GEN. BUHARI‘S LONDON LECTURE: EMERGING FACTS ABOUT INEC.

 With the whole world turning to
a global village, last week‘s London lecture by
Nigeria‘s former most exemplary head of state &
current champion of democratization, polital freedom
& due process Gen. Muhammadu Buhari has already
reached the nook & cranies of the whole world.
Perhaps, what remain unmanifested was his gospel
truth description of Nigeria‘s electoral body (INEC) &
the judiciary. INEC boss chief press secretary
Kayode Idowu‘s confirmation that, a faceless group
of people did approach INEC for registration of a new
political party by name African People Congress
(APC) could just be the begining of the manifestation
of Gen. Buhari‘s description of INEC as per its natur
& essence of compromise. At the London key note
adress lecture, Gen. Buhari said about INEC: “ INEC
TOP ECHELONS ARE IMMERSED DEEP IN
CORRUPTION & ONLY WHOLESALE CHANGES AT
THE TOP COULD BEGING TO CURE MALIASE. WHAT
IS REQUIRED IA A GROUP OF INDEPENDENT
PEOPLE, PATRIOTIC & INCORRUPTIBLE, BUT WITH
THE CAPACITY TO HANDLE SUCH A STERENEOUS
ASSIGMENT OF CONDUCTING ELECTION IN
NIGERIA“. Else where to prove INEC allowing itself to
be compromise, Gen. Buhari cited an instance: “IN
ONE OF OUR COURT CASES, OPPOSITION PARTIES
CHALLENGED THE PATENTLY DISHONEST FIGURE
INEC ANNOUNCED & SUPBOENED THE BIOMETRIC
DATA IN COURT, INEC REFUSE TO DIVULGE THEM
ON THA LAUGHABLE EXCUSE OF NATIONAL
SECURITY“. About the judiciary & our judges, Gen.
Buhari said: “ IN A SHOW OF UNPRECEDENTED
DISHONESTY & UNPROFESSIONALISM, THE
PRESIDENT OF THE COURT OF APPEAL READ OUT
INEC FIGURES WHICH INEC REFUSE TO COME TO
COURT IN ORDER TO PROVE OR DEFEND THE
RESULT ACCEPTED BY THE COURT“. Perhaps, if
there is any Nigerian that still in doubt about Gen.
Buhari‘s description of our nation electoral body as
well as our judiciary & the judges from 2003 to date,
that person should oviously doubt about his
nationality. He could be a Nigearian living in yet
another different Nigeria. INEC has since ceased to
be independent.

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INEC Names New Secretary

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) today appointed Augusta Chinwe Ogakwu as its new Secretary.  She will take over from Abdullahi A. Kaugama, whose five-year tenure expired on June 26, 2013.

According to a statement by Kayode Robert Idowu, Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Mrs. Ogakwu moves to the new office from her present position as Director of the Legal Services Department, a position she assumed three months ago.  Prior to that, she had since May 2009 served as the Head of Unit/Director, Alternative Disputes Resolution since May 2009. She was also Acting Director, Legal Services Department from May 2003 to September 2005.

The new Secretary joined INEC as Chief Legal Officer in 1998 from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) where she had been the Assistant Chief Legal Officer.
Mrs. Ogakwu holds a Masters Degree in Law from the University of Lagos, besides several professional accreditations in the field of Law, WorkPlace Conflict Management and Resolution and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). She has also undergone intensive Executive Leadership Training as part of her professional development. Her professional certifications include being Fellow, Institute of Chartered Mediators and Conciliators (ICMC) (Nigeria); Completion Certificates, United States Institute of Peace (USIP); Member International Dispute Resolution Institute (IDRI) among others.
Saharareporters

Tolu Ogunlesi: Waiting for our fairy ship to dock (1)

You’ve probably heard of the Failed States Index, an annual ranking released by the intriguingly-named “Fund for Peace” and published by Foreign Policy magazine.

