LEST WE FORGET BUHARI ONCE STANDS ON BOKO HARAM!.

While speaking on Liberty Radio programme, Kaduna, in February 2014, General Muhammadu Buhari charged the Federal Government to stop the clamp down on Boko Hara...m as its operations tantamount to an injustice against the North.

He recalled that in the days of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the late president ensured peace by conveying leaders of the Niger Delta militants to Abuja to talk and ensure peace in the region.

But, according to him, “ everybody knows that the Boko Haram leader was arrested and killed.

We all know that in times of crisis, the police should do their work and it is only when such crisis escalates that the military comes in and they don’t round up the crisis community and kill everybody.”

Is it suggestions like these that the fight against Boko Haram is anti-North and hence, the fear that he would be denied Northern votes, that are holding back the hands of President Jonathan from giving Boko Haram the type of thorough trashing that they deserve

200 Igbo lost to Boko Haram -IWA

The Igbo Welfare Association, a socio-cultural association for indigenes of the five South eastern states residing in Borno State, on Saturday said Boko Haram activities had claimed the lives of over 200 Igbo till date.

The group also alleged that the ethnic group had suffered loss property worth millions of naira to the crisis, which started in 2009 and has yet to abate.

The President General of the association in Borno State, Chief group Maclaw Nwaogu, said this while delivering his speech at the inauguration of the new executive and award ceremony of IWA on Saturday in Maiduguri.

Nwaogu appealed to Governor Kashim Shettima to look into the plight of widows and orphans of Ndigbo and other non-indigenes, some of whom had had to leave the state but still carrying the burden of the loss of their breadwinners to the Boko Haram insurgency.

He also called on the governor to fulfill his promise of renovating the association’s hall, which was vandalised by the insurgents.

“In addition, we remain very appreciative when, in your first tenure, you offered us free transport in a season like this. Shortly after that, it’s like the security challenges have affected that gesture. However, with the cream of new Igbo leadership, we call on you to remember our numerous members, who want to travel home to spend this year’s Christmas.”

“It is pertinent to bring to your notice that internally displaced people of Igbo extraction are being catered for by Igbo Welfare Association.

We are appealing to your government to help us remedy the situation,” the association president added.

The leader of the socio-cultural association promised to carry everybody along in managing the affairs of the group

Nigeria Is Allah Gift To The Fulani

'When I say that the Presidency must come to the north next year I am referring to the Hausa-Fulani core north and not any northern Christian or Muslim minority tribe.

The Christians in the north such as the Berom, the Tiv, the Kataf, the Jaba, the Zuru, the Sayyawa, the Bachama, the Jukun, the Idoma, the Burra, the Kilba, the Mbula, and all the others are nothing and the Muslim minorities in the north, including the Kanuri, the Nupe, the Igbira, the Babur, the Shuwa Arabs, the Marghur, the Bade, the Bura, the Igalla, the Zerma, the Bariba, the Gbari and all the others know that when we are talking about leadership in the north and in Nigeria, Allah has given it to us, the Hausa-Fulani.

They can grumble, moan and groan as much as they want but each time they go into their bedrooms to meet their wives and each time they get on their prayer mats to begin their prayers, it is we the Fulani that they think of, that they fear, that they bow to and that they pray for. Some of them are even ready to give us their wives and daughters for one nights sport and pleasure. They owe us everything. This is because we gave them Islam through the great Jihad waged by Sheik Uthman Dan Fodio.

We also captured Ilorin, killed their local King and installed our Fulani Emir. We took that ancient town away from the barbarian Yoruba and their filthy pagan gods. We liberated all these places and all these people by imposing Islam on them by force.

It was either the Koran or the sword and most of them chose the Koran. In return for the good works of our forefathers Allah, through the British, gave us Nigeria to rule and to do with as we please.

Since 1960 we have been doing that and we intend to continue. The Igbo tried to stop us in 1966 and between 1967 and 1969 they paid a terrible price. They were brought to heel and since then they have been broken.

No Goodluck or anyone else will stop us from taking back our power next year. We will kill, maim, destroy and turn this country into Africa's biggest war zone and refugee camp if they try it.

Many say we are behind Boko Haram. My answer is what do you expect? We do not have economic power or intellectual power. All we have is political power and they want to take even that from us.

We must fight and we will fight back in order to keep it. They have brought in the infidels from America and the pigs from Israel to help them but they will fail. The war has just begun, the Mujahadeen are more than ready and by Allah we shall win.

If they don't want an ISIS in Nigeria then they must give us back the Presidency and our political power. Their soldiers are killing our warriors and our people every day but mark this: even if it takes one hundred years we will have our revenge.

Every Fulani man that they kill is a debt that will be repaid even if it takes 100 years. The Fulani have very long memories''-

Aliyu Ismaila Gwarzo is a former Head of Nigerian State Security Serivce.

Fault lines: The North And The Born To Rule Problem – By Lawrence Chinedu Nwobu

”When I say that the Presidency must come to the north next year I am referring to the Hausa-Fulani core north and not any northern Christian or Muslim minority tribe. The Christians in the north such as the Berom, the Tiv, the Kataf, the Jaba, the Zuru, the Sayyawa, the Bachama, the Jukun, the Idoma, the Burra, the Kilba, the Mbula, and all the others are nothing and the Muslim minorities in the north, including the Kanuri, the Nupe, the Igbira, the Babur, the Shuwa Arabs, the Marghur, the Bade, the Bura, the Igalla, the Zerma, the Bariba, the Gbari and all the others know that when we are talking about leadership in the north and in Nigeria, Allah has given it to us, the Hausa-Fulani.

They can grumble, moan and groan as much as they want but each time they go into their bedrooms to meet their wives and each time they get on their prayer mats to begin their prayers, it is we the Fulani that they think of, that they fear, that they bow to and that they pray for. Some of them are even ready to give us their wives and daughters for one nights sport and pleasure. They owe us everything. This is because we gave them Islam through the great Jihad waged by Sheik Uthman Dan Fodio. We also captured Ilorin, killed their local King and installed our Fulani Emir. We took that ancient town away from the barbarian Yoruba and their filthy pagan gods. We liberated all these places and all these people by imposing Islam on them by force.

It was either the Koran or the sword and most of them chose the Koran. In return for the good works of our forefathers Allah, through the British, gave us Nigeria to rule and to do with as we please.

Since 1960 we have been doing that and we intend to continue. The Igbo tried to stop us in 1966 and between 1967 and 1969 they paid a terrible price. They were brought to heel and since then they have been broken.

No Goodluck or anyone else will stop us from taking back our power next year. We will kill, maim, destroy and turn this country into Africa’s biggest war zone and refugee camp if they try it. Many say we are behind Boko Haram. My answer is what do you expect? We do not have economic power or intellectual power. All we have is political power and they want to take even that from us. We must fight and we will fight back in order to keep it. They have brought in the infidels from America and the pigs from Israel to help them but they will fail. The war has just begun, the Mujahedeen are more than ready and by Allah we shall win.

If they don’t want an ISIS in Nigeria then they must give us back the Presidency and our political power. Their soldiers are killing our warriors and our people every day but mark this: even if it takes one hundred years we will have our revenge. Every Fulani man that they kill is a debt that will be repaid even if it takes 100 years. The Fulani have very long memories”-

My attention was recently drawn to the above tirade written by no other than the former national security adviser Ismaila Gwarzo and published in the NVS http://nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/articles-comments/85402-nigeria-allah-s-gift-fulani.html . The arrogant, condescending and utter nonsense written by no less a person than General Sanni Abacha’s former NSA is neither new nor surprising, it is just another confirmation that Nigeria’s core North is suffering from a severe mental disorder better described as the born to rule disease. From Ahmadu Bello, Balewa and other first republic political leaders from the North, such mindset and rhetoric has always been their disposition towards Nigeria. Ismaila Gwarzo and others like Junaid Muhammed, Ango Abdullahi, Murtala Nyako, Adamu Ciroma amongst others who have made careers out of abusing and threatening other Nigerians are all following Ahmadu Bello’s legacy of bigotry. Since they are so obsessed with an unbridled quest for power, one wonders why they haven’t opted to secede and create Arewa republic which remains the best and only option for them to actualise their born to rule caliphate uninterrupted? Perhaps that option has not come into consideration because it will deny them crude oil money to loot and other ethnic nationalities to oppress.

Gwarzo boasts of violence which also is not new. From 1945, 1953, 1966 to date Northern leaders like Gwarzo have thrived in sponsoring violence against other Nigerians. This is what has evolved into the Frankenstein in Boko Haram. The idea that the North or Hausa-Fulani are born to rule is beginning to be the product of mental health disorders that is bound to lead to the eventual decimation of the core north. Not even the British colonial masters who had overwhelming military powers ever considered themselves born to rule. Indeed they eventually handed power to Nigerians. It leaves one to wonder how the Hausa-Fulani hopes to accomplish what the British could not. In terms of demographics a combination of the Hausa and minority Fulani makes up just 29% of the population while the Yoruba and Igbo roughly make-up 40% of the population according to the CIA world fact book. Of Nigeria’s three largest ethnic groups two are From the South. Indeed the Ijaw which is considered the 4th largest with 10% of the population according to CIA world fact book is also from the South.

