of 18,000 residents. Most of the homes here, as in Beichuan, collapsed in the earthquake, and 1,000 people died. But the fields provide space to build, and now Leigu's survivors will have to make room for new neighbors.

The one-room dwellings are being built in caterpillar-like lines of 14, each 65-square-foot home attached to the ones next to it. There will be electricity and running water, but current plans call for every two homes to share a tap. Every 50 homes will share a bath house and a kitchen. The floors will be hard-packed dirt covered by plastic.

"It's not realistic to have concrete, attached floors at this point," said Wang Di Sheng, a government official from Jinan, the capital of Shandong province, which provided the materials and is supervising the construction of 7,000 houses for the local authority. The dwellings are supposed to last up to three years while the government constructs a permanent community here.

Though spartan, these portable homes are a step up from the tents and tarps that have been the main shelters for millions of people displaced by the quake. China's top leaders have urged manufacturers and construction crews to rush production of the homes, as the rainy season begins and threatens to turn hundreds of tent cities into swamps.

Construction is quick. It took about 24 hours this week for a 10-person crew to put up one row of homes. First they erected a metal frame. Then they slid the walls and windows into pre-fabricated grooves, tightened screws and reinforcement rods. Then they fastened down the metal roof parts. Wiring and plumbing come later.

Eziachi:

You seems to be political party minded, I am neither AC or PDP, I am only making a truthful observations. If Maurice Iwu/INEC are brave enough to award over 200k voteS to AC, it shows that AC could actually had won the election without rigging and malipulation of figures as always. INEC results in PDP wins are not knows to be always a close one, the difference winning figure and losing figures always miles apart. Like Yar Adua getting 27 million votes while his nearest challenger got just 7 million or 5 million. That is my point.

If you have personal issue with Atiku, as it seems, that is your cup of tea, as I don't see how election he wasn't a candidate has to do with him or his popularity, when his greatest nightmare in Maurice Iwu happens to be the referee again. Only a fool will believe that any party that Atiku belong to has any chance in hell to win when they are all out to settle scores with him from Marwa to Sen Zwingina, Senator Aminu, Bafyau etc, plus Maurice Iwu himself. Only a fool will believe that any party will win the so called cancelled election re-run when PDP/INEC are conductiing it.

It was like when Shehu Shagari, we were told beat Azikiwe in the old Anambra state during the 1983 election, which even a day old child will find laughable. In that same year NPN also claimed that they won Ondo and Oyo state against UPN. In your estimation, that is a measure of Zik and Awo in that elections?

u implied that i was a fool because i have clearly made my position clear.
so i said u are the fool since u didnt do any research and clearly have not been to Adamawa before but reduce ur comments to the typical 'Nigeria will never be good enough for anything' nonsense that fills this forum.

so because i'm not willing to lie and say i was a keen observer of an election that took place before i was 15 suddenly i'm a clueless 10 year old?
intelligent, knowledgeable discussion is the key. dont make assertions to facts (more like fiction in this case) when u dont know much about the topic on hand.

i didnt mean to call u a fool by way of insult i just pointed out that only a fool would take that much of a bizarre view point.

lucabrasi:

don't tell me you're having cold feet now man,u know more about adamawa than i do,all i ask is that u be objective and say both sides negatives i.e both ac,pdp and the rest as im sure they v all messed up for the state to be like that
cmmon now it seems kind of tho that atiku lost his ward,local government lol its like a james bond film

so,fire away and don't keep anything back,

i will get to it when i'm done with my exams. have been really busy plus have another tomorrow at 9.30. wish me luck!

i dont know anything about the 1983 elections, i was not old enough to follow it.

i'm in the middle of my exams so can't write much but what i will say is that u sound like the fool here. sorry.

if u want a good response, do a bit (even the smallest bit) of research and then post some concrete facts. simply saying INEC rigged it becoz AC didnt win is not only a tired arguement but a ludacris proposition to boot. from what u say, i gather u believe the election would have been a lot more believable if INEC had infact rigged it and PDP had won a landslide? becoz the votes reflected that AC do have a substantial amount of supporters it means the PDP and INEC were brave enough to rig the polls?