The Failed States Index classifies countries on the basis of 12 “indicators”:

Demographic Pressures, Refugees & Internally Displaced Persons, Group Grievances, Human Flight, Uneven Development, Economic Decline, Delegetimization of the State, Public Services, Human Rights, Security Apparatus, Factionalised Elites, and External Intervention, and assigns a ranking, where Position ‘1’ is a most severe case of state failure (now held by Somalia for the sixth year running).

Nigeria has gone from Number 54 when the Index was launched in 2005, to a consistent Top 20 position since 2007. This year, we are sharing space in that section with such distinguished honorees as Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Pakistan, Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Niger – and, quite interestingly, Kenya. (Benin Republic is 78, Ghana 110, South Africa, 113).

The instinctive official Nigerian response is to dismiss such reports as inaccurate, unfair, and not reflective of the ongoing transformation agenda, while many “Africanists” are likely to label the not-very-kind-on-Africa Index as yet another outplaying of a misguided, unrepentant Imperialist Complex.

Me, I’m not that dismissive. As a Nigerian living in Nigeria, I know that from what I see all around me, Nigeria, if it’s not already a failed state, isn’t very far from being one.

And I don’t even need a report compiled from all the way in Washington to convince me of that. From going days without electricity (in 2013!), to being forced to pay Power Holding Company of Nigeria bills, to existing at the mercy of telecoms companies that make sure every call is a dropped call, to banks posting soaring profits from acting like leeches, to the stories of mothers regularly dying during childbirth even in urban areas, to the endless accounts of random acts of kidnapping and murder, to driving around at night expecting to be accosted by armed robbers, to a situation where Boko Haram had effectively replaced the government in much of North-Eastern Nigeria – everywhere around me is evidence of a state that has given up on its people.

In September 2009, presidential spokesman, Reuben Abati, wrote a column piece titled, “Portrait of a Country as a Failed State”. It’s such a brilliant article that my writing this piece feels a bit like reinventing the wheel; there is nothing I will probably say that Abati didn’t eloquently say in that article of his.

Let me share one long quote from that 2009 piece:

“How about the lack of regular electricity and the high cost of diesel which has driven companies across the border or forced them to shut down, like the textile factories, resulting in job losses and greater social hardship? No end in sight to the Niger Delta crisis, with governments only managing to dance round the issues. Across the country, armed robbers, kidnappers, rapists and ritualists are on the prowl. Ten years ago, we wrote on the bad state of Nigerian roads. The Federal Road Safety Corps used to complain about the urgent need to revamp the roads in order to reduce carnage; last week, the FRSC said precisely the same thing, and yet in 10 years, close to a trillion naira has been spent on road audit, construction and maintenance. The roads are still bad. We are confronted with corporeal changelessness and worsening uncertainty.”

This was written four years ago, when Goodluck Jonathan was still a Vice-President.

Even though Abati now appears to have changed his mind about Nigeria being a failed state, that piece might as well have been written this morning. The “armed robbers, kidnappers, rapists and ritualists” are still as active as ever. (They have even gone more brazen in recent months as typified in the killing of over 30 pupils in Government Secondary School, Mamudo, Potiskum, Yobe State over the weekend.) Occasionally, they get caught; more often than not, they don’t.

The “Niger Delta crisis” seems to have calmed down – but we know the truth is different. The bombings and blown-up pipelines have given way to mind-boggling levels of oil theft, costing Nigeria as much as $7bn in lost revenues annually. And yet for this theft, there’s an additional tax to be paid – in the form of the billions of naira in security contracts awarded to ex-militants to guard the pipelines.

For all the “macro” progress in the reform process, electricity has not improved (for more on this topic, see my article from two weeks ago titled, Let there be light!). Days go by, and all I can hear is the sound of generators; the serenity that comes with noiseless PHCN electricity is to be treated, when encountered, as the guilty pleasure that it is.