The Hausa plus Fulani does not make-up a majority of Nigeria’s population, as they remain roughly within the same population threshold as each of the other two largest ethnic groups. So one wonders how the Hausa-Fulani who as the article by Gwarzo clearly demonstrates has no regards for other Northern minorities and Christians hopes to further and sustain their born to rule intentions? Most importantly; even if the Hausa-Fulani were to constitute an absolute majority of Nigeria’s population is arrogating to themselves the born to rule arrogance the way to build a nation? Is it not common sense to realise that a diverse and heterogeneous multinational state like Nigeria needs nation building/equality and not a born to rule mindset by any group? In Ghana the Akan ethnic group make-up 47% of the population but they have never gone around parading themselves as a born to rule group. Various ethnic groups in Ghana have freely produced the president without any let or hindrance.

In India the Hindu’s make-up 80.5% of the population constituting an absolute majority but they have not constituted themselves a born to rule group. The immediate past president of India Manmoham Singh is a Sikh which constitutes only 1.9% of the Indian population. Other countries even where some ethnic or religious groups form an absolute majority have been able to build their nations and create harmony by de-emphasising tribe/religion and enthroning equality, but in Nigeria the Hausa and non-native Fulani that do not constitute a majority have continued to harass and abuse the nation with their born to rule nonsense. This is the same Hausa-Fulani that vigorously campaigned against a sovereign national conference on the basis that they want to preserve Nigeria’s unity. I wonder how constituting themselves a born to rule group and constantly harassing, threatening, abusing and even killing other Nigerians can be a reasonable method to preserve Nigeria’s unity?

The Hausa-Fulani and core North constitute Nigeria’s greatest faultlines.They have ruled Nigeria unmeritoriously and destructively for more than 40 years since independence but just for once that a president from the Niger-Delta whose resources they depend on to survive has accidentally come to power they have practically taken up arms to remove him from power. Their opposition to Goodluck Jonathan is based not on policies or bad governance but wholly on ethnicity/religion. How do they intend to sustain a multi-ethnic nation with such obvious discriminating behaviour? The core North has simply made it impossible for Nigeria to become a true nation because of their warped born to rule mindset and penchant for enthroning apartheid, marginalisation, injustice and oppression. It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that it was the decade’s long abuse of power by the North that led to the clamour for and introduction of zoning. Other multi-ethnic countries don’t practice zoning. If the Hausa –Fulani had allowed a level playing field on the basis of justice and equality Nigeria would have had no need for zoning. Politically, economically and socially Nigeria is paying the price for the corrupt, discriminating and malevolent leadership of erstwhile Northern leaders who created the bankrupt system we are still grappling with.

In 2000 twelve states in the North introduced Sharia laws in a vulgar violation of the secular constitution. Riots emanating from this abject abuse of the Nigerian constitution led to the deaths by official estimates of more than 20,000 people. These constitute amongst others the systematic abuse that the core north has repeatedly subjected the nation. There have been two major attempts to break-up Nigeria the first by Odigmegwu Ojukwu the second by Gideon Orkar and both because of the excesses of the core north. The core North in the past and present thus continues to constitute the fault lines and conditions that are leading to agitations and attempts to break-up the nation. Indeed, underlying the calls for a sovereign national conference is the desire by the advocates to provide a peaceful opportunity to separate from the core north or at least change the oppressive domineering system created by them.

Militant and separatist groups such as MEND, MASSOB, OPC and others exist because of injustices engendered by Northern leaders. If the core North does not cure themselves of their born to rule disease and begin to invest in nation building; centrifugal and centripetal forces will continue to be galvanised in due course to stage a third major attempt to break-up Nigeria. No people can perpetually opt to be part of a nation where they are reduced to inequality and slavery by an arrogant, insulting group that refuses to subscribe to the basic and universal tenets of justice and equality for all within the nation. The nation is now so fragile; weakened by decades of injustice, misrule, discrimination and ethno-religious divisions that no soothsayer is needed to determine that any major attempt to break the nation will succeed this time and like past incidents it will be because of the North.

The Gwarzo’s of this world by their bigotry and nonsensical rhetoric are only making it easier for those intent on sending Nigeria to the grave. If he and his co, travellers are wise they should begin to retrace their steps from the treacherous paths they tread before it’s too late.

OAU Students Deny Booing And Stoning Jonathan

*Fault Sahara Reporters, The Nation on false reportage

The President, Students Union Government of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Mr. Isaac Ibikunle, has described as falsehood the report in some quarters that students of the university hurled stones and other missiles at President Goodluck Jonathan during his visit to the campus on Friday.

The SUG president spoke in an interview with our correspondent in Osogbo on Saturday. He said that students of the university insisted on discussing with Jonathan on the increment of the fees charged by the school and the President obliged.

He said, “We read some reports that the President was stoned, booed and harassed when he came to our campus. This is not correct. “Security personnel initially prevented us from seeing the president but we insisted that we wanted to discuss with him and we were allowed to see him.

“We told him that the increment was too high, and gave him a petition concerning the exorbitant fees and he assured us that he would act on it fast.

“I asked Mr. President to come down from the car and address us and he came down. He is our president, we did not harass him.” Ibikunle added that the President was even hailed by the students and those present when his helicopter was taking off at the university’s sports Centre.

He also said that no traditional ruler was embarrassed contrary to the reports in some online media. Some Yoruba leaders held a summit at the Oduduwa Hall of the OAU and Jonathan was invited as a special guest of honour at the event, which had the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade and other prominent obas and Yourua leaders in attendance.

US responsible for two-thirds of all military conflicts – Russia’s top brass

US interference in the internal affairs of countries around the world has brought neither peace, nor democracy, said Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister. America’s double standard experiments in supporting terrorists are provoking further destabilization.

“Think of it, over the last decades the US initiated two-thirds of all military conflicts (worldwide). Call to memory, how it all turned out in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria,” Russia’s deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said, addressing colleagues from the Southern and Southeast Asian states in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

“Using social and economic difficulties, various ethnical and religious conflicts and under the pretext of spreading democracy, Western political spin masters add populist slogans to the fire of public discontent, provoking mass disturbances,” he said. “As a result, a lawful government is taken down, chaos, abuse of power and lawlessness spread, people die, and in some cases a regime favorable to the West is brought into power. Of course, terrorists feel comfortable in such conditions.”

Antonov called on the US authorities to “give up double standards in the implementation of counter-terrorist measures” and stop dividing terrorists into good and bad ones. Read more

Buhari IS MENTALLY UNSTABLE TO BE A PRESIDENT.- Umana

The former Secretary to Akwa Ibom State Government Mr Umana Umana, who has a desire to dump to the All Progressive Congress (APC) has lashed out at the APC leader General Muhammadu Buhari, describing him as mentally unstable.

According to the Elombah, Umana who made his conclusion known over a release titled, “Buhari is too unstable to be President”, described APC leader as a savage whose favourite images for the nation which he wants to lead is always death, anarchy and destruction.

Mr Umana while defining Buhari as an tyrannical leader, said, “When Buhari became a military head of state on 31 December 1983, he told the world in his maiden press conference that he had a score to settle with the Nigerian media, which led to the subsequent arrest of numerous journalists in the country during his reign.’’

The embattled former Secretary to Akwa Ibom State Government continued in the media release recognized by his Press Secretary Iboro Otongaran that, “the combative general is not just vindictive; he also loves to throw mud around, calling everyone else corrupt and incompetent.’’

He pointing APC leader as religious fanatic. Mr. Umana said Buhari once called on Muslims to vote for only Muslims in the country, and added that, “Buhari rejected the national identity card project, arguing that it was not in the interest of the North.” Umana discharged Buhari as neither patriotic nor competent. He accused the retired General of involvement in the on-going Boko Haram saga in Nigeria.

Meanwhile some analysts believe that Umana’s arrival at APC is simply to fulfil his egoistic desire of governing Akwa Ibom State, and since he had no respects for the PDP, he simply does not owe any leader in APC any sense of gratitude.

Umana is due to previously announce is defected to the APC this Thursday at a ceremony in Asan Ibibio, and billed for attendance is Gen Buhari, Senator Bola Tinubu, Governors Fashola and Oshiomhole among others.

General Buhari who is a Presidential Candidate under the platform of APC had already contested twice for the Presidential position but lost on both occasions.

Muslim body alleges Jewish symbol on new N100 note

*says only Arabic and Muslim signs should be only the currency
A Muslim body, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has expressed concern over what it termed a Jewish symbol on the country’s new N100 note.

The new N100 note was unveiled to Nigerians recently by President Goodluck Jonathan in commemoration of Nigeria’s 100 years’ anniversary.

However, MURIC, in a statement by its Director, Professor Ishaq Akintola, alleged the insertion of a Jewish symbol into the new currency, demanding explanation from the Federal Government.

It said its office had been inundated with calls by those who had observed the symbol.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Akintola said it was paramount for the government to urgently address the issue. “The Federal Government, on November 12, 2014 unveiled the new design for the N100 commemorative centenary banknote which will be officially issued on December 19.

“However, the office of the Muslim Rights Concern has been inundated with calls for action on the Jewish symbol on the new note. Nigerian Muslims are complaining that the Arabic writing in Hausa language (the Ajami script) that read ‘Naira Dari’ (i.e. one hundred naira) on the N100 note has been removed and replaced with the Jewish symbol, the Star of David.

