Peter Obi reacts to Buhari’s postponement of National Population Census

Buhari betrayed Jonathan’s Legacy

CC™ Global News

By Gboyega Sowemimo

Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, Peter Gregory Obi, has reacted to President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to postpone the 2023 Population and Housing Census, earlier scheduled for May 3-7 2023.

Buhari in a press statement signed by the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, on Saturday, officially approved the census postponement.

Mohammed revealed that Buhari gave the approval after meeting with some members of the Federal Executive Council and the Chairman of the National Population Commission, Nasir Isa-Kwarra, and his team at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Friday.

According to the minister, President Buhari approved that a new date would be determined by the incoming administration.

Reacting via Twitter on Saturday, Peter Obi described Buhari’s decision as a welcome development, stressing that National Census is a critical development and nation-building tool.

Obi tweeted: “FGN’s decision to postpone the 2023 Population and Housing Census, scheduled for 3-7 May 2023, to a date to be determined by the incoming Administration is a propitious and welcome development. National Census is a critical development and nation-building tool”

It is imperative that the next National Population Census is done right, with a view to addressing past concerns of the exercise being manipulated to favor a certain region of the country. 

BREAKING: Results on INEC portal show Peter Obi, not Tinubu, won in Rivers State

CC™ Politico News

By Chinagorom Ugwu and Saviour Imukudo

The candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, won the 25 February presidential election in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, South-south Nigeria, according to results uploaded on the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV).

Mr Obi’s haul of votes in the area implies he, and not Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), won the presidential election in Rivers, contrary to the declaration made by INEC.

The result for Obio/Akpor council area, as declared by INEC, portrayed Mr Tinubu as scoring 80, 239 votes, with Mr Obi garnering 3,829 votes.

Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) scored 368 votes while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party got 161 votes, this newspaper had reported.

Mr Tinubu was later declared winner of the election. Atiku came second while Mr Obi came third.

But PREMIUM TIMES’ review of the results from various polling units of the 17 wards in Obio/Akpor LGA as uploaded on IReV revealed a sharp contrast with the result declared by INEC.

Given that Mr Tinubu was declared winner in Obio/Akpor, this newspaper’s review focused on the results of the votes scored by the APC and LP in the area

By our tally, the APC got 17, 158 votes while the LP amassed 73,311 votes.

Obio/Akpor Local Government Area has 1,211 polling units across its 17 wards.

PREMIUM TIMES could only review results from 1,116 polling units uploaded on the IReV as of 16 March, representing about 94.13 percent of the results from the council area.

However, results from some polling units were either blurred or improperly snapped and therefore illegible.

Results from about 95 polling units, representing about 5.87 per cent, were yet to be uploaded within the period under review.

There were no results in some polling units either because the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System malfunctioned or people did not come out to cast their votes, as observed at Ake Hostel UNIPORT Polling Unit in Choba Ward. 

This newspaper computed the available and readable results from the 1,116 polling units uploaded so far on the IReV within the period of the review.

In some polling units in Obio/Akpor, PREMIUM TIMES found that some results were altered in favour of the APC, with the original scores mutilated.

The result from Rumuorluoji Open Space II polling unit in Oro-Igwe Ward, for instance, showed that the APC originally scored 17 but the number, ‘2’ was added to the figure to read ‘217.’

For the LP, 227 was recorded, but the number ‘2’ was erased and altered to read ‘027.’

At the column meant for recording the scores in words, there were evidence of adjustments to suit the changed figures.

In Rumuokoro Ward, it was noticed that in 34 polling units, results earlier written for the LP were erased and the figures swapped with that of the APC.

PREMIUM TIMES, nevertheless, tallied the figures as published by INEC, despite the obvious evidence of adjustments and mutilations. In other words, the figures were tallied as they appeared on result sheets, even when there was evidence that such figures were tampered with.

In some cases, the results for the National Assembly elections were uploaded in some polling units instead of the presidential election results.

A result from the Civic Centre Hall Polling Unit in Rumuigbo Ward, for instance, showed that a result from the House of Representatives election was uploaded in place of that of the presidential election.

PREMIUM TIMES also tallied results from Degema Local Government Area uploaded on the IReV, and the findings confirmed Mr Tinubu won in the council area, although the score was slightly lower than the one announced by INEC.

However, this newspaper could not tally the results from some polling units in the council area because they were illegible or not yet uploaded within the period under review.

Mr Obi was leading Mr Tinubu with over 23,000 votes by the time INEC announced the presidential election results in 21 of the 23 local government areas in the state.

The LP candidate polled 169,414 votes at the time, while Mr Tinubu scored 148,979 votes.

Mr Obi’s largest votes at the time came from Port Harcourt City Local Government Area where he scored 62,451 votes, while Atiku scored 7,203 votes, followed by Mr Tinubu, who scored 5,562 votes. Kwankwaso scored 301.

Results were still being expected then from two remaining local government areas – Obio/Akpor, where the State Governor, Nyesom Wike, hails from, and Degema.