Last week, I saw an advert in the papers; the Ogun State Government welcoming Mr. President to “flag off” the reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. I should have been excited, but all I could think to myself was, “We’ve been here before.”

After suffering almost total neglect throughout the eight years of the Obasanjo administration (especially puzzling because much of it ran through the then President’s home state; according to the law of self-interest, that road should have received more interest than most other Nigerian roads), the Yar’Adua government finally managed to concession it. For four years, the road lay in limbo – workmen doing little more than assembling and dismantling themselves from spot to spot – the perfect metaphor for the state of Nigerian infrastructure.

I think that the starting point for real change in Nigeria is acknowledging how bad things actually are; admitting that we’re indeed a failed state. We can’t be defending ourselves by quoting the amount of Foreign Direct Investment that is coming into the country. Those funds are flowing in spite of, and not because of, our circumstances. What shall it profit a nation trumpeting growing FDI figures when local industries are daily collapsing under the weight of needless operating costs? When proclaiming that more money comes into Nigeria as Diasporan remittances than anywhere else in Africa, are we remembering to ask the obvious question: Why do we have so many Nigerians abroad who refuse to return home in the first place?

If wishes were horses, Nigeria would be the greatest country in the world. Our embassies would be besieged by Spanish, Portuguese and Greek emigrants seeking a better life; and there would be a Nigerian Visa Lottery through which a magnanimous Nigerian government would issue a limited number of residency permits to jobless American citizens every year.

Thirty years ago, Chinua Achebe nicely summed up that penchant for governing-by-bombast as “the cargo-cult mentality that anthropologists sometimes speak about – a belief by backward people that someday, without any exertion whatsoever on their part, a fairy ship will dock in their harbour laden with every goody they have always dreamt of possessing.”

Our fairy ship is still on the high seas. We can see it, we know it’s coming, because Nigerian faith is the evidence of things that do not exist, and never might.

The failing is no doubt one that implicates us all in some way or the other. But I happen to tend towards the Achebe argument that it’s “simply and squarely a failure of leadership.”

If there’s one lesson we’ve learnt, it’s that Nigerians are especially gifted at rising or falling to the level of the leadership they’re offered. When slacking is the name of the game right there at the top, it filters down across the entire system. Put a “sit-up” leader in place, and, the inevitable grumbling notwithstanding, most of us manage to sit-up. Replace that sit-up leader with a slacker, and we again adapt effortlessly.

Who knew that one day it’d become second-nature for Nigerian drivers to wear seatbelts? Now, it’s mostly instinctive. In those early days of the law, it was not unusual to see drivers hurriedly retrieve their belts when approaching a police checkpoint.

And then, as human conditioning goes, it started to become a habit.

One of our biggest tragedies as a people is that most of the time we’re not even getting a chance to get used to the helpful and productive habits that will rewrite the story of our dysfunction.

Those who should be laying out the framework for reconditioning our minds are too busy over-celebrating underachievements, too busy building castles on the ground for themselves, and in the air for the people whose lives they’re supposed to be transforming; too busy assuring the world that our fairy ship, having missed the scheduled 2000 and 2010 arrivals, will now surely arrive in 2020.
via: Nasril el-Rufai on facebook

On Pius Adesanmi’s “Eebu O So: Tinubu, Buhari, And Their Supporters” By Uchenna Osigwe