“As a faith-based human rights organisation which believes in the dialogue option, MURIC is duty bound to articulate the demands of Nigerian Muslims, particularly on matters which have to do with imbalance in treatment of the adherents of the different religions governments (federal or state).

“MURIC recalls that Arabic inscriptions which have always been on Nigerian currency since independence were unceremoniously removed in 2005 from N5, N10, N20 and N50 denominations. They remained on N100, N200, N500 and N1,000 denominations. “Nigerian Muslims regard the latest action, namely, the supplanting of Arabic with Jewish symbol from the new N100 as a continuation of the campaign of elimination by substitution against Arabic language and, by implication, against Nigerian Muslims.

“It is well known that a large section of the Nigerian population use the Arabic Ajami and removing it from the new note will deprive millions of users of the Arabic Ajami of the ability to recognise, identify and use the new currency. “Furthermore, putting the Jewish symbol on the new N100 falls short of international standard, as currencies worldwide are designed to suit each nation’s culture and history.

“Where does the Jewish symbol fit in? Which Nigerian community speaks the Jewish language? The insertion of the Jewish symbol is, therefore, clannish and parochial. It is tainted with undisguised religious fanaticism.

“There is nothing wrong for our president to like Israel as a nation, but it is another thing entirely to openly and brazenly promote Zionism at the highest office in this country when we are still struggling with the last vestiges of colonialism. Nigerian Muslims are becoming increasingly suspicious and very uncomfortable with the actions and inactions of President Jonathan.

“Firstly, in spite of the preponderance of Muslims in the South West, he appointed no single Muslim as minister in the whole region for almost four years. Secondly, he marginalised Muslims in the deliberations which took place in the national conference by appointing a meagre 189 Muslims as against 303 Christians.

“Thirdly, Mr President saturated the security system in Aso Rock with Israeli security operatives, a nation well known for its animosity towards Muslims. The supplanting of Arabic language with Jewish symbol is the fourth among Jonathan’s anti-Muslim policies.

“If once is happenstance, if twice is a coincidence and if the third time is enemy action, what do we call the fourth time? We are sick and tired of our president’s hatred for us.

He openly confronts Muslims and goads us to challenge him.

“But we will not be provoked. Neither shall we be intimidated by executive maladministration. As apostles of dialogue and advocates of peaceful coexistence, as tax-payers, voters and citizens of this country, we hereby ask President Jonathan to explain the Jewish symbol on Nigeria’s money.

“We also demand to know why the presidency could not employ security experts from neutral countries like Britain or France instead of Israel, which is a sworn enemy of Muslims. Mr President may also deem it fit to tell us if there is no correlation between the Israeli security experts in Aso Rock, the Israeli caught with Nigeria’s N9.3 million arms money in South Africa and the Jewish symbol on the new N100 note.

“Mr President sir, are you not gradually selling Nigeria to Israel? Are you sure this will not attract the wrath of Israel’s enemies to our dear country? Can this also be partly responsible for the viciousness of the Boko Haram phenomenon? “MURIC appeals to Muslims nationwide to await President Jonathan’s response to the above questions and to remain calm and law abiding. Islam teaches tolerance (Qur’an 3:134) and obedience to constituted authority (Qur’an 4:59),” the statement read

Somalia's al-Shabab kills 28 non-Muslims in Kenya

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels, Al-Shabab, attacked a bus in northern Kenya at dawn Saturday, singling out and killing 28 non-Muslims, Kenyan police said.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack through its radio station in Somalia saying it was in retaliation for raids by Kenyan security forces carried out earlier this week on four mosques at the Kenyan coast.

Nineteen men and nine women were killed in the bus attack, said Kenyan police chief David Kimaiyo. Read more

Failed rigging plot and 30,000 polling units: Jega threatens southern commissioners .

CAVEAT: The expose on INEC is not about personalities; but about the need to ensure that an enduring process based on equity and fairness is bestowed on the nation.

At a time when Nigerians were just heaving a sigh of relief that, at last, Professor Attahiru Jega, National Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, yielded to the voice of reason by suspending the controversial allocation of the additional 30,000 Polling Units, PUs, there are strong indications that there is yet no retreat no surrender on the part of those pushing an agenda to use INEC as an instrument of rigging next year’s general elections.

This fresh discovery by Sunday Vanguard is going to the wrought through the instrumentality of the distribution and allocation of voting materials on the day of election (read logistics). That is not all.

The main drivers of the Commission are also set to redeploy Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, of northern origin to the South to handle the 2015 elections because of the belief that some RECs in the South did not go along with the disguised rigging plot based on the lopsided allocation of the PUs. Already, Jega has sent out a threat to the RECs in the South.

Professor Attahiru Jega, National Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has issued a query laden with an ultimatum to Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, in some southern states of Nigeria.

This is not unconnected with the failed attempt by some individuals at the Commission, who misled its Chairman, to create additional 30,000 Polling Units, PUs, which were then shared in a most bizarre manner, giving the North over 21,000 and allocating a little over 8,000 to the entire South of Nigeria.

A copy of the query, in the possession of Sunday Vanguard, is seething with rage.

Issued on November 11, 2014 – the day the Commission bowed to national pressure on the lopsided allocation of the PUs – it was signed by Jega himself.

Dependable sources at the INEC Zambezi Street headquarters in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, disclosed that “shortly after Tuesday’s stormy meeting, the Turks who have remained adamant in their own vision and mission of how next year’s election should be determined, made the Chairman understand that he needed to demonstrate that he was in charge”.

How the man believed to be cerebral, energetic and visionary as well as integrity-filled allowed himself to become a tool in this unfolding drama may be a mystery psychologists would have to conduct a research into.

The query was titled, ‘QUERY FOR REFUSAL TO SUBMIT REPORTS ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF RECONFIGURATION OF POLLING UNIT STRUCTURE AND CREATION OF ADDITIONAL POLLING UNITS’.

It read: “The Commission, by letter dated 16th October 2014, directed all Resident Electoral Commissioners to submit your respective reports on the reconfiguration of Polling Units structure and creation of Polling Units on or before 30th October, 2014.

“At the Commission Meeting today, 11th November 2014, it was observed that you have refused, failed or neglected to comply with the above directive within the deadline given or since then”.

That was not all. The query then set an ultimatum as follows: “The Commission has directed that you explain, in writing, the reasons for your conduct within 7 days from the date of this letter.

“Yours sincerely, “Professor Attahiru M. Jega, OFR Chairman.”

For those who may not have been following the reported hidden agenda in INEC, the “reports on the reconfiguration of Polling Units structure and creation of Polling Units”, which Jega referred to in his query are nothing more than the warped allocation that an INEC Commissioner in Abuja described to Sunday Vanguard as “meaningless and ungodly”.

Indeed, the said memo was issued after an inconclusive meeting on how to proceed.

The memo itself, sources further disclosed, did not set out any particular criteria on how to establish the PUs but, rather curiously, expected the RECs to fashion out the execution of an agenda they are not a part of. Interestingly, the RECs in the North carried out “their master’s wish”.

However, because the agenda was meant to peddle false altruism hinged on a supposed need to get PUs closer to the electorate, daylight came upon Jega’s magic.

HOW INEC BROKE THE LAW INEC is in breach of the law. Section 42 of the Electoral Act is the legal basis for the creation/allocation of units. The Section specifically refers to Registration Areas (RAs) as the basis for creating PUs. The creation of new PUs on state basis is faulty and contrary to the law.

For the purpose of clarity, Section 42 states: – “The Commission shall establish sufficient number of Polling Units in each registration area and shall allot voters to such Polling Units”. Therefore, INEC has no legal basis for proposing to use criteria such as the unexplainable ratio of 85%,15% as well as additional 121 polling units to all states on the basis of equality of state because where the Constitution stipulated equality of state such as three senatorial districts, it was clearly written.

Not using the RAs as prescribed by law led to the now suspended inequitable and arbitrary allocation of PUs. There are 8,809 RAs in Nigeria, of which 4,611 (52%) are in the North and FCT, and 4,198 (48%) are in the South. If 30,027 PUs are to be created, using the appropriate legal requirement, RAs, it follows that 15,614 of these PUs i.e approximately 52%, should be allocated to the North and 14,413, i.e approximately 48%, should be in the 17 states of the South. This is the only legal, fair, just and equitable distribution that will be acceptable, using RAs as stipulated by law.

IN JEGA’S OWN WORDS It would be recalled that shortly after his assumption of office, one of the early steps taken that started the process of restoration of public confidence in INEC, before the nationwide voters registration, was Jega’s declaration that it had commenced the process of verification and relocation of PUs nationwide to ensure that PUs in the homes, compounds, places like Okija Shrine, traditional rulers/emirs palaces, and places of worship were relocated to open and accessible public places. This was commended by Nigerians who know that truly PUs were located in the premises of powerful politicians and these were used to rig elections.

After the 2011 elections, the Chairman of INEC, in his keynote address on the role of editors during elections, at the 7th All Nigerian Editors Conference (ANEC, Benin 2011), on Thursday, September 22, 2011, further confirmed what his Commission had told Nigerians when he said: “Before embarking on the registration of voters, the Commission established the exact location of PUs throughout the country and verified the number to be 199, 976 – which is 24 short of the 120,000 that was on record”.

