The two leading presidential candidates in Saturday’s presidential poll, President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Gen Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), have signed another peace accord, with a promise to abide by the outcome of tomorrow’s presidential election.
The new peace pact signed by the duo yesterday at the Sheraton Hotel, Abuja, was a renewal of the agreement they signed alongside other presidential candidates on January 14, 2015, tagged the Abuja Accord.
LEADERSHIP had reported yesterday that the president had expressed his readiness to meet and sign another peace accord with Buhari to further emphasize his total commitment to a violence-free poll on Saturday.
After signing the fresh peace accord under the supervision of the National Peace Committee on 2015 Elections chaired by former head of state, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar yesterday, Jonathan and Buhari shook hands and embraced each other at the venue just like they did in January.
In the renewed accord, the two candidates reassured Nigerians and the international community of their commitment to ensure violence-free presidential poll on Saturday.
The accord entitled, “Renewal of Our Pledges to Peaceful Elections”, the duo also pledged to respect the outcome of free, fair and credible elections, just as they asked their supporters to refrain from violence and acts that could jeopardise their collective vision of free, fair and credible polls.
In the accord read out by Bishop Hassan Kukah, Jonathan and Buhari further implored INEC and the security agencies to make sure they adhered strictly to their constitutional roles.
Kukah read out the accord: “You may recall that on 14th January, 2015, both of us, long with nine other party leaders, signed what has now come to be known as the Abuja Accord. The substance of that accord was our commitment to free, fair and credible elections in our dear country.
“In the accord, we agreed to, among other things, run an issues-based campaign and pledged that our electoral campaigns will not involve any religious incitement, ethnic or tribal profiling, both by ourselves and all agents acting in our names.
“Now that the campaigns have come to an end, we met today to renew our pledge for peaceful elections. We therefore call on all fellow citizens of our dear country, and our part supporters, to refrain from violence or any acts that may in any way jeopardise our collective vision of a free, fair and credible election.”
The pact was signed by Jonathan, Buhari and Abdusalami Abubakar.
Speaking after the fresh accord was signed, Abdulsalami said his committee had been working round the clock to assist political parties and Nigerians to ensure peace and harmony before, during and after the elections.
“I want to thank both party chairmen for the support received in trying to send this message of peace. I’m happy both parties, the contestants, are committed to free and fair elections, free of violence,” he said.
IGP Redeploys 6 DIGs, 5 AIGs, 6 CPs for Election Duty
…Swaps Rivers and Anambra CPs
Barely 24 hours to the 2015 general election, inspector-general of police Suleiman Abba has carried out a major redeployment of top police officers as part of measures to ensure a violence-free poll.
The latest redeployment sees the former Rivers State CP Dan Bature swapping with his Anambra State counterpart, CP Hosea Karma.
The redeployment was made known yesterday in a statement signed by Force spokesman, CP Emmanuel Ojukwu, and made available to LEADERSHIP.
He explained that the reshuffle was done for period of the elections.
The redeployed officers include DIG Dan’Azumi Doma, coordinator of South East Zone; DIG Mamman Tsafe, coordinator South South Zone; DIG Hashimu Argungu, coordinator South West Zone; DIG Christopher Katso, coordinator North West Zone, and DIG Hilary Opara, coordinator North East Zone.
DIG Adeola Adeniji is coordinator of North Central Zone; AIG Kalafite Adeyemi, is assistant coordinator, South West Zone; AIG Bala Magaji Nasarawa, assistant coordinator, North Central Zone; AIG Adisa Bolanta, assistant coordinator, North West Zone; AIG Usman Gwary, AIG Federal Operations (FEDOPS), Abuja, and AIG Mark Idakwo, AIG Zone 9, Umuahia.
The IGP also ordered the redeployment of the following commissioners of police to commands indicated for the period of the elections. CP Hosea Karma, Rivers State Command; CP Adamu Mohammed, Anambra State Command; CP Dan Bature, Enugu State Command; CP Usman Abdullahi, Katsina State Command; CP Jimoh Ozi-Obeh, Benue State Command, and CP Hyacinth Dagala, Department of Operations (DOPs), FHQ, Abuja.
The IGP directed all officers to exhibit the highest level of personal and professional conduct in the discharge of their duties.
Meanwhile the FCT commissioner of police, CP Wilson Inalegwu, restated the preparedness of the command to ensure peaceful and seamless conduct of the elections in the six area councils of the FCT.
Inalegwu gave the assurance in a statement signed by the FCT command’s spokesman, ASP Anjuguri Manzah, in which the CP reiterated the IGP’s directive on the enforcement of ban on human and vehicular movement as well as the restriction on private and voluntary security operatives from polling units with their uniforms.