AC contend they did infact lose the election but only becoz they were disadvantaged by the way the ballots were printed. they proclaimed that all the voided votes were theirs and talk above the unfairness of the elections through out the country. Yet, the judiciary loving party decided not to challenge the results for the lamest reasons.

the reason they did not win is not just becoz they are not popular with the 'bigwigs' in Adamawa but becoz they are very unpopular with the people. the only scores settled where between 'The People v Atiku and his Croonies' and the People won.

i have no party sentiments but certainly a strong anti-corruption sentiment and will not heap praise on or support someone who has shown disdain and total disregard for not just the people's will but their plight. If u start doing the same Nigeria would be a better place.

Big B1:

Very impressive post indeed.
You're a good man!

hahahaaa. nicely said!
big boy stuvs.
nuff respect.

sheniqua:

There are "prayers" from Kano and Katsina already facing the east asking him to come.
Alla'h al queda is finally coming to the rescue
and I'm sure there's a lot of rejoicing in some quarters

i'm sure there is nothin to worry about. the christian 'god' (lol) will save u.

oh please! Nigeria's always like to 'fill amoung'.

if Al~Q is stupid enough to blow anywhere in naij (say the american embassy) then i think it may actually be a good thing as the stupid people who support them would realise how crazy that org is. remember the backlash of the kano nonsense last year? most people there said 'no thanks' we're used to killing our own people, we dont need external help'. the blood thirsty people dont like their 'enemies' killed by others.

bawomolo:

why can't nigerian farmers handle competition, trade protectionism doesn't make sense.

clearly this is not a fair competition. poor nigerian farmers are moved and not supported while foreigners get everything they demand. how is that fair? how is that competition u expect them to fight off?

more like trade protectionism for the white farmers.

this article annoyed me on so many levels. i had to stop about 3 times just to let my blood cool.
things like:
'with guaranteed 24-hour power and irrigation to the farms' just highlight the continued african inferiority complex that will forever cripple this continent.
has any Nigerian ever been guaranteed this?

why is the govt making so much of an effort for these people to succeed when in kogi state nearby where we have expert- have been doing it for generations- tomato farmers, not a single borehole has been sunk? they have to walk for miles to get the water for their farms but still have huge yields. no capital to buy huge industrial freezers means the crops are left to rot. a big basket of tomatoes goes for as little as N150 when in Abuja nearby u can buy 5 tomatoes for the same amount.

the govt has all but ignored the farmers in OUR COUNTRY while they have bent over backwards - and lets be honest here- for these men simply becoz they are white. if the black farmers from zim came today no one will jaa them face. they are getting credit from our banks- anyone ever try this and see how impossible it is?- which are underwritten by the kwara state govt??!!! GOD!

furthermore, coming from a large farming community i can say that the govt takes our farmers as jokes. fertilizers dont arrive until late may when the farming season starts in early april. why o why? why can the govt have initiatives to help nigerians succeed? y couldn't they even hire these 'experts' as consultants or field agents to teach our people skills?

olrotimi:

you seem to be an anti atiku man,i still don't see the mathematics that makes. Atiku loose at home except the election was re-rigged

i see the pessimists are out in full effect.

believe anything that helps u sleep at night my friend. i'm sure Atiku does.
the simple fact is that AC did not win.

racism is never justified.

by the way in naij we say chinco not chinks!

they are here to milk us like the oyimbos before them.

ok. fire away so i can see what u mean. what kind of comments etc. i dont want to start ranting.

i just searched for the results by LGAs but can't find it any more. i'd seen it on nigeriaworld.com
as a good objective citizen of Adamawa state, i now declare all the voided votes to be AC votes. lol.
201767 + 126000 = 327767. they won the elction! oh wait, PDP had 361,729? ow AC tough luck. u still lost anyway.


however, came across this article. the elections intrigues and tactics get more and more bizzarre.

Adamawa: Maimangoro and his battle with AC

Murtala NyakoThe usual intigues that politics in Adamawa State is noted for, again, played out between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Action Congress (AC) in last Saturday’s re-run governorship election, writes Acting Group Politics Editor, Idowu Samuel.