What should be of serious concern to Nigerians is the revelation from the meeting of last Tuesday where the PUs’ proposal was suspended.

At the meeting to consider reports from the states, almost all the states from the North each presented reports of relocation of over 1,000 PUs from inappropriate locations to accessible and open places whereas the states in the South did not have such reports. There are questions Jega must, therefore, answer, in the light of this revelation:

*How do Nigerians reconcile this revelation of this new relocation of inappropriate location of PUs in the northern states if it had been done in 2011 as publicly declared by INEC as noted previously? *Does this mean that these states did not carry out this directive prior to the 2011 elections and voting took place in those places? *Could it be that after the 2011 elections, these thousands of PUs were returned to these inappropriate locations warranting this relocation now? *Does the absence of such reports from the South indicate that it was carried out as at that time and there was nothing to relocate again? *What does INEC intend to do with these revealed and identified PUs that hitherto had been in secret or inappropriate places given the suspension of the PUs creation exercise? To now properly situate the malady in INEC’s northern flank, please read carefully Jega’s announcement of the suspension of the allocation of the 30,000 PUs: “The Commission met today and reviewed reports from the State Offices on Reconfiguration and Creation of Additional PUs.

The Commission decided, in view of time constraint and the controversy over the matter that is overheating the polity, to: 1) suspend the creation of new PUs until after the 2015 general elections; 2) continue with the existing practice of using Voting Points to decongest PUs; 3) as much as possible relocate all PUs in unsuitable locations to more suitable locations and 4) ensure that as much as possible PUs in open spaces are moved to classrooms or suitable enclosures, such as tents.

Formal communication will follow asap. Best regards.” Now these posers:

*If the directive to move PUs to another location is carried out just two months to election, what name shall it bear now? *How would this change to another location be reflected on the register of voters that bears the old names? *What happens to the PVC that bears the codes of the locations already given to voters? *What happens to those Guides to Polling Units that INEC normally gives to journalists and election observers – would these sudden changes be reflected? *How would voters know that their PUs have been re-located when these same apathetic voters, despite INEC’s publicity, have not responded impressively to the collection of PVC? *Above all, except for inappropriate location of PUs, has INEC thought of the reaction of stakeholders (political parties, election monitors, journalists, et al) to this idea? THE SUPER COMMISSIONERS INSIDE INEC There are three National Commissioners at INEC who can be described as operating like Nigeria’s post-civil war Super Perm Secs. These three people were the ones who pushed, last Tuesday, for a hard line against RECs from the South. Their offence was that they failed to go along with and be complicit in the lopsided allocation of PUs. The suggestion was first put forward by Hajia Amina Zakari.

But you need to understand these individuals: *Engr. Nuru Yakubu This very intelligent individual hails from Yobe State in Nigeria’s North-East. He is at the head of the team that provides the intellectual content. However, starting from failed delimitation and review of wards to the controversial lopsided allocation of the 30,000 PUs, using invidious criteria of an unexplainable ration of 85% and 15% that gave the North more, there seems to be a driving force.

He is reputed to be very ambitious – there is no crime in that. But there is said to be mutual suspicion between him and Jega.

INEC insiders disclosed last week to Sunday Vanguard that as close as both men are, this ambitious disposition made the Chairman not to allow him act on his behalf whenever he is not on seat. Again, it was revealed that some elders had to call both Jega and Yakubu to quench what was being perceived as a rivalry in view of the power game ahead of 2015. So far, Yakubu has done well in advancing the cause of the job he appears to be set out for at INEC.

Last Tuesday, Jega empowered him with the headship of the Committee of Logistics in addition to the Operations Committee that he heads.

By this development, Yakubu is now effectively in charge of the heart and soul of the 2015 elections.

This even becomes more egregious because if a man has tried to set a template of PUs distribution in a manner that presents the impression that the North must by all means lord it over the South of Nigeria, to now hand him the responsibility of logistics, election materials and staff deployment, what guarantees are there that the same South of Nigeria would not be de-supplied election materials on election day? Worse still, the Nigerian Constitution mentions “substantial compliance” and not full compliance when issues of election disputes are taken to court. All these are happening despite the fact that Jega has no executive power but his colleagues have all surrendered to him and are treated like mere staff of INEC and not equals wherein the Chairman is just the first.

Hajia Amina Zakari She once worked with Gen. Muhammadu Buhari at the PTF and is referred to at INEC as “Madam Know All”.

She is described as a National Commissioner who wants to do the job of everybody. This is a complement in a situation where things may appear not to be moving in the right direction. But determining the right direction in the light of a shambling and shambolic election management body may itself be foggy.

Even though she was the chair of election and political monitoring committee until last Tuesday when she was reassigned, she took charge of the recruitment exercise carried out last year whereas she was not the head of the Human Resources Committee that led previously by Mrs. Thelma lremiren who was removed by Jega ahead of the recruitment exercise to pave the way for alleged northern control of the recruitment of new staff into INEC. *Amb. Mohammed Wali An ardent promoter of the previous allocation of the PUs, he never gave up until the policy was reversed last Tuesday.

JOB FOR HIRE The further empowerment of the northern Turks to organize and control the 2015 elections creates the anxiety that this may be another phase of the project which motivated the lopsided PUs creation that has polarized the Commission along regional lines because it allocated to the North-West 7,906, the North-East 5,291, and the North-Central 6,318, while it allotted to the South-West 4,160, South-South 3,087 and South-East 1,167 and the FCT 1,120 which led to the following clear disparities: * 11 out of the 12 states which got over 1,000 new PUs were in the North * States such as Katsina, Kano, Niger, Kaduna and Zamfara, just like the FCT Abuja, EACH got more new PUs than the entire South-East.

* INEC prepared new facilities for over 500,000 new voters in 11 states in the North and only Lagos in the South * Borno and Yobe States, with over 400,000 internally displaced persons who have moved to several states in the Middle Belt and South, got 1,333 and 790 new PUs allocations, respectively, when peaceful states with larger numbers of eligible voters in the South from data used by INEC got nothing. The clear inequities, which the issue raised, led to several actions to stop the creation of the new polling units by prominent leaders in the South-West, South-East and South-South including a challenge in court brought forward by the Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, led by Chief Fredrick Fasheun.

Currently, it is doubtful if INEC has actually put the matter to rest to concentrate on the important issues of the Permanent Voter Cards distribution and Continuous Voters Registration process which have been bedeviled by scheduling failures.

As at the time the Commission suspended the creation of the new PUs, Jega had indicated in a national newspaper interview that the new PUs had not been created and there was no evidence to show that INEC used the reports submitted by some RECs to any effect.

Today’s INEC, courtesy of Jega leadership attitude and the northern Turks around him, has become so polarized that the fairness of next year’s general election may suffer integrity discount.

National Commissioners are polarized along North/South faultlines and this goes all the way to RECs, the staff, National Assembly members, and even the Senate Committee on INEC. When the Committee sent the INEC boss a letter suggesting that the PUs allocation should be suspended, it was a few northern senators who counselled Jega to ignore the suggestion. Read more

Women protesting alleged rape by herdsmen block highway

Worried by the increasing cases of rape of old women and girls by herdsmen in Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State, aggrieved women, most of them victims from Irete community, yesterday blocked the Owerri/Onitsha express way to protest the alleged indifference of the authorities to the plight of the women.

The angry women called on the state government and security agencies to take immediate action that would put an end to the unwholesome practice.

The spokesperson of the women, Lady Gloria Chukwumezie, noted that they were compelled to embark on the protest to register their anger and to seek an end to the dehumanizing act.

She stated that several women from the community had been raped, manhandled and beaten up by the herdsmen while working in their farms, adding that a similar incident occurred few days ago when some women who went to their farmlands were severely raped by the same people.

The protest, which started early in the morning, lasted for hours, resulted in heavy traffic gridlock. It took the efforts of armed policemen from the state police command disperse the women.

The chairman of the transition committee of the local government area, Albert Okenwa, blamed the women for carrying out the protest against his instruction, stating that he had appealed to them not to embark on the protest.

When contacted, the Police Public Relation Officer of the command, Mr. Andrew Enwerem, who confirmed the presence of armed policemen at the scene, said the policemen were drafted to stop the women from taking the laws into their hands.

NO FILTER: AN AFTERNOON WITH KIM KARDASHIAN

If you know nothing else about Kim Kardashian, you know that she is very, very famous. Some would say that's all you need to know. At press time, she has 25 million Twitter followers, about a million less than Oprah Winfrey and nearly 5 million more than CNN Breaking News. Her Instagram account, where she is a prolific purveyor of selfies, is the site's third most popular. You can't walk through a supermarket without glimpsing her on a multitude of tabloids whose headlines holler about her relationships, her parenting style and the vicissitudes of her ample curves. But she has also graced the covers of highbrow fashion bibles like W and Vogue; with her now-husband, Kanye West, she appeared on the latter above the hashtag #worldsmosttalkedaboutcouple, creating a furor that made it perhaps the #worldsmostcontroversialcover.

