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Κυριακή 10 Απριλίου 2011

Nigeria's elections postponed over logistical 'chaos"



Nigeria's elections postponed over logistical 'chaos" (2011) 
(but in 2009 >> Nigerian government minister has expressed relief at the death of an Islamic sect leader !!! )

 the Captured leader of Boko Haram Yusuf Mohammed is executed.

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Parliamentary elections in Nigeria have been postponed until Monday because of organisational problems, officials say. The electoral officials - who have apologised for the delay - say ballot papers have not been delivered in time to many polling stations. The decision is seen as a big blow to the credibility of the electoral body in Africa's most populous country. Some 73m people have registered for the parliamentary, presidential and gubernatorial polls over two weeks.
Security has been high, with borders closed and only election officials, security forces and emergency personnel allowed to drive on roads during voting.Earlier, politicians were urged to put a stop to campaign violence.Amnesty International said at least 20 people had been killed in related attacks and clashes over the last two weeks. A bomb was thrown into a police station in the city of Bauchi on Friday in an apparent attempt to cause panic. No casualties were reported.Police in the Niger Delta also said they had arrested two men driving a minibus filled with assault rifles, ammunition and a rocket launcher.

"In order to maintain the integrity of the elections and retain effective overall control of the process, the commission has taken the very difficult but necessary decision to postpone the national assembly elections to Monday," Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) head Attahiru Jega said on Saturday."It is an emergency," he added.It is understood that aircraft were supposed to be flying in ballot papers and accreditation details from overseas but those planes were diverted away from Nigerian airspace, the BBC's Caroline Duffield in Lagos reports.There were angry scenes in polling stations across the country as word began spreading that the elections were postponed, our correspondent says.She adds that the move raises fears among some that Mr Jega's grip on his staff at the election commission is not tight enough, and people will wonder whether the coming elections over the next two weeks will run smoothly.The voting process had already started with large turnouts reported in cities such as Lagos and Kano before the announcement by Mr Jega.The elections will be the third nationwide polls in Nigeria since military rule ended in 1999.The previous votes - in 2003 and 2007 - were marred by allegations of widespread ballot stuffing, voter intimidation and violence.Security forces were also accused of siding with the People's Democratic Party (PDP), which has dominated politics since the return to civilian rule.

Mr Jega earlier told the BBC that if Nigerians wanted to peacefully defend their votes at the polling stations, that was their right. And he threatened sanctions against any political leader engaging in violence or vote-rigging, even warning he would resign if necessary.
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The People's Democratic Party is a political party in Nigeria. Its policies generally lie towards the right wing of the political spectrum. It won the Presidential elections of 19992003, and 2007, and is the dominant party in the Fourth RepublicThe party has a neoliberal stance in its economic policies and maintains a conservative stance on certain social issues, such as same sex relations. The PDP favors free-market policies which support economic liberalism, and limited government regulation. In 2003, President Olusegun Obasanjo and Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala embarked on a radical economic reform program, which reduced government spending through conservative fiscal policies, and saw the deregulation and privatization of numerous industries in Nigerian services sector — notably the Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL) industry.  In the year 2000 the introduction of Islamic law in some states in Northern Nigeria triggered sectarian violence in Kaduna and Abia states. The PDP-led federal government refused to bow to pressure from the southern, predominantly Christian states to repeal the law, and instead opted for a compromise where Islamic law would only apply to Muslims.

The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) is a conservative political party in Nigeria. At the last legislative elections (21 April 2007), the party won 27.0% of the popular vote and 92 out of 360 seats in the House of Representatives and 27 out of 109 seats in the Senate. Its candidate in the presidential elections of 19 April 2003, former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, won 32.2% of the vote. Buhari was again the ANPP candidate in the 2007 presidential election, taking second place and about 18% of the vote according to official results. The ANPP is a right-wing conservative party with mass appeal. The party draws its strength predominantly from Northern Nigeria.The ANPP is the household party in the extreme north of Nigeria, primarily due to its mass appeal. It is the strongest opposition party, controlling seven of the nation's thirty-six states. The party's biggest achievement in the 2003 election was its gubernatorial victory in Kano State where it defeated the ruling People's Democratic Party to take control of one of the country's most populous state.

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), formerly known as Action Congress (AC),[citation needed] is a classical liberal Nigerian political party formed via the merger of the Alliance for Democracy, the Justice Party, the Advance Congress of Democrats, and several other minor political parties in September 2006. The party controls the most populous and richest state in Nigeria, Lagos. It is regarded as a natural successor to progressive politics more closely associated with Action Group and UPN, Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the First and Second Republics respectively. However, criticism of the party's more pragmatic and less ideological political outlook associated with AG and UPN, have many argue it is less of a worthy political heir. The Party has strong presence in the South West . The Action Congress was recently changed to Action Congress of Nigeria. The March 2010 rerun of the Ekiti Guber polls resulted in PDP Candidate and Ex-Governor , Engineer Oni being returned as winner despite widespread allegations of voter intimidation, rigging and pressures on INEC officials to release the falsified result to favor the ruling party (PDP). AC Candidate proceeded to challenge these results at the Elections Tribunal, where he lost 3-2. Pinning his appeal on the minority judgement, he sought to be installed as Governor based on the cancellation of results from two local governments where PDP allegedly perpetrated fraud and violence.