Politics of Adamawa State has always evoked strong passion, given the manner the players attend to it. The state’s politics is played also with overwhelming intrigue, the kind of which has made the ordinary politician in the state the most alert and most informed. The people of Adamawa State demonstrated much of the political intrigues and wizardry with the governorship re-run election which held last Saturday in the state.


The state governor, Admiral Murtala Nyako, was more at the receiving end of the political intrigue woven by the opposition parties to clip his chances of winning the re-run election. It was evident that Nyako had followers, so also was the Action Congress (AC) which paraded Ibrahim Bapetel as its governorship candidate. However, Nyako’s supporters devised an ingenious means of widening his popularity. In fondness of him, they nicknamed him maimangoro. There was a reason for that.


Nyako tends the largest mango orchard in the entire West African sub region. So prosperous was the mango orchard that he found it easy exporting the fruits to neighbouring African countries. And record says that South Africa happens to be the largest importer of mango from Yola. Prior to his advent in politics, Nyako had been a very successful farmer, so much so that his admires felt that his joining politics had been an anathema to the zeal he has had for farming.


Nyako’s supporters, thus, decided to make mango the symbol of their support for him. At campaign grounds, each of them would clutch a mango fruit and then begin to shout sai maimangoro. Initially, doing that was a big fun for supporters of the governor until they suddenly discovered that the opposition group had all along planned to turn it into a misfortune for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).


How? The use of mango as a symbol for Nyako’s support had hardly gained acceptability in the entire landscape of Adamawa State when those suspected to be AC die-hards began to move round and painstakingly educating voters that they should never forget to look for mango in the ballot papers and then thumb-print. They were doing so in disguise as PDP members. In the ballot papers designed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), there were many political parties which symbols looked like mango fruit. Incidentally, most voters in Adamawa State could easily get confused due to their low level of enlightenment. PDP members suddenly found out that intriguing weapon and had to abandon the main campaign for Nyako to counter the perceived misinformation being peddled by their opponents. They moved round enough to educate their own members never to bother about looking for mango in the ballot papers, but umbrella which is a symbol of the PDP.


Incidentally, the PDP was to fight back in a jiffy. Having mastered the terrain of Adamawa, members also devised their own deadly intrigue. This time, they went to the local government areas which they were sure haboured the greatest numbers of the uneducated AC loyalists. Few days to the election and even on the election day, the PDP members encouraged these voters to stamp their thumbs on the right hand side of the ballot papers and in the column third from the top to cast their votes. Doing that would mean that the voters would ignorantly be voting for MRDD. The party, which did not present a governorship candidate for the re-run election, occupied the right hand slot being the third party from the top on the right hand side of the ballot papers. Funny enough, the treachery by the PDP supporters worked. It was only on the election day that the AC knew that it had been most viciously short-circuited. Even then, the AC did not come to that reality until the whistle was blown for end of voting.


By the time counting of votes started, the AC realised that it had the largest number of invalid votes. Indeed, the number of votes certified as invalid by the INEC almost totaled 40 per cent of the overall votes cast. It was part of the reason both the AC and its governorship candidate, Bapetel, declared the results of the election as announced by INEC unacceptable. In rejecting the election results, the AC governorship candidate alluded to the design of the ballot paper as one of the reasons. He said “in the election held yesterday, the INEC presented voters with a ballot paper that was clearly designed to put the AC in jeopardy. The ballot paper was designed in such a way that many voters who thought they were voting for the AC ended up printing on the edge of the slot of the MRDD, a party that had no candidate in the election.


“Besides, many of the snatched ballot papers were thumb-printed for the MRDD to create the impression that the election was decided by voided votes. These explained the unprecedented high number of invalidated votes in the election. Never in the history of elections in Nigeria had we such a great number of ballot papers returned as invalid.” Interestingly, the AC is not bracing up to go to court to once again challenge the result; neither has it given up the game as meant only for the PDP. As far as the opposition party was concerned, the battle had just begun. Before the election, the keen interest of the former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, had variously been brought into the front burner. Atiku too did not take the issue of the election lying low. He fought hard to establish a strong foothold in the politics of Adamawa State if only to make a big political statement. Weeks before the election, Atiku had pitched a camp in Yola from where he directed the operations of the AC for winning the election.