Professor Pius Adesanmi was rather magnanimous in pointing out the achievements of Bola Tinubu as governor of Lagos state and those of Muhammadu Buhari, former head of state. His problem, however, seems to be that the supporters of these two political heavy weights come across as insulting, especially to Pius. So he wants to tell those apologists why and where their principals are wanting. In the process he managed to throw in some insults of his own!
The achievements of these two men are no mean feat. And Pius listed those, but then turned around to belittle them. Then he gave an order to Buhari’s handlers to begin to mould him in his (Adesanmi’s) own image, or else... Haba! The achievements of these two men and their supporters should be rightly celebrated because I think it’s largely thanks to people like them that we can today meaningfully talk of a viable opposition to the rot that is PDP, otherwise we’ll be talking of one party state today. These two guys could easily have joined the PDP and thereby join in the amala politics of the party, but thankfully they chose not to. Are they perfect? Certainly not, and that is why they should be criticized. But productive criticisms are usually constructive. For instance, before repeating the PDP allegation that Tinubu imposed his daughter on the traders as their leader, it might be good to hear from the other side. I don’t think anybody, including Tinubu, can easily impose leaders on traders without them fighting back, especially now he’s not the governor. You may be inadvertently ascribing to the man more powers than he actually wields. My own criticism of Tinubu is born out of his utterances, especially during the 2011 elections; which is why I for one don’t really believe that Tinubu’s latest romance with Buhari is genuine. I would, of course, love to be proved wrong. I have also criticized Buhari, again based on his utterances in the run up to the 2007 elections.
At the risk of sounding pedantic, the point is not that “Buhari is the only living Nigerian capable of this and that,” as Pius alleges, but rather the issue is this: among those who stand a REAL chance of becoming president 2015, who among them has the pedigree of Buhari? We asked this question before Jonathan was selected. Now that question stares us tauntingly in the face again! Sure, there are millions of Nigerians who can do better than Buhari in many ways, including yours sincerely, including Pius himself. But the real question is how many of us stand a real chance of winning in an election? It’s not too much to expect Pius to understand this.
To claim that some of Buhari supporters are fundamentalists because they put up a robust defence of the General is rubbish! I’m a die-hard supporter of Buhari and I don’t consider myself in any way, shape or form, remotely fundamentalist! Pius you’re wittingly or unwittingly insulting the intelligence of Nigerians who genuinely support the candidacy of Buhari based on his personal integrity which even you grudgingly acknowledge! Pius forgot to mention those who insult Buhari supporters with unprintable venoms, or doesn’t that count as insult? The truth is that with the advent of social media, every Musa and Tunde, every Obi and Tamuno can post their venoms online to poison the public space. These people have no inkling what a mature discussion is all about. They cut across the political and ethnic divides. To confine them to ‘fundamentalist’ supporters of Buhari is a sloppy characterization which unfortunately is aimed at demonizing the General even if only by proxy.
Pius then moves to his highfalutin advice to Buhari and his teeming supporters. Funny that a man is being maligned for what he didn’t do, for not fulfilling assignments people like Pius expect him to fulfill if he wants to be their president. I know one thing for sure: whatever Buhari says is bound to be taken out of context, twisted to fit the narrative his detractors have woven for over a decade now, whether it was said in Damaturu, in Otuocha or Otuoke; whether it was said in AIT, BBC, or NTA. Buhari is neither a lecturer nor an orator. There is no doubt that he gets many, many invitations. But unlike the thieving elites, Buhari doesn’t have a private jet and his income is limited to his pension, believe it or not. I reckon his wealthy well wishers foot his travel expenses. Despite that, if Buhari is all over the place as some people are suggesting, his detractors will say that he is desperate to become president, bla bla bla. If a man whose cook and driver—in whose hands his live literally rests—are Christians, whose daughter is reportedly married to an Igbo, whose running mates have always been southern Christians, have not escaped the charge of