Her millions-strong popularity and inescapable media presence have made her grist for think pieces galore. She is variously seen as a feminist-entrepreneur-pop-culture-icon or a late-stage symptom of our society's myriad ills: narcissism, opportunism, unbridled ambition, unchecked capitalism. But behind all the hoopla, there is an actual woman -- a physical body where the forces of fame and wealth converge. Who isn't at least a tad curious about the flesh that carries the myth?

Read more

China moves in on U.S. with currency swap and non-dollar trade with Canada

Yesterday it was Russia seeking to disconnect the Rouble from its long standing soft peg to the Euro and dollar, and now China has its eyes set on America's back door by signing a new currency swap and non-dollar trade agreement with Canada that will set the foundation for increased transactions between the two nations using the Yuan and Loonie currencies.

In addition to this deal, China last week forged a new currency swap agreement with the oil producing nation of Qatar, and put another crack in the global hegemony of the petro-dollar and America's ability to control the reserve currency through the buying and selling of oil.

Attacks on the dollar and U.S. control over the global financial system have nearly become a daily occurrence, with several new agreements and monetary programs forged in both China and Russia over the last month seek to duplicate or replace counterparts functioning in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere in the West. Read more

2015 AND 30,000 PUs: Plans to rig presidential poll exposed!.

*Questions Jega must answer

In what now appears to be an ego problem for Professor Atahiru Jega, National Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, his messianic pursuit of the lopsided allocation of 30,000 Polling Units, PUs, fresh strong signals suggest that his ability to deliver on successful general elections next year may be suffering a massive discount on account of the many deceptive postulations that he recently made on the matter.

This report will show clearly that but for an agenda that is at best confusing as well as suspect, it should be clear to all lovers of democracy that Jega may have concluded plans to deliver elections molded in a furnace and shrouded in secrecy.

The inherent danger in this fools’ errand is that just as the INEC boss went into the April 2, 2011, elections with misplaced optimism, so is he going into the 2015 general elections with deceptive assurances on a grander scale based on the advantage he has already handed his northern region.

2011: AN EMBARRASSMENT FORETOLD Just after voting on April 2, 2011, journalists asked President Goodluck Jonathan for his thoughts about the process.

An anxious Jonathan expressed joy that “so far, everything is going smoothly”.

But had Jonathan chosen to cross-check from the man in whose hands the destiny of a guesstimated 73.5million voters laid, Professor Attahiru Jega, the INEC Chairman, Nigeria’s President would have discovered, rather embarrassingly, that Jega had failed the nation.

Before that fateful day, Sunday Vanguard had made some revelations about the contract award for voting materials in context, content and volume per figures, the profits therefrom and why Nigerians needed to pay more attention to Jega’s inclination, especially in the light of the tens of billions of tax payers’ money involved – N30,000 (that figure of 30,000), for instance, was paid to each of the about 360,000 registration agents, 8,000 of whom were INEC staff.

It was a flustered Jonathan who was to hear on the airwaves like other Nigerians that Jega had canceled the elections and postponed them. Jega’s statement read in part that morning: “As you know, the National Assembly (House of Representatives and Senate) elections are supposed to be taking place as I speak.

You would also have noticed that things have not proceeded smoothly as expected with the elections.

The reason for this is the unanticipated emergency we have experienced with late arrival of result sheets in many parts of the country. The result sheets are central to the elections and their integrity.

Accordingly, in many places, our officials have not reported at the polling units, making it now difficult to implement the Modified Open Ballot Procedure that we have adopted”.

For a man who just less than 24hours earlier assured Nigerians and the international community that all materials were on ground and were ready, Jega’s trust quotient suffered a battering.

For whatever reason best known to him, the INEC boss has embarked on another voyage; but, this time, presenting Nigerians a Greek gift.

L’INEC C’EST MOI – I AM INEC Just as Louis XIV declared that he was the state, Jega’s serial quest for total domination, as against his status as first among equals, at INEC reflects a certain desperation to achieve a goal.

From his attempt to grab the powers of an Accounting Officer of INEC, to his failed attempt to carry out manual, house-to-house registration of voters, which could have again seen camels, cows, sheep and under-aged people, as well as birds and dogs populating the Voter Register, Jega’s approach to running INEC sends the wrong signal. That elections appear to be heading in the right direction is also partly a function of the elements and the growing awareness of Nigerians.

Last week, while fielding questions, the INEC Chairman elevated the art of half-truths and manipulative postulations to another height. Rather than answer the real questions thrown at him, he chose to triangulate.

What he did was to present the need for credible elections as a front, ease of access to PUs, instead of providing reasons why less populated areas of the North would have more PUs than densely populated areas of the South. Jega, it was discovered, through investigations at the INEC headquarters in Abuja, did not consult with key stakeholders like National Commissioners, Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, and INEC Operation Directors in the 36 states on the allocation of the 30,000 Pus. He also flagrantly refused to appreciate security agencies’ negative report, via a letter on the potential dangers of his actions regarding the allocation. There is a litigation regarding the allocation which he has refused to address.

And to demonstrate that the electoral boss has a hidden agenda, his refusal to honour the counsel of the Senate Committee on INEC, which insisted that he should stop, speaks volume. As if possessed by an uncommon spirit, Jega’s manifestly warped position that only a resolution of the National Assembly can stop him is not, as INEC would have put it, cogent and verifiable because when INEC wants to defend its budget or submit itself to oversight, it is to the Committee it goes and not the whole house. Whereas he lied that there was nothing like the execution of the lopsided allocation, he issued a directive to state offices to carry on.

A WEB OF DECEPTION: DAYLIGHT IN JEGA’S MAGIC Jega was categorical in telling his audience that no “Post-Business Rule Register” exists in INEC. That was a lie! In past reports, and even admittedly by his own presentations, it had always been the selfsame INEC boss who told Nigerians about ‘’Post Business Rule Register”.

Until daylight appeared in his magic because of the voodoo in the allocation of the 30,000 PUs, he had never denied the existence of a ‘’Post Business Rule Register”. In any case, the question to ask him regarding this is: Which register is INEC using to print and distribute its Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs?

If Jega insists that it is AFIS (Automated Finger Identification System), what is the essence of the Continuous Voter Registration, CVR, an exercise designed to ensure that all the cobwebs associated with AFIS are removed and a smooth transition made to the “Post-Business Rule”? The ‘’Post AFIS Register” contains the electorate who do not have complete finger thumb-prints or the minimum two finger print as well as those with no photo or faded photo.

That is why the AFIS register is neither used for the conduct of elections nor for the printing of PVCs. But the Post Business Rule Register is the register of the highest clean up stage that contains names of voters with complete required minimum fingers thumbprints, an opposite of the AFIS register that is deficient in integrity and completeness.

It is important to note here that, that is why INEC used it for elections like those of Anambra, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun States, and would be used for the 2015 elections. In fact, Jega himself, in his public address at stakeholder briefings before recent elections, had repeatedly said the ‘’Post-Business Rule Register’’ was the most credible and was the basis for the production of the distributed PVCs in over 24 states and the proposed PVC distribution exercise commencing in Lagos and 11 other states on the 7th November.

Insisting on nationalism and altruism as the basis for his allocation, Jega has never been able to address the basis for allocating to 11 states in the North at over 1,000 PUs each while only Lagos State in the South got same. Interestingly, Jega’s allocation got to war-ravaged states like Yobe and Borno even in the face of fleeing residents.

CARD READERS AND INNOVATION IN CROOKEDNESS

Another truth that Jega is not telling Nigerians is the confusion that is about to blow up in his face. Then, should the ultimate agenda of availing the North the expected advantage from the lopsided allocation be the driving force, this would see crookedness at its best. It has to do with the card readers for the election. The card readers that INEC has opted for are going to be PU-specific (that is each card reader to each PU).

However, because of the time factor and the reality that the prospective voters whose PVC cannot be configured to these new 30,000 PUs, because they require names and codes just like the existing 120,000 PUs, INEC, Sunday Vanguard learnt, would be going for card readers that would not be PU-specific; that is, 30,000 card readers would freelance. Going by the over 21,000 PUs already allocated to the North, the dangerous reality of this is that 21,000 freelancing card readers, in a total of 150,000 PUs, constitute about 14% of the total.

This is significant.

That is just one leg of Jega’s magic. The most dangerous part of it is that of the 30,000, only one zone in the North, the North-West, got 7,906 PUs; and when you add the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja’s 1,167, you get a total of 9,073; whereas the entire southern Nigeria got just about 8,414. At the rate of 500 voters to each PU, an allocation of extra over 1,000 to those 11 states in the North is a guarantee for no fewer than over 5,500,000 voters more than the entire southern Nigeria – mind you, the North West and the FCT match the whole of southern Nigeria in this Jega-inspired magic. By the time you add the allocation to North-East and North-Central zones, daylight would enter the crookedness of the whole engagement. Yet, the INEC Chairman wants Nigerians to believe that he is doing all a favour by making PUs closer to the people.

Going beyond the surface, the freelancing card readers to be used for the new 30,000 PUs would have the capability to read just about any PVC, which means votes could be freeloaded, depending on the inclination that holds sway. See box on allocation See box on the history of how PUs have been allocated by northerners since independence.