On the election day, Atiku told journalists that the election was not about him and the PDP, but about the AC and the PDP. It was a statement meant to exonerate him from the possible loss of the election by the AC. Even then the manner the AC lost the election was a telltale of what had gone wrong with the party both at the federal and Adamawa State levels. Before the governorship election, it was an open talk in Adamawa that Atiku, through the former governor of the state, Boni Haruna, never gave a good account of himself. Haruna ruled the state for eight years uninterrupted and left the people of Adamawa State to wonder what he had made of it. To the electorate, therefore, the transgression of Haruna could only be visited on Atiku, the godfather. Even, members of the AC seemed to have shared the view as they began to recount the reasons behind the party’s loss at the poll.


However, no member of the AC would agree that the end has come for Atiku in the contemporary politics of Nigeria and Adamawa State. Their consolation seems to lie in the ability of Atiku to retreat and fashion out a new beginning in his world of politics. His new beginning could then mark the beginning of another era in the politics of the state, all things being equal.

it did on April 26.

Adamawa state baby.

Nyako all the way!

Eziachi:

For the fact that Maurice Iwu, Nigeria police and INEC managed to award over 200 thousand votes to AC, means that AC could had won that election with more than 30% of the vote.

[s]In PDP/INEC elections in Nigeria, it is a fact that every 18 votes for PDP always translates to 18000 in the end at the INEC office.[/s]

please can u explain the first part a bit clearer? how would AC have won the elction? all bodies INCLUDING the international observers present agreed that the elections where the fairest in recent times. y do people keep making excuses for an unpopular party?

they lost fair and square just accept it. people prefered the PDP in this case. did u see the crowd for Nyako re-swearing in? it said it all. he's VERY popular in the state.

WTF? this post is , ?

Nigeria: Adamawa Ministry Staff Operate Under Trees

Daily Trust (Abuja)

27 April 2008
Posted to the web 28 April 2008

Staff of the Adamawa State Zonal Information Centre in Mubi, now operate under trees due to the lack of office accommodation.The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the roof of the office complex allocated to them has been blown off, and the premises taken over by reptiles as a result of years of neglect.

With the commencement of rains, the staff relocate temporarily to the Mubi Area Social Welfare Office, anytime it rains. The Mubi Area Information Officer, Mallam Umar Bellel, told NAN that the situation had been like that for the past seven years.

He attributed the poor state of the office complex to neglect by past administrations in the state's ministry of information.

Bellel said, "Some officials of the ministry visited the area in February and promised that something would be done. It is our hope that the present government will do something about the problem of office accommodation. We need a good working environment to effectively do our job of enlightening the people of the border area on government policies and programmes."

lucabrasi:

common now,you don't expect them to say yes we accept just like that, it was not a hundred percent free and fair but over all it was an ok result and im sure thats why they have said they will not challenge it in court,lets wait till they release their own collated figures and then we will see if it makes sense or not on the whole i believe that GOD has dcreed who will win and on this ocassion he has decreed that nyako is it, since they have said they are not challenging it in court that is the only way they can say it publicly that they have accepted the results and in adittion have signed it

i'm definitely waiting for the 'evidence' to emerge.
it'll be nice if they actually have secret footage of electoral fraud! maybe inec officials askin for bribes or ballots being stuffed! becoz anything short of that wont be dat believeable. simply saying 'these are our results' wont satisfy anyone.

not 100% but over 95%- which is still high.

but ur right. i'm hoping for too much, too soon.

i wish we could take credit for Bent but i dont think we can.
people didnt know she was yoruba until after the election and also the PDP machine helped her big time.
actually come to think of it the senetorial zone is quite liberal - southern zone. its quite possible she won it despite her tribe (hum, who knows)

i dint know that guy was only 37 wow! and a state like lagos too. well done to him. can i ask what his achieving, i've lost touch with lagos politics since moving away.

we are definitely thinkin of ways to impact lives thru grassroot action and mobilisation, but we find lack of education to be a big hindrance. its not goin to stop us though.

u have to remember this is nigeria we are talking about. northern nigeria for that matter.

what can u reasonably expect us the youth to do? majority are jobless hence penniless and a very large number are uneducated. even though some complain they have no idea what can be done to make things better. we will definitely try and do our parts but in the current climate there is really little we can do. but we will try. ur right our voters are very aware but police brutality can subdue even the hardest.

but we will fight our fight when the time is right. lets just wait and see what Nyako achieves (or doesnt achieve) before we sharpen our claws.

let time tell with AC, we will be watching what they do.
but watching PDP a lot closer of course.