being a Muslim fanatic and northern irredentist, what good will travelling all over the south do for those who have already made up their minds about him eons ago? I mean, if people continue to call him a Muslim fanatic even after he chose a Christian pastor as running mate, don’t you think it’s a hopeless case trying to convince them? For your information, Pius, again sorry if I sound pedantic, more than any major politician in Nigerian, Buhari’s genuine support cuts right across the country: there are Ibibios, Igbos, Yorubas, Kanuris, Biroms, Ijaws, Ikweres, Ogonis, Tivs, Idomas, etc, etc, who will stake their very lives for the sake of Buhari because they know he’s an honest man! The point is that for the thieving elites, Buhari is a marked man. Recently a poster so badly construed that it’s evidently clear to any discerning mind that it’s the work of detractors, was all over Abuja calling Buhari the messiah Nigerians have been expecting, bla bla bla... Of course Buhari wasted no time in denouncing that hatchet job. Expect such shenanigans to continue as long as Buhari shows interest in ruling the country again. No one in our political scene elicits the kind of passion Buhari does. And this says volumes.
Pius claims that Buhari “releases northern and Islamic irredentist statements to the rest of the country in interviews granted the Hausa service of BBC and VOA, going as far as to carelessly equate a legitimate clamp down on Boko Haram with a war against the North…” That Pius sees the killing spree currently going in the north as “legitimate clamp down on Boko Haram” beggars belief. One would have hoped that his understanding of Buhari’s statement were better than that of the average ‘Nigerian’ understanding. As one wit said, not going beyond the average is what keeps the average low.
All politics is local. Tinubu for instance couldn’t have achieved what he achieved without a solid political base. If in doubt, ask Pat Utomi. So if Buhari comes out against the killings in the north in the name of ‘fighting’ Boko Haram, we should understand it as such. Whole villages have been razed and thousands of innocent people, including women and children, killed by the government troops. Buhari should be foolish not to speak out against that because he wants to be president. He has consistently condemned Boko Haram—never mind that such condemnations don’t make good press because they don’t fit the narrative. So speaking out against the atrocities of government troops should not honestly be construed as supporting the insurgents no matter how it is twisted. Nor should he be misunderstood when he pointed out that those Niger Delta criminals who call themselves liberation fighters are just that: criminals. What is good for one should be good for the other. But now it’s very lucrative to be a militant in the Niger Delta. Apart from being in government, it’s the next quickest way to become a multi-billionaire! Recently they publicly claimed responsibility for slaughtering nine police officers and kept custody of their corpses for sometime; they claimed responsibility for bombing Abuja on Independence Day, and have been promising to continue to make the country ungovernable. Both Boko Haram and the Niger Delta militants are enemies of the state who strive to make the country ungovernable and should be treated as such, no double standards please. Recently President Jonathan stated the obvious fact which is that there are more Muslim victims of Boko Haram than Christian victims. If Buhari made that statement, it should have been put down as one of the reasons why he should never be president of Nigeria!
Discerning minds know that there’s no real clampdown on Boko Haram as such. Jonathan has never been serious about rooting out the criminals. In fact he IS thoroughly confused about the simplest task of a commander in chief, so the Boko Haram menace simply overwhelms him. By now we should at least have had some of the real sponsors of Boko Haram arrested and prosecuted. Instead what we’ve had so far is at best a haphazard approach to the menace and at worse a killing spree in the name of rooting out the insurgents. It is not because Buhari said it. Indeed, the American secretary of state recently warned Nigerian authorities about the human rights abuses connected with the fight against the insurgents. As reported by the New York Times of 17 May 2013: “Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States was ‘deeply concerned about the fighting in northeastern Nigeria following President Jonathan’s declaration of a state of emergency,’ and that we are also deeply concerned by credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism.” In the New York Times of 25 May 2013, Kerry was again reported as saying, when asked about the situation in northern Nigeria: “One person’s atrocity does not excuse another’s, Mr. Kerry said, when asked about reports of serious human rights violations by Nigerian forces.” Buhari has not said anything different. He was simply calling it as he saw it. But because he’s Buhari, Pius feels free to characterize his statements as “northern and Islamic irredentist statements”! It’s really sad that many Nigerians think ONLY through the prism of religion and ethnicity!