INEC’s DATA SHOWS JEGA IS WRONG Chief among the reasons that have been given for condemning INEC’s skewed creation of new PUs, was that they were created from the whims of its regionally dominated decision-makers and their paternalistic subjectivity, without reference to actual reality from field data. Hence it was asked how INEC arrived at its proportions while it was still collecting data in the field regarding actual figures of voters in each jurisdiction? An outcome that should inform voter logistics, one of which is the number of polling units required for each jurisdiction.

As the emergent figures from INEC’s authentication of eligible voters and the continuous registration of voters in different jurisdictions show below, INEC was only throwing bones to decide how to create its new PUs, and did worse than an Ifa priest, in its allocation. At least the Ifa priest relies on the gods, but in the case of INEC, its operatives were playing God. Like Obatala, the proverbial Yoruba deity, they were creating PUs at the pleasure of their whim, hence they created 1,200 additional polling units in Abuja, and 1,167 new polling units for the whole of the South-East, whereas extant data, and now emergent data from INEC’s own field reports, as shown below, indicate again that not only does just four states in the South-East far exceeds the voting strength in Abuja, the number of newly registered voters in the zone is 919,097/37,235 or about 25 times more.

From the emerging data below even though the full national data has not emerged, the clear deduction can be made that INEC’s decision-makers who created the new PUs which gave 21,000 to the North and 8,000 to the South, were only playing a regional card instead of doing a professional electoral management job.

Even if the final data results in a double voter strength between the North-West and the South-East, which is unlikely given the estimated voting population of the states yet to be accounted for in both zones from the data above, it cannot justify the 8 to 1 disparity in the allocation of new PUs to both zones.

PU Allocation: Twice as bad (a history) The brief history of PU allocation is necessary for the reader so as to understand the systematic approach that the North had always used to gain political power. Just as it has become near impossible except the North agrees, the 774 LGAs in the country and the 36 state-structure (with the South having five and the North-West having seven) may never be altered using the 1999 Constitution.

Regarding the allocation of PUs, the only southern INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, who attempted to alter it did the wise thing when one of his colleagues, Muhammed Jumare, objected, thereby shattering INEC’s consensus approach to tackling issues.

But in Jega’s case, despite the massive outcry of foul, he insists on going ahead.

Sunday Vanguard learnt that during Iwu’s tenure, the Commission agreed to do an increase based on some criteria and the only states that were supposed to benefit were Ondo, Cross River and Taraba.

But because of Jumare’s objection, that INEC Board dropped the idea. Dr. Lisa Handley, a renowned consultant on delimitation, advised that INEC required a minimum of three years in-between general elections to commence and conclude a review including managing the challenges and securing National Assembly’s approval. For the delimitation, whatever you do would require Senate’s approval; just as the ward review and then the creation of Pus.

Jega only abandoned the delimitation and ward review exercise two months ago. So, why prepare an answer in the mold of PUs when the delimitation and ward review exercise are yet to be done?

Sunday Vanguard has been made to understand that it is part of a grand plan to influence the coming census exercise. Jega’s planned delimitation and ward review is to be based on the unreliable 2006 census figures. Worse still, what was his hurry when, in just under two years, fresh census would be conducted?

At an INEC retreat held at Nike Lake, Handley and some consultants from Liberia and Kenya expressed doubts about the process. The Kenyan, not mindful of our sensitivity in Nigeria, noted that in the northern part of Kenya, they do not have more people unlike in the coastal areas where the population is more. In fact, the Kenyan pooh-poohed Nigeria’s population configuration as an anomaly. But he did not know that a chunk of his audience were from Nigeria’s North. See more

Nick Young Reveals He and Iggy Azalea Bought a House, Fight Over the Remote

Turns out, Iggy Azalea isn't always "so fancy." On the contrary, in fact — at least according to boyfriend Nick Young. The NBA star, 29, said even he was surprised at how normal she is, given the swagger she has in her music.

"From her songs, I thought she'd be all about going to clubs and partying, but it's the opposite of that," Young told DuJour magazine of his Aussie girlfriend. "She wakes up early every morning to take care of her dogs, and she cooks for me. From her rapping, I was very surprised that she could do all that. She's a really cool, down-to-earth person."

Read more

​Time for a 'new world order?' No, it's already here.

Putin has called for a “new world order,” with the aim of stabilizing the globe. He believes the US is abusing its role as global leader. What’s not being widely reported is the fact that the pillars of the old order have been crumbing for years.

It used to be all so simple. The world was split into two camps – the West and the rest. And the West was truly the best. Twenty years ago, six of the world’s biggest economies were part of the pro-Washington world.

The leader, the US itself, was so far in front that its total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was more than four times larger than China’s and nine times the size of Russia’s.

The world’s most populous country, India, had almost the same gross income as comparatively tiny Italy and the UK. Any notion that the order would change so dramatically in a mere two decades seemed laughable.

The Western perception was that China and India were backward and would take a century to become rivals. Russia was seen as a basket case, on its knees and ruled by chaos. There was a lot of merit in that notion in the 90's.

The world economy in the 1990s and today:

World’s Largest Economies by GDP, adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), Source: World Bank Read more

Brief History of Present PU Disposition

1993 – 1997 – Muhammed Alli (northerner) was in the saddle as DG, NEC, and created PUs; another northerner; Jega, another Northerner wants to add more in the most lopsided manner. 1996 – Even at that and unlike what is being forced on the nation now, the two foundational stages of delimitation of constituencies and ward review were conducted (as conditions precedent) before the PUs were created.

After Alli prepared the ground works concluded in 1997, Chief Sumner Dagogo-Jack was appointed NECON Chairman and was made to adopt the report because of the impending transition which was still a year away.

Notable features of that exercise included but were not limited to the reduction of federal constituencies from 450 to 360; electoral wards from a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20 per LGA; 66 state constituencies suppressed arbitrarily as part of the cost-cutting measures

1997 – Local Govt Council elections on party basis held in March 1998 – Legislative Assembly elections (State, House of Reps, and Senate) on party basis were held. Governorship and Presidential elections scheduled next but never held following death of Abacha

1998 – INEC created, adopted the delimitation regime of NECON 2008 – The only time Pus were to be created under a southerner, Prof Maurice Iwu, only one northerner national commissioner (Jumare Mohammed) in a Board of INEC with southern commissioners in the majority (Prof. lwu (Chairman), Bar. Philip Umeadi, Victor Chukwuani and Mr. Solomon Soyebi, protested. Why is it that today on the same PUs matter, Jega has ignored the voices of five commissioners from the South, RECs, the Senate, and even political parties?

2012 – Just as Jega is pressing hard on the creation of PUs at all costs, and against all advice, so also he insisted on fresh delimitation review exercise planning to use 2006 census controversial figures when a new census is just around the corner.

Again, egged on by what an insider described as a pure northern agenda, he insisted. The Senate that has final approval advised against the move but so much money had been committed to it, an act described as a part move to access over a billion naira in INEC’s account on that exercise.

2014 – Attempts to foist on the nation a hastily contrived, ill-motivated and ill-timed delimitation review collapsed and now the INEC boss has embarked on another ill-advised PUs creation just three months to election against all advice thereby creating an unfortunate image for INEC and himself as an interested party to help politicians have unfair advantage in the 2015 elections.

NOTE: *PUs and RAs are naturally reviewed jointly just as Federal and State Constituencies flow together. The present review is in bad taste and faith. - See more

2015 and 30,000 PUs: Plans to rig presidential poll exposed!.

By Jide Ajani

In what now appears to be an ego problem for Professor Atahiru Jega, National Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, his messianic pursuit of the lopsided allocation of 30,000 Polling Units, PUs, fresh strong signals suggest that his ability to deliver on successful general elections next year may be suffering a massive discount on account of the many deceptive postulations that he recently made on the matter.

This report will show clearly that but for an agenda that is at best confusing as well as suspect, it should be clear to all lovers of democracy that Jega may have concluded plans to deliver elections molded in a furnace and shrouded in secrecy.

The inherent danger in this fools’ errand is that just as the INEC boss went into the April 2, 2011, elections with misplaced optimism, so is he going into the 2015 general elections with deceptive assurances on a grander scale based on the advantage he has already handed his northern region.

2011: AN EMBARRASSMENT FORETOLD

Just after voting on April 2, 2011, journalists asked President Goodluck Jonathan for his thoughts about the process. An anxious Jonathan expressed joy that “so far, everything is going smoothly”.

But had Jonathan chosen to cross-check from the man in whose hands the destiny of a guesstimated 73.5million voters laid, Professor Attahiru Jega, the INEC Chairman, Nigeria’s President would have discovered, rather embarrassingly, that Jega had failed the nation. Before that fateful day, Sunday Vanguard had made some revelations about the contract award for voting materials in context, content and volume per figures, the profits therefrom and why Nigerians needed to pay more attention to Jega’s inclination, especially in the light of the tens of billions of tax payers’ money involved – N30,000 (that figure of 30,000), for instance, was paid to each of the about 360,000 registration agents, 8,000 of whom were INEC staff.

It was a flustered Jonathan who was to hear on the airwaves like other Nigerians that Jega had canceled the elections and postponed them. Jega’s statement read in part that morning: “As you know, the National Assembly (House of Representatives and Senate) elections are supposed to be taking place as I speak. You would also have noticed that things have not proceeded smoothly as expected with the elections.