2007 elections
Summary of the 1 April 2007 Nigerian presidential election results
Candidates – PartiesPartiesVotes%
Umaru Yar'AduaPeoples Democratic Party (PDP)24,638,06369.82
Muhammadu BuhariAll Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP)6,605,29918.72
Atiku AbubakarAction Congress (AC)2,637,8487.47
Orji Uzor KaluProgressive Peoples Alliance608,8031.73
Attahiru BafarawaDemocratic Peoples Party (DPP)289,3240.82
Chukwuemeka Odimegwu OjukwuAll Progressives Grand Alliance155,9470.44
Pere AjuwaAlliance for Democracy (AD)89,2410.25
Chris OkotieFresh Democratic Party74,0490.21
Patrick UtomiAfrican Democratic Congress (ADC)50,8490.14
Ambrose OwuruHope Democratic Party28,5190.08
Emmanuel OkerekeAfrican Liberation Party (ALP)22,6770.06
Lawrence AdedoyinAfrican Political System (APS)22,4090.06
Habu FariNational Democratic Party21,9340.06
Maxi OkwuCitizens Popular Party (CPP)14,0270.04
Bartholomew NnajiBetter Nigeria Party11,7050.03
Emmanuel ObayuwanaNational Conscience Party8,2290.02
Olapade AgoroNational Action Council5,7520.02
Mojisola ObasanjoNigerian Masses Movement4,3090.01










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the quality of  Nigerian "democracy" >>> 

History repeats itself in Central Africa. As Patrice Lumumba 50 years ago .. the Captured leader of Boko Haram Yusuf Mohammed is executed.


The leader of Boko Haram Mr Mohammed Yusuf is executed during Police custody.The leader of Boko Haram, a Nigerian Islamic group blamed for a series of deadly attacks in the north of the country, has been shot dead by police.Mohammed Yusuf was killed as he attempted to flee his compound in the city of Maiduguri, police said on Friday. "Mohammed Yusuf was killed by security forces in a shootout while trying to escape," Moses Anegbode, a police assistant inspector-general for northeastern Nigeria, told local BRTV state television. "I can confirm that he has been killed and the body is with us." State television footage shown to officials and journalists showed jubilant police celebrating around the body. Propaganda claim Earlier a Reuters news agency reporter and other local journalists said that they had seen Yusuf in detention at a military barracks in Maiduguri and suffering from no visible injuries. "There had been reports all over Nigeria that they had arrested him, that they had detained him and that he was killed in their custody," Al Jazeera's Yvonne Ndege, reporting from Maiduguri, said. "They [the police] say this is total propaganda designed to discredit the Nigerian security services.""They say that he was killed in a shootout in the compound where he lived, where they found explosive materials, a clinic making all sorts of chemical weapons, they say, and a room where they were putting together all sorts of police uniforms." A correspondent for the UK-based BBC news network said a video shown to officials and journalists showed Yusuf confessing and saying he regretted his actions. "The next moment on the video footage he was seen shot ... They showed his body," the correspondent said.
' Extra-judicial killing'
New York-based Human Rights Watch described Yusuf's death as "an extra-judicial killing"."The extra-judicial killing of Mr Yusuf in police custody is a shocking example of the brazen contempt by the Nigerian police for the rule of law," Eric Guttschuss, the organisation's Nigeria researcher, said. He urged the Nigerian authorities to investigate the circumstances of the killing.Nigerian security forces had attacked a compound and mosque in Maiduguri after fighters from Boko Haram launched apparently co-ordinated attacks across four northern states.The complex was shelled overnight into Thursday before security forces shot many of those attempting to flee, witnesses and sources said. A reporter for the Associated Press news agency saw soldiers shoot their way into the mosque before opening fire on those inside.Boko Haram, which means "Western education is prohibited" in the local Hausa dialect, has called for the enforcement of sharia even among non-Muslims. Nigeria's 140 million people are nearly evenly divided between Christians, who dominate the south, and the primarily northern-based Muslims
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Happy days for BBC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >>>>
A Nigerian government minister has expressed relief at the death of an Islamic sect leader !!! , Mohammed Yusuf. Yusuf's body was shown to journalists on Thursday just hours after police said they had captured him. Human rights campaigners alleged he had been executed, but police said on Friday that he died in a shoot-out following days of bloody fighting. Information Minister Dora Akunyili told the BBC that the government "does not condone extra-judicial killings". The militant group led by Yusuf has been blamed for days of violent unrest in which hundreds of people died in clashes between his followers and security forces
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half century after the execution of the captured Patrice Lumumba from the Mabuty history repeats itself 50 years later!!

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