Many innocent civilians, especially women and children have been killed in the name of fighting the insurgents, tens of thousands of Nigerians have become refugees, whole towns and villages—think of Baga and Bama—have been razed to the ground in the name of fighting Boko Haram, despite all that, the insurgents have remained strong. The Jonathan government simply doesn’t know what to do with the Boko Haram menace except to try to make political capital out of it. So far what we have is a mishmash of incoherent and poorly thought out approaches. They’re simultaneously fighting them and offering them amnesty and also proscribing them!
Concerning the age of Buhari, Pius seems to be in this absurd reasoning that young age a good president makes. This is just a manifestation of an abject ignorance of history. It could be even worse: a band wagon effect. America, Britain, France, Canada, Kenya, Benin, Senegal, Ghana, etc, etc, have young presidents, so Nigeria must step forward and say ‘me too.’ “Imitation is suicide” says Ralph Waldo Emerson in his classic essay “Self Reliance.” The man, John XXIII, soon to be made a saint, who revolutionized the Catholic Church via Vatican II was 77 years old when he was elected pope. Incumbent Pope Francis is 76, and is ably leading more than 1.2 billion Catholics before our very eyes. Winston Churchill was 77 years old when he was elected prime minister of Britain after failing countless times. Today there are basically only two former Prime Ministers of Britain: Churchill and the others. General de Gaulle was 70 years old when he became the president of France; there are many more examples. There are also people who became leaders at a relatively young age and did well. Doing well or not doing well has nothing to do with age as such unless one is ignorant of history. Awolowo became premier of the western region at the age of 45 and did very well. But no one would doubt that he would have performed any less had he won the presidential elections of 1979 or 1983 when he was already in his 70s. Buhari became president at the age of 41 and did very well. And just like Awo, no one doubts that he’ll do at least as well in his 70s. The relationship between performance and age in most human endeavours cannot be straitjacketed as Pius seems to be claiming here.
Pius once proposed to us that bishop Kukah should run for president. This was a man who ran back from overseas to run Obasanjo’s farcical ‘Constitutional Conference’ whose mandate was ostensibly to rewrite the Constitution in order to allow the Owu chief to transform himself into an emperor. In such a post Kukah couldn’t but speak from both sides of his mouth. And it seems he remains ever close to the parasitic ruling establishment.
For Pius it’s hard to know where insult stops and real debate begins. If you come telling people that Buhari is an irredentist, you’ve killed debate right there and you shouldn’t be surprised if your interlocutor responds in kind. You’re pontificating for Buhari what he should do if he wants to win the presidency as if you just arrived from planet mars! Need one remind you that since 1999 the presidency has never been won: the thieving elites have always chosen who to give the presidency to, for obvious reasons. Buhari’s most insidious opponents are from the northern oligarchic establishment. Is it too much to expect Pius to know that?
In the spirit of your article, and expecting that Sahara reporters publishes this, I take it you mean we should criticize everything and everyone. So my question is, what exactly are you trying to say? Are you saying that Buhari is a northern irredentist and a Boko Haram apologist and an old man and therefore shouldn’t run for president? But, if he’s really thinking of running, then he better start running all over the country giving speeches and begging people to stop seeing him as an old religious fanatic who’s pushing a northern agenda? If that is your point, then it should have been better if you didn’t interrupt your self-imposed break. To pay you back in your own coin: your article is an insult on the intelligence of any above average Nigerian who knows what our real political problems are.
 Saharareporters