Court Restrains COAS, Others From Arresting Tinubu
Justice John Tsoho of the Federal High Court in Lagos yesterday granted an interim injunction restraining the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and his agents from arresting, detaining, harassing or intimidating the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
According to the judge, the order will be effective pending the determination of the motion on notice filed by Tinubu seeking the enforcement of his fundamental human rights.
Justice Tsoho also barred the COAS and his agents from further laying siege on Tinubu’s home situated at number 26, Bourdillon Street, Ikoyi.
The court further restrained the military or its agents from preventing him from participating in the 2015 general elections.
The case has been adjourned till March 31 for further hearing.
Court Restrains FG From Removing Jega
Justice Mohammed Yunusa of the Federal High Court in Lagos yesterday retrained the federal government and its agents from removing the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, from office.
Justice Yunusa also ordered government, its privies and agents to stay action on the removal of the INEC boss pending the determination of the motion on notice filed before him by the Independent Democratic Party (IDP) and the Action Alliance (AA).
The court future adjourned the case till April 23rd,2015, for report of compliance.
The two political parties had in a motion ex parte, dated March 24, prayed for an order of interim injunction restraining the president or any of his agents from taking steps to review, regulate or jettison the procedure and guidelines provided by INEC for the conduct of the 2015 general elections in the country pending the hearing and determination of the suit.
The parties also prayed for an order of interim injection directing President Goodluck Jonathan or any of his agents to cause the removal of Jega except in compliance with section 157(1) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, pending the conclusion of the case.
They further requested an order of interim injunction restraining President Jonathan or any other persons or their agents from tampering, and/or obstructing the INEC boss from discharging his function as he deems fit in compliance with the 1999 constitution pending the conclusion of the case.
The defendants on the matter are the attorney-general of the f ederation, Mohammed Adoke (SAN), and INEC.
The case was adjourned to April 23.
Ondo Deputy Governor, Ali Olanusi Dump PDP For APC
The deputy governor of Ondo State, Alhaji Ali Olanusi, has resigned his membership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and declared for All Progressives Congress (APC).
Olanusi became the deputy governor of the state in 2009 under the platform of Labour Party before he defected to the PDP alongside the governor in October 2014. He said he was dumping the party because in the last six years, the governor marginalised and totally excluded him from the government they both laboured to build.
“In the unfolding development in our country today, and in Ondo State in particular, it is increasingly clear that I need to chart a new course for the majority of my followers who look up to me for direction and leadership, and who watched helplessly in the last six years the untold marginalisation and total exclusion from the government they laboured to put in place.
“While still in place as the democratically deputy governor of Ondo State, I have decided to lead my teeming supporters and well-wishers in the state into APC where we can find fairness, justice, equity and democratic liberty to which majority of our kith and kin in Yorubaland belong,” he stated.
However, the state government through the commissioner for information, Hon Kayode Akinmade, said the governor received the news of the defection of his deputy in good faith and wished him well in his new party.
Akinmade said although the news came as a surprise to government, he acknowledged the deputy governor’s right to determine his political affiliation.
Meanwhile, the APC, Ondo State chapter, through its chairman, Isaac Kekemeke, described the defection as right step in the right direction.
“We know the deputy governor is a very dexterous politician and at all times he can take a very courageous decision when the need arises. We know his antecedents. We are not surprised, therefore, that he is taking this decision at this very critical period,” Kekemeke said.
PDP Plans To Bomb Opposition Strongholds During Saturday Polls – APC
*Allegation baseless, insulting – Fani-Kayode
The APC has accused the ruling PDP of planning to embark on a bombing spree in opposition’s strongholds during the presidential and other elections
scheduled to commence tomorrow.
APC spokesman Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who made this allegation a press conference held yesterday in Lagos, urged Nigerians to hold the federal government responsible for any violence that may arise from its intimidation of the opposition.
But APC’s claim has been dismissed out of hand by the director of Media and Publicity of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode.
In APC’s statement, the party said it was concerned by the increasingly desperate plan by the ruling PDP to throw bombs at the opposition.
It said: “Plans are afoot to carry out a bombing spree in the major towns and
cities in APC-controlled states of Rivers, Lagos, Kano, Imo and Edo, with a view to scaring away voters from the polling units. Ekiti and Ondo have also been earmarked for Card Reader disruption. We are therefore using this medium to alert the general public and the international community to these evil machinations.”
The APC national publicity secretary also alleged “growing cases of harassment and intimidation of our members across the country by PDP officials and candidates, using the security agencies which are supposed to be non-partisan and professional.”