The reason for this is the unanticipated emergency we have experienced with late arrival of result sheets in many parts of the country. The result sheets are central to the elections and their integrity. Accordingly, in many places, our officials have not reported at the polling units, making it now difficult to implement the Modified Open Ballot Procedure that we have adopted”.

For a man who just less than 24hours earlier assured Nigerians and the international community that all materials were on ground and were ready, Jega’s trust quotient suffered a battering.

For whatever reason best known to him, the INEC boss has embarked on another voyage; but, this time, presenting Nigerians a Greek gift. L’INEC C’EST MOI – I AM INEC

Just as Louis XIV declared that he was the state, Jega’s serial quest for total domination, as against his status as first among equals, at INEC reflects a certain desperation to achieve a goal. From his attempt to grab the powers of an Accounting Officer of INEC, to his failed attempt to carry out manual, house-to-house registration of voters, which could have again seen camels, cows, sheep and under-aged people, as well as birds and dogs populating the Voter Register, Jega’s approach to running INEC sends the wrong signal. That elections appear to be heading in the right direction is also partly a function of the elements and the growing awareness of Nigerians.

Last week, while fielding questions, the INEC Chairman elevated the art of half-truths and manipulative postulations to another height.

Rather than answer the real questions thrown at him, he chose to triangulate. What he did was to present the need for credible elections as a front, ease of access to PUs, instead of providing reasons why less populated areas of the North would have more PUs than densely populated areas of the South.

Jega, it was discovered, through investigations at the INEC headquarters in Abuja, did not consult with key stakeholders like National Commissioners, Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, and INEC Operation Directors in the 36 states on the allocation of the 30,000 Pus. He also flagrantly refused to appreciate security agencies’ negative report, via a letter on the potential dangers of his actions regarding the allocation.

There is a litigation regarding the allocation which he has refused to address.

And to demonstrate that the electoral boss has a hidden agenda, his refusal to honour the counsel of the Senate Committee on INEC, which insisted that he should stop, speaks volume.

As if possessed by an uncommon spirit, Jega’s manifestly warped position that only a resolution of the National Assembly can stop him is not, as INEC would have put it, cogent and verifiable because when INEC wants to defend its budget or submit itself to oversight, it is to the Committee it goes and not the whole house.

Whereas he lied that there was nothing like the execution of the lopsided allocation, he issued a directive to state offices to carry on.

A WEB OF DECEPTION: DAYLIGHT IN JEGA’S MAGIC Jega was categorical in telling his audience that no “Post-Business Rule Register” exists in INEC.

That was a lie! In past reports, and even admittedly by his own presentations, it had always been the selfsame INEC boss who told Nigerians about ‘’Post Business Rule Register”.

Until daylight appeared in his magic because of the voodoo in the allocation of the 30,000 PUs, he had never denied the existence of a ‘’Post Business Rule Register”.

In any case, the question to ask him regarding this is: Which register is INEC using to print and distribute its Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs?

If Jega insists that it is AFIS (Automated Finger Identification System), what is the essence of the Continuous Voter Registration, CVR, an exercise designed to ensure that all the cobwebs associated with AFIS are removed and a smooth transition made to the “Post-Business Rule”? The ‘’Post AFIS Register” contains the electorate who do not have complete finger thumb-prints or the minimum two finger print as well as those with no photo or faded photo.

That is why the AFIS register is neither used for the conduct of elections nor for the printing of PVCs. But the Post Business Rule Register is the register of the highest clean up stage that contains names of voters with complete required minimum fingers thumbprints, an opposite of the AFIS register that is deficient in integrity and completeness.

It is important to note here that, that is why INEC used it for elections like those of Anambra, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun States, and would be used for the 2015 elections. In fact, Jega himself, in his public address at stakeholder briefings before recent elections, had repeatedly said the ‘’Post-Business Rule Register’’ was the most credible and was the basis for the production of the distributed PVCs in over 24 states and the proposed PVC distribution exercise commencing in Lagos and 11 other states on the 7th November.

Insisting on nationalism and altruism as the basis for his allocation, Jega has never been able to address the basis for allocating to 11 states in the North at over 1,000 PUs each while only Lagos State in the South got same.

Interestingly, Jega’s allocation got to war-ravaged states like Yobe and Borno even in the face of fleeing residents.

CARD READERS AND INNOVATION IN CROOKEDNESS Another truth that Jega is not telling Nigerians is the confusion that is about to blow up in his face. Then, should the ultimate agenda of availing the North the expected advantage from the lopsided allocation be the driving force, this would see crookedness at its best. It has to do with the card readers for the election. The card readers that INEC has opted for are going to be PU-specific (that is each card reader to each PU).

However, because of the time factor and the reality that the prospective voters whose PVC cannot be configured to these new 30,000 PUs, because they require names and codes just like the existing 120,000 PUs, INEC, Sunday Vanguard learnt, would be going for card readers that would not be PU-specific; that is, 30,000 card readers would freelance. Going by the over 21,000 PUs already allocated to the North, the dangerous reality of this is that 21,000 freelancing card readers, in a total of 150,000 PUs, constitute about 14% of the total.

This is significant.

That is just one leg of Jega’s magic.

The most dangerous part of it is that of the 30,000, only one zone in the North, the North-West, got 7,906 PUs; and when you add the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja’s 1,167, you get a total of 9,073; whereas the entire southern Nigeria got just about 8,414. At the rate of 500 voters to each PU, an allocation of extra over 1,000 to those 11 states in the North is a guarantee for no fewer than over 5,500,000 voters more than the entire southern Nigeria – mind you, the North West and the FCT match the whole of southern Nigeria in this Jega-inspired magic.

By the time you add the allocation to North-East and North-Central zones, daylight would enter the crookedness of the whole engagement.

Yet, the INEC Chairman wants Nigerians to believe that he is doing all a favour by making PUs closer to the people.

Going beyond the surface, the freelancing card readers to be used for the new 30,000 PUs would have the capability to read just about any PVC, which means votes could be freeloaded, depending on the inclination that holds sway.

INEC’s DATA SHOWS JEGA IS WRONG Chief among the reasons that have been given for condemning INEC’s skewed creation of new PUs, was that they were created from the whims of its regionally dominated decision-makers and their paternalistic subjectivity, without reference to actual reality from field data. Hence it was asked how INEC arrived at its proportions while it was still collecting data in the field regarding actual figures of voters in each jurisdiction? An outcome that should inform voter logistics, one of which is the number of polling units required for each jurisdiction.

As the emergent figures from INEC’s authentication of eligible voters and the continuous registration of voters in different jurisdictions show below, INEC was only throwing bones to decide how to create its new PUs, and did worse than an Ifa priest, in its allocation.

At least the Ifa priest relies on the gods, but in the case of INEC, its operatives were playing God.

Like Obatala, the proverbial Yoruba deity, they were creating PUs at the pleasure of their whim, hence they created 1,200 additional polling units in Abuja, and 1,167 new polling units for the whole of the South-East, whereas extant data, and now emergent data from INEC’s own field reports, as shown below, indicate again that not only does just four states in the South-East far exceeds the voting strength in Abuja, the number of newly registered voters in the zone is 919,097/37,235 or about 25 times more.

From the emerging data below even though the full national data has not emerged, the clear deduction can be made that INEC’s decision-makers who created the new PUs which gave 21,000 to the North and 8,000 to the South, were only playing a regional card instead of doing a professional electoral management job.

Even if the final data results in a double voter strength between the North-West and the South-East, which is unlikely given the estimated voting population of the states yet to be accounted for in both zones from the data above, it cannot justify the 8 to 1 disparity in the allocation of new PUs to both zones.

PU Allocation: Twice as bad (a history)

The brief history of PU allocation is necessary for the reader so as to understand the systematic approach that the North had always used to gain political power.

Just as it has become near impossible except the North agrees, the 774 LGAs in the country and the 36 state-structure (with the South having five and the North-West having seven) may never be altered using the 1999 Constitution. Regarding the allocation of PUs, the only southern INEC Chairman, Professor Maurice Iwu, who attempted to alter it did the wise thing when one of his colleagues, Muhammed Jumare, objected, thereby shattering INEC’s consensus approach to tackling issues.

But in Jega’s case, despite the massive outcry of foul, he insists on going ahead.

Sunday Vanguard learnt that during Iwu’s tenure, the Commission agreed to do an increase based on some criteria and the only states that were supposed to benefit were Ondo, Cross River and Taraba.

But because of Jumare’s objection, that INEC Board dropped the idea.

Dr. Lisa Handley, a renowned consultant on delimitation, advised that INEC required a minimum of three years in-between general elections to commence and conclude a review including managing the challenges and securing National Assembly’s approval. For the delimitation, whatever you do would require Senate’s approval; just as the ward review and then the creation of Pus.

Jega only abandoned the delimitation and ward review exercise two months ago. So, why prepare an answer in the mold of PUs when the delimitation and ward review exercise are yet to be done? Sunday Vanguard has been made to understand that it is part of a grand plan to influence the coming census exercise.

Jega’s planned delimitation and ward review is to be based on the unreliable 2006 census figures. Worse still, what was his hurry when, in just under two years, fresh census would be conducted? At an INEC retreat held at Nike Lake, Handley and some consultants from Liberia and Kenya expressed doubts about the process.