My dad didn’t impose me as new market leader – Sade Tinubu

The new Iya Oloja-General (market leader) of Lagos, Mrs. Sade Tinubu-Ojo, has stated that her father, Bola Tinubu, did not impose her on market women and men as their leader.

Sade became the new Iya Oloja following the death of Tinubu’s mum, Abibatu Mogaji

While inaugurating a new tomato section of the Mile 12 Food Market on Friday, Tinubu-Ojo said her appointment was not politically motivated.

She said, “I was never imposed. It is impossible for anybody to impose anyone on traders. Traders are not politicians. Although we all are political animals, this is not a political office where anyone can be imposed. Besides, before my grandmother died, she gave me the mantle. It was the Iya Oloja before her, late Pele Wura, that appointed her (Mogaji) as the Iya Oloja. I learnt she was about my age then.

“I didn’t even have the idea that this is the responsibility that my grandma wanted to bestow on me, when she said I should go and lay the (market) board for her. I had my ambition but I believe this is the will of God for my life. Even if my grandmother chose me for this position, there would be trouble if God has not said yes to it.”

She called on traders to cooperate with the government to allow rapid development, adding that it was their joint efforts that could bring about development in the country.

Tinubu-Ojo urged them to be responsible to the society, so that the government could also attend to their needs.

She said, “If we want government to provide amenities for us in the markets, then we should also pay our taxes as this is a means of generating funds for government. I am not usually happy whenever a market is shut down. I plead with everyone to always observe environmental sanitation in the market in order to avoid such occurrences.

“More so, it is rainy season and there is usually flood in the area. To avoid flooding, we should clean our surroundings and make sure everything is in order. By so doing, we would encourage the government to attend to our needs.

Daily Post

No power under the sun will stop APC registration, says Akande

Festus Owete

All Progressives Alliance

INEC officials inspect association’s national secretariat in Abuja.

The interim National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bisi Akande, said on Tuesday that nobody could stop the association from being registered as a political party by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

Mr. Akande stated this when INEC officials inspected the association’s national secretariat in Abuja on Tuesday.

The officials visited the secretariat located at 6, Bissau Street, Zone 6, Wuse District of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, as part of the process for vetting the application the association submitted on June 7.

The INEC Political Parties Monitoring and Liaison, PPML, team was led by its Director, Ibrahim Shittu.

APC is the proposed merger of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN; Congress for Progressive Change, CPC; All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP; Democratic Peoples Party, DPP; and a faction of the All Grand Progressives Alliance, APGA.

“We have always been confident that no power under the sun will stop us from becoming a political party. The party is already registered,” Mr. Akande said while speaking to journalists after the inspection.

The chairman noted that parties in the merger deal had organized their convention, made joint application and exchanged correspondences with INEC, adding that in response to all this, the commission came to find out whether the association had a home.

Mr. Akande, who is the National Chairman of the ACN, also said that INEC, after going through its attendance register, discovered it was an association of gentlemen.

He said, “From the beginning of this merger negotiation, we have gone to various conventions, we have made joint applications and we have been exchanging correspondence with INEC, but they have never visited us before. So today INEC came to see us in our home, and they are happy we have got a home.

“When INEC team met us through our attendance register, they discovered that we belonged to a party of gentlemen, APC.

“INEC has never faulted what we did, when we wrote the first joint application, we have completed the merger phase of the exercise.

“INEC now needs administrative investigation to show that what we have done was according to their own laid down procedures and because of they kept writing to us and we were replying them. Today they came for verifications as to whether we exist, and where do we exist? We have proved to them that we exist like gentlemen and in a befitting accommodation.

Also speaking, the interim National Secretary of APC, Tijjani Tumsah, said, “The commission came expecting to see some things which we were able to deliver, today. I think everything is in good shape. Our documentation is okay, near perfect, we are expecting INEC’s notification, telling us that we have been registered.”

On the threats of litigation by the African Peoples Congress, Mr. Tumsah said, “I am not aware of any other group and we have not gotten any court notice. Actually we should be the one taking them to court because we the main APC and our papers and application are before INEC awaiting registration notifications.”

PremiumTimes

Nigerians score Jonathan low on anti-corruption-Transparency International

Nicholas Ibekwe and Agency Report

The report showed that corruption was a major issue globally.

Despite the claims by the federal government that the Jonathan administration is waging a committed fight against corruption, majority of Nigerians say the government is merely paying lip service to the effort to stamp out corruption, a survey by Transparency International has shown.