PDP wins Adamawa guber polls again
• Monday, Apr 28, 2008
Former Governor of Adamawa State, Mr. Murtala Nyako of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has re-emerged as the Adamawa State Governor-elect after the re-run election held in the state last Saturday.

According to the Returning Officer, Dr. Abdul Bulama who announced the result yesterday, Nyako polled 361,751 votes to defeat his Action Congress (AC) counterpart, the major contender of the race, Mr. Ibrahim Bapetel who polled 201,752 votes.

The Labour Party Candidate, Joel Madaki who spoke with newsmen after the announcement of the result said he had no option than to accept the defeat, since they say the victory came from God.

Mr. Madaki, argued that since no one can challenge God, the best thing was to accept in the result good faith.

Reacting to the victory the PDP National Chairman, Prince Eze Vincent Ogbulafor said it is a mark of hardwork by the PDP in Adamawa State.

Meanwhile, the governor-elect, Mr. Nyako has promised to work with all in the state, irrespective of their political parties, for the betterment of the common man.

It would be recalled that the re-run election was necessitated by the cancellation of the election of PDP’s Murtala Nyako in the election of April 14, 2007 by the Court of Appeal, citing non-inclusion of the AC candidate as the reason.

Nigeria: PDP Reclaims Adamawa

This Day (Lagos)

28 April 2008
Posted to the web 28 April 2008

Chuks Okocha and Matthew Onah
Yola

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in the re-run Adamawa State governorship election, Admiral Murtala Nyako (rtd), yesterday coasted home to victory as he defeated his rival, Alhaji Ibrahim Bapetel, of the Action Congress (AC).

Dr Abdul Bulama, the Resident Electoral Commis-sioner in the state, who was also the Returning Officer, declared that PDP won in all the 21 local governments of the state.

Nyako beat other 11 contestants by polling 361,729 votes. His closest rival, Bapetel, scored 201,767. Joel Madaki of the Labour Party (LP) came third with 7,360 votes.

Nyako was removed by the Court of Appeal which upheld the decision of governorship election tribunal, which nullified his election on the basis of Bapetel being unlawfully excluded from April 14, 2007 election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Bulama said that the state had a total of 1.3 million registered voters, out of which 701,196 were valid votes and 126,272 were rejected or "invalid".

As the results were being announced, the streets of Yola and Jemeta erupted in jubilation in support of Nyako.

Street urchins on motorbikes celebrated Nyako's victory with acrobatic displays.

The defeat of Bapetel is seen in political circles as an indirect defeat of his political sponsor, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the former vice-president and the presidential candidate of AC in the last general elections.

According to the Electoral Officers from the local government areas of the state who presented the results of the election, there were pockets of skirmishes.

For instance, the Electoral Officer in Hong Local Government, Y. Ayuba, said electoral materials were snatched by thugs, with INEC officials kidnapped and the original copies of the results taken away, but the results were compiled based on other copies of the results in possession of security agents.

He said only two party agents - from the PDP and AC - signed the copies of the collated results.

The same case of thuggery was witnessed in Gombi Local Government, as the Electoral Officer, Johnson Bagudu, said in one of the units in the council, the Presiding Officer was abducted. The result of the polling units was eventually cancelled.

The Electoral Officer in Mubi North, Salihu Nyahu, said that results in two polling units were cancelled as a result of violence and thuggery, while in Jada Local Government, the home local government of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Electoral Officer, Musa Usman, said the result of the election was only signed by the PDP agent, as the AC and other agents of other political parties were not around when the collation was completed.

Also, in Guyuk and Shelleng, the Electoral Officers said that results in two polling units where ballot boxes were snatched were cancelled.

In Michika Local Government, the Electoral Officer, Julius Yagba, said thugs snatched the ballot boxes at the Junior Secondary School, Machika, and in an encounter with security agents, some of the thugs were killed. Others, he said, were critically injured. This, he said, did not affect the outcome of poll in the local government.