The Kenyan, not mindful of our sensitivity in Nigeria, noted that in the northern part of Kenya, they do not have more people unlike in the coastal areas where the population is more.

In fact, the Kenyan pooh-poohed Nigeria’s population configuration as an anomaly.

But he did not know that a chunk of his audience were from Nigeria’s North. See more

Shekau denies ceasefire, says Chibok girls have converted to Islam, married off

Boko Haram denied that they had agreed to a ceasefire in a new video obtained on Friday by AFP, describing the Nigerian government claims as a lie and apparently ruling out future talks.

The group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, also claimed the 219 schoolgirls kidnapped from the remote northeast town of Chibok, in Borno state, in April had converted to Islam and been married off.

In addition, Shekau said the Islamists were holding a German national, who was kidnapped in Adamawa state, also northeast Nigeria, in July.

The video comes after a surprise Nigerian military and presidency announcement on October 17 that a deal had been reached with the militants to end hostilities.

A senior presidential aide to Goodluck Jonathan also said agreement had been reached to free the schoolgirls, whose abduction sparked global anger and demands for their release.

There was immediate scepticism about both claims because of previous assertions of ceasefires and the identity of the purported Boko Haram envoy at the supposed talks, Danladi Ahmadu.

Violence — and fresh kidnappings — have continued unabated since the announcement, including a triple bombing of a bus station in the northern city of Gombe on Friday that killed at least eight.

Nigeria’s government maintains that talks were ongoing in the Chadian capital, Ndjamena.

But Shekau, speaking in Hausa, dressed in military fatigues and boots with a black turban, and flanked by 15 armed fighters, said: “We have not made ceasefire with anyone…

“We did not negotiate with anyone… It’s a lie. It’s a lie. We will not negotiate. What is our business with negotiation? Allah said we should not.” He also said he did not know Danladi.

– Kidnapped girls –

There was no indication of when or where the video was shot but it was obtained through the same channels as previous communications from the group.

In it, Shekau mentions the Chibok girls for the first time since a video obtained on May 5, when more than 100 were shown in a rural location dressed in the hijab and reciting verses from the Koran.

Then, the militant leader said many of the girls had converted to Islam but in the latest, he indicated that all of those held had become Muslims.

“Don’t you know the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls have converted to Islam? They have now memorised two chapters of the Koran,” he said.

Shekau previously threatened to sell the girls as slave brides and also suggested that he would be prepared to release them in exchange for Boko Haram prisoners.

In the latest message, he said while laughing: “We have married them off.

They are in their marital homes.”

Human Rights Watch said in a report published this week that Boko Haram was holding upwards of 500 women and young girls and that forced marriage was commonplace in the militant camps.

One former hostage said she saw some of the Chibok girls forced to cook and clean for other women and girls who had been chosen for “special treatment because of their beauty”. – German national –

Shekau’s claim in the video that they were “holding your German hostage” is the first claim of responsibility for the abduction, which happened on July 16.

The German foreign ministry in Berlin said it did not want to comment when contacted by AFP.

Armed gunmen kidnapped the foreigner, who was said to be a teacher at a government technical training centre in Gombi, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the Adamawa state capital Yola.

Suspicion immediately fell on Boko Haram, which has repeatedly attacked schools teaching a so-called Western curriculum, as well as teachers and students.

An offshoot of Boko Haram, Ansaru, has previously claimed the kidnapping of at least eight foreigners in northern Nigeria since 2012 but the group has been largely dormant for more than a year.

The group reportedly broke with Boko Haram to specifically target foreigners instead of Nigerians and executed seven expatriates it seized from Bauchi state in 2013.

In January 2012, Boko Haram kidnapped German engineer Edgar Raupach at a construction site on the outskirts of the northern city of Kano.

He was killed in a military raid on a Boko Haram hideout on the outskirts of the city four months later.

Kidnappings for ransom by criminal gangs are common in the oil-producing south. On October 24, armed men shot dead one German national and kidnapped another in Ogun state, southwest Nigeria.

Both were working for the construction firm Julius Berger. The hostage was later released, the company said on Thursday. See more

Jonathan not acceptable, Buhari’s supporters will cause violence

Sheik Ahmad Gunmi explodes again on why President Jonathan, Gen. Buhari should not contest 2015 Presidential election Fiery Islamic Scholar and scion of late Sheik Abubakar Gunmi, Sheik Ahmad Gunmi has said why he wrote two separate letters asking both President Goodluck Jonathan and the former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, rtd, not to contest the 2015 presidential election.

Gunmi who spoke with Saturday Vanguard in an exclusive interview in Kaduna Wednesday, said that both ‘’Buhari and Jonathan are polarising figures”, pointing out that Buhari’s participation in the election would exacerbate violence in the country while Jonathan was not an acceptable candidate to a “great chunk of Nigerians”.

Sheikh Gumi ‘’Tnorth is frantic; they don’t want President Jonathan to come back because of their safety, lives and security. And this has made them to be too attached to Gen. Buhari because they think he is the only credible person and he has large followers who feel that they can help defeat Jonathan. I know like Jonathan, Buhari is also polarizing figure.

‘’Buhari is not only a polarizing figure in Nigeria, he is even so in the North. There are people who don’t want him at all for different reasons. My Islamic credentials make me see things in broader perspective. And that’s why I am seriously telling him to consider that leadership is not only about honesty and accountability. It also has to do with conformity, flexibility, being nice to people and not just disciplinary strictness. No! All these people that are attached to him would be very surprised if he gets into power. He will not do what they want.’’

Gunmi further said that Buhari’s followers were not only ‘’irrational, fanatical and sentimental,’’ but were already hoping that ‘’their man will be president,’’ adding that if ‘’suddenly he is announced the loser… there would be ‘flames of war; they start nobody can control them.’’

According to him, ‘’It is about a Nigerian citizen (himself) telling Gen. Buhari, please step down for peace, unity and stability of Nigeria because your followers are fanatical, irrational, sentimental and they are many, not few.

So, please … and look at their reaction (intolerance).

Just telling their man to step down, and they reacted this way; what more if they were hoping, dreaming – because I tell you they are sentimental and irrational – hoping their man will be president and suddenly he’s announced the loser, how will their reaction be like? And who can control them? You see, the flames of war, when they start nobody can control them On Jonathan, Gunmi also said that he was a polarising figure pointing out that, “a big section of Nigeria will be uncomfortable with him (Jonathan) continuing as President.’’

to him, ‘’tquestion of Nigeria now is not about winning election, neither is it a question of I’m right, I won.

It’s not about that now. It’s about responsibility. It’s not enough to say I have won election. It is only enough when every part of Nigeria feels truly that you have won.

‘’Secondly, when all sections say, we will be comfortable with your leadership then that’s it. If there is any section of Nigeria which is afraid and suspicious of your leadership, then don’t contest in the first place.

Because everything in this democracy was designed to have a peaceful and mutual understanding and consent of the people as enshrined in the constitution.

‘’But in this case, if President Jonathan wins, a huge part of the society will feel uncomfortable and frightened by his continuation. The natural thing to do is to give the chance to another person to contest; this is just natural everywhere in the world.’’

BOKO HARAM Furthermore, Gunmi spoke on the war against Boko Haram, blaming the inability of the Military to defeat the terrorists on fifth columnists within the system and mercenaries from neighbouring countries like Chad.

According to him, ‘’Who can believe that with the kind of wealth that Nigeria has; our soldiers will be given few bullets to face Boko Haram? Nobody knows that this Boko Haram, from the few the army were able to kill, were mercenaries from Chad. There are even some none-Muslims among them. ‘’A soldier came to us here from Bita, which is very close to the Sambisa Forest (in Borno State).

He said when they went freshly with ammunition they were able to repel the initial attacks by Boko Haram. When the Boko Haram insurgents were withdrawing, he heard some shouting some names like Victor, Amir, John, Mohammed etc They were calling their colleagues. Boko Haram are not only Muslims. ‘’The Boko Haram issue has two perspectives – the perspective you, the press, have been bombarding Nigerians with and the true perspective seen by the victims.

Let me tell you what the victims see in Boko Haram. We almost have one full year of state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States.

‘’The people gave the government the benefit of doubt at the beginning. The National Assembly sanctioned the state of emergency and that means that soldiers can liquidate or kill anybody without trial. That automatically puts you out of the area if you are an outsider. You cannot go and see for yourself what’s happening. Powers were given to them and also huge sums of money.

With these huge sums, nobody would have thought that after this long period, we will still be fighting them.

NO MILITARY STRATEGY TO FIGHT BOKO HARAM ‘’Soldiers at the fronts were being eliminated, outnumbered, and many civilians incarcerated. The Army were just there arresting civilians and putting them in prison.

There is no military strategy to fight Boko Haram.

On the contrary some of these soldiers cry to me personally. They come to us and tell us stories contrary to what you people hear.

Helicopter droppings, tinted glassed vehicles, sometimes with foreigners in them.

Army officers telling me that sometimes they’ll pursue them but would be given orders to stop, don’t pursue. You (the press) don’t know this but we know, and even recorded some. We know it’s a remote controlled war. This stalemate is a remote controlled war.’’ See more