The result of the survey, tagged ‘Global Corruption Barometer 2013′, said to be the biggest-ever public opinion survey on corruption, released on Monday, showed 75 per cent of Nigerians say the government’s effort at fighting corruption is ineffective.

Only 14 per cent of those surveyed say the government’s effort is achieving results.

Also, 94 per cent of Nigerians think corruption is a problem with 78 per cent saying it is a serious problem.

Police and Political parties

The report also showed that most Nigerians believe political parties and the police are the most corrupt institutions in the country. About 94 per cent say political parties are affected by corruption while 92 per cent say the police is tainted with corruption.

Other institutions that performed abysmally in the survey are the legislature with 77 per cent corruption perception, the civil service with 69 per cent, the judiciary with 66 per cent and the education system with 54 per cent.

The military has 45 per cent corruption rating. Medical and health services are tied with businesses, with 41 per cent corruption perception, while the media and non-governmental organisations have a perception rate of 33 and 32 per cent respectively.

According to Nigerians, the least corrupt institutions are religious bodies with 24 per cent perception.

Over the past two years, 85 per cent of Nigerians think corruption has increased (75 per cent say it has increased a lot), 7 per cent says it has remained the same while 9 per cent says it has decreased (only 1 per cent says it has decreased a lot).

Over the past 12 months, the report says, 81 per cent of Nigerians say they have given a bribe to the police, 30 per cent of those surveyed say they have paid a bribe for education services, 29 per cent have given a bribe to the registry and permit services, same for utilities, and 24 per cent have given a bribe to the judiciary.

The survey shows that 22 per cent of Nigerians have paid a bribe to tax revenue, 17 per cent to land services, and 9 per cent has paid a bribe for medical and health services.

Transparency International had last year rated Nigeria as the 35th most corrupt country in the world.

Global indices

Globally, more than one person in two thinks corruption has worsened in the last two years, the survey shows.

However, the survey participants also firmly believe they can make a difference and have the will to take action against graft,

The Global Corruption Barometer is a survey of 114,000 people in 107 countries; and it shows that corruption is widespread and not only in Nigeria or developing countries.

Some 27 per cent of respondents have paid a bribe when accessing public services and institutions in the last 12 months, revealing no improvement from previous surveys.

Still, nearly nine out of 10 people surveyed said they would act against corruption and two-thirds of those who were asked to pay a bribe had refused, suggesting that governments, civil society, and the business sector need to do more to engage people in thwarting corruption.

“Bribe paying levels remain very high worldwide, but people believe they have the power to stop corruption and the number of those willing to combat the abuse of power, secret dealings and bribery is significant,” said Transparency International chair, Huguette Labelle.

The Global Corruption Barometer 2013 also found that in too many countries, the institutions people rely on to fight corruption and other crime are themselves not trusted.

Some 36 countries view police as the most corrupt, and in those countries an average of 53 per cent of people had been asked to pay a bribe to the police.

Opinion poll in 20 countries view the judiciary as the most corrupt, and in those countries, an average of 30 per cent of the people who had come in contact with the judicial systems had been asked to pay a bribe.

“Governments need to take this cry against corruption from their citizenry seriously and respond with concrete action to elevate transparency and accountability,” Labelle said.

“Strong leadership is needed from the G20 governments in particular.

“In the 17 countries surveyed in the G20, 59 per cent of respondents said their government is not doing a good job at fighting corruption.”

TI said politicians themselves have much to do to regain trust.

The Global Corruption Barometer 2013 shows a crisis of trust in politics and real concern about the capacity of those institutions responsible for bringing criminals to justice.

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In 51 countries around the world including Nigeria, political parties are seen as the most corrupt institution, while 55 per cent of respondents think government is run by special interests.

The anti-corruption body said politicians can lead by example by publishing asset declarations for themselves and their immediate family.

Political parties and individual candidates, meanwhile, must disclose where they get their money from to make clear who funds them and to reveal potential conflicts of interest.