The votes cast for the candidate of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) were cancelled as the thumb printings were done in-between the spaces provided on the ballot papers.

Nyako, in his acceptance speech, congratulated INEC for conducting a "transparent election" and praised the PDP chieftains for uniting behind him for the poll.

He also thanked the people for "renewing the mandate" given to him last year and promised to continue from where he stopped by continuing with the basic necessities of life. He commended all the parties for making the election peaceful.

Among PDP chieftains with him were Senator Jibril Aminu, Senator Grace Bent, Gen. Buba Marwa and Chairman of North-east PDP, Senator Paul Wampana.

However, AC has criticised the outcome of the election, saying it was "auctioned to the highest bidder".

The party described the poll as "yet another big farce with the result sold to the highest bidder by the very institutions charged with conducting a free and fair election".

In a statement issued in Yola yesterday by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, it said that never in the history of elections in Adamawa State has one party ever won all the local government councils given the diversity and plurality of values, religion, ethnic and cultural mix of the state.

The so-called victory by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) did not reflect the true wishes of the Adamawa people who trooped out in large numbers to vote for the AC and its candidate in the election, Ibrahim Bapetel. The results declared by INEC did not reflect what happened on the ground throughout Adamawa State on Saturday. In due course, the AC will provide its tally of the results from all the polling stations and Nigerians will be shocked by the depravity of the PDP-led Federal Government," he said.

The party added that once again, "the PDP government has shown its determination to foist a one-party rule on Nigerians by rigging itself to power in every state of Nigeria. The sham re-run election has also proved the hollowness of the government's much touted electoral reform, rule of law and war against corruption. We expect the PDP, INEC and their accomplices to dismiss us as bad losers.

"But by the time we release the full and sordid details of what transpired the public auctioning of Adamawa State governorship seat, Nigerians will be shocked to their bone marrows at the complicity from the highest echelons of government, the PDP, INEC and other institutions entrusted with the conduct of the election. However, we wish to assure our teeming supporters and all true democrats worldwide that all attempts by the INEC and the PDP-led Federal Government to humiliate the AC and its leaders as well as the country's judicial system which ordered the re-run election and defined the parameters for its conduct will fail ultimately.

"Nigerians need, and indeed richly deserve, an opposition party and an alternative to the monstrous and greedy behemoth that is the PDP. The AC is fully prepared to play this role. The party wishes to restate its confidence and continued support for its leader and presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and its governorship candidate in Adamawa State, Ibrahim Bapetel. The struggle to enthrone true democracy in Nigeria is a long and difficult one and the AC is ready for the long haul. The party will continue to resist all efforts to make our dear country a one-party state."

In the same manner, Bapetel said that the ballot papers were designed to rig the election in favour of PDP.

In a statement, Bapetel said: "The ballot paper was designed in such a way that many voters who thought they were voting for AC ended up printing on the edge of the slot of the MRDD, a party that had no candidate in the election."

He also accused PDP of being behind the snatching of ballot boxes, stating that this explain the unprecedented number of invalidated votes in the election, explaining that never in the history of elections in Nigeria that it witnessed about 20 per cent invalid votes.

Bapetel, however, said that he and his party, AC had resolved not to challenge the outcome of the election in the court, as the "PDP has turned into a vicious circle and we have decided not to make ourselves part of this circus any longer".

talk about sore losers. if all the voided votes had been added to them, they still wouldn't have won.

all the snatched ballot boxes' votes were voided to avoid problems of exchange of the box but even with that all voided votes came up to about 120 and aomething thousand. still plenty margin for an Nyako win.

furthermore, we did have an election that a party won all the local govt areas. it was the 2003 election. under the watchful eyes of Boni, Atiku and the then PDP (now all AC members) we saw a CLEANSWEEP, super landslide victory of Atiku and his boys. the lowest they scored was 93% of the vote!!! someone even published a book about the fiasco.

they can't appeal because even if ALL the voided votes went to them they still wouldnt have won. their excuse is a very bad one.

i look forward to the day when a main opposition in an election concedes defeat.