He also accused the ruling party of having perfected plots to rig the polls in its desperation to hang on to power, especially in the North and in the South West.
“In one last desperate move, one Alhaji Sani Musa, the owner of ACT Technologies, the company that supplied the PVCs and the Card Readers, has been arrested and detained by DSS officials since Tuesday.
“Perhaps, the agents of the ruling party believe he may have the codes for the Card Readers, which is preposterous. Alhaji Musa has also been accused of colluding with the APC to rig the elections, which is totally false because we at the APC do not subscribe to rigging under any guise.”
He hinted that the strategy is to deploy bandits in uniform to polling units to disperse voters by force after voter accreditation must have been completed using the Card Reader.
According to him, “while that is going on, armed police and soldiers will then come in, ostensibly to chase away the bandits and evacuate INEC officials and voting materials. After evacuating them to ‘safety’, they will then coerce the electoral officials to allow them, security agents that is, to cast all the ballots in the particular unit.”
According to him, this strategy will used mostly in the PDP controlled states in the North and the South East.
Mohammed made further allegations: “Yet another strategy, this time for APC controlled states, involves the use of carrot and stick against APC agents. The carrot involves seeking to buy the agents over with mouth-watering sums of money. If this fails, security agents and PDP thugs will simply disrupt the voting and destroy election materials.”
He lamented that there is also a worrisome development in the Federal Capital Territory where he said in three locations around the FCT – Jere along airport road, Karu towards Nasarawa and Kubwa road – security agents have mounted road blocks and are stopping North-bound travellers supposedly for a routine search.
Mohammed said the real reason is to collect PVCs from passengers who have theirs on them, saying those who refused to surrender theirs are being molested.
“This runs against the pledge by the government to ensure free, fair, credible and violence-free elections,” he added.
But Fani-Kayode, who discredited the claim of the APC, in a statement, described it as “yet another preposterous story”.
According to him, “The truth is that they have lost touch with reality. To suggest that we are planning to rig the election on Saturday is not only absurd but it also downright insulting.
“You do not rig when you are confident of winning. It is only the APC that indulges in rigging, in lying, in cheating and in fabricating fairy tales.
He then explained his party’s side of the story: “The gentleman by the name of Sani Musa is one of their greatest fans in Nigeria and he is a man that loves General Buhari and has the pathological hatred for President Jonathan.
“How a man like that managed to win a contract to supply Card Readers for the 2015 election and how he managed to hold on to a copy of the master key to these Card Readers need to be explained.
“It is our view that this man’s plan was to use that master key to the Card Readers to rig his mentor Buhari into power. We are not in the position to confirm whether or not he has been arrested, but if he has, then we believe it is a very good move.”
Fani-Kayode dismissed APC’s claim – that Musa had been arrested so that the security agencies could get the code of the master key from him and then use it to the advantage of the PDP on Saturday – as ‘childish and nonsensical’.
Poll: Buhari Preaches Peace
With less than 24 hours to the presidential election, the candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari, has asked all his supporters nationwide to desist from acts of violence.
Buhari, who made this call yesterday in Abuja during a press conference to mark the end of his election campaigns, also enjoined them to endure every provocation that may come their way.
He said: “The presidential election this Saturday, March 28, 2015, presents a great opportunity for Nigerians to come out en masse and vote to remove an incompetent government from office. The beauty of democracy is that it gives power to the people to change the government peacefully.
“We thank all Nigerians for their support, but we urge all our supporters to come out and vote on Saturday. If they don’t vote, it may be difficult to change their miserable conditions.
“I urge my supporters and my party to show exemplary conduct of orderly behaviour. They must avoid anything that might make them play into the hands of PDP mischief-makers who are determined to discredit our party.”
Buhari noted that the PDP administration was seeking to retain power by all means even with its poor performance in office because it had ‘exhausted all its goodwill and lost all the argument on performance and competence.’
“A government that abandoned its citizens to their fate has no reason to remain in office a day longer than necessary. It is a shameless reflection of desperation and greed for power,” he said.
He remarked that Nigerians were desirous of change because they did not want the continuation of their present miserable existence under PDP’s ruinous rule. “They are tired of a government of failed promises and are earnestly marching ahead to embrace a government that loves the welfare of its citizens,” he averred.
The APC flag bearer recalled that Nigerians on May 29, 1999 celebrated the exit of military rule with high hopes, but that 16 years later, there had nothing to show for it.
While expressing gratitude to Nigerians for their support, Buhari urged them to vote massively for APC on Saturday and in the April 11 elections.