With the results from Obio/Akpor coming in, and with INEC announcing that Mr Tinubu scored 80, 239 votes against Mr Obi’s 3,829 votes, the APC candidate was now in the lead and was eventually declared the winner of the presidential election in Rivers State.

Atiku scored 368 votes in Obio/Akpor, while Mr Kwankwaso scored 161 votes.

In Degema Local Government Area, Mr Tinubu scored 2,375 votes, while Mr Obi scored 2,212 votes. Atiku scored 3,108 votes, while Mr Kwankwaso scored 44 votes.

Mr Tinubu polled 231,591 votes in Rivers State as against Mr Obi’s 175,071 votes, according to INEC.

Atiku scored 88,468, while Mr Kwankwaso clinched 1,322 votes.

The collation officer for the presidential election in Rivers had adjourned the collation of results at some point over alleged threat to his life by some supporters of a political party.

There were reports of attacks and suppression of voters in the state.

Governor Wike, who is a member of the PDP, led other PDP governors to rebel against the national leadership of the party and its presidential candidate, Atiku, following disagreement over which of the north or the south should produce President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor.

The Rivers governor had contested and lost in the PDP presidential primary.

He then supported the APC candidate, Mr Tinubu in the presidential election, saying since Mr Buhari is from the north, the next president of Nigeria, for the sake of fairness, should come from the south.

Mr Obi, like Mr Tinubu, is from the south of Nigeria.

PREMIUM TIMES

From Jibril To Pablo: The Jagabanization Of Democracy As Nigeria Moves Closer To Tyranny

David Hundeyin

CC™ Viewpoint 

By Boyejo A. Coker - Editor-in-Chief

In my preceding piece, I alluded to the fact that, it actually does not matter what aisle of the political spectrum you belong to, the problem with Nigeria is not one of ethnicity or a lack of resources, both human and natural to propel that great nation to its deserved lofty heights, Nigeria's problem remains the same - the rudderless, improvident and imprudent band of usurpers and brigands, masquerading as leaders since the inception of the 4th Republic in May, 1999. 

For those who thought 2023 was going to be different, I must ask what they were smoking to have thought it possible for one to put old wine in a new bottle and expect a different taste. In what parallel or alternate universe would that have been possible giving the antecedents of Nigeria’s crass political class and the generality of its people? When you have Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi as the standard bearers of the three main Parties, was anything actually going to be different? 

Most people conveniently forget that Peter Obi launched a third force as a form of ‘grievance’ against the PDP. Obi felt he was never going to win the nomination ticket to be the presidential candidate of the PDP. Obi was in fact the first protagonist of the spirit of Emilokan, or in his case, Awalokan, as he felt it was the turn of the Southeast to produce the next President of Nigeria. Peter Obi is not new to the political arena in Nigeria. He is in fact an integral part of the establishment and while many laud his purported achievements when he was the Chief Executive of Anambra State, one remains puzzled as to exactly what his signature accomplishments were, besides being a supposed egalitarian steward of the coffers of Anambra State, as governor. 

  

For the record, Obi was Atiku Abubakar's running mate in 2019 under the auspices of the PDP, the Party that had held sway over Nigerian politics for 16 years from 1999 to 2015. He and Atiku lost the election to the then incumbent (and outgoing president) Muhammadu Buhari.

Obi was also named in the Pandora Papers controversy. The result of the Pandora Papers leaks, the Premium Times reported on Obi's involvement in offshore companies in tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands and Barbados. This was before he held any political office in Nigeria. Further reporting showed that in 2010 as well, Obi had Access International help him set up and manage Gabriella Investments Limited, a company in the British Virgin Islands named after Obi's daughter. 

One of the directors was also the director of a Belize-based shell company that was issued 50,000 shares in Gabriella Investments. In 2017, Obi reorganized the company under the name PMGG Investments Limited and created a trust named The Gabriella Settlement which became the sole shareholder in PMGG Investments Limited. Obi was not holding any political position at this time. 

The Premium Times report claimed that Obi had broken several laws due to his business dealings. The report claimed that firstly, Obi remained as director of Next International (UK) Limited while serving as Governor of Anambra State, which is in direct violation of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act. Obi described that claim as misleading and wrong in an interview with Arise News stating that he resigned from all companies before taking the office of Governor of Anambra State. Secondly, it claimed that Obi's non-declaration of his offshore companies broke the Nigerian Constitution's provision that requires public officers to declare all their properties, assets, and liabilities. 

For the record, no criminal case has ever been filed against Obi. 

 

To his credit, Obi's Labor Party (LP) galvanized a movement that threatened the very foundation of Nigeria's entrenched political establishment. He selected a charismatic running mate of Northern extraction, Senator Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, a Nigerian economist and politician who served as Senator for Kaduna North from 2011 to 2012 and member of the House of Representatives from 2003 to 2007. 

The 'Obidient Movement', as it was aptly named, re-invigorated the youth of Nigeria and energized a political base that had been marginalized, oppressed and suppressed for far too long by the Kleptocrats who had run roughshod over the Nigerian populace for far too long. For the first time in the history of Nigerian politics, the entrenched political establishment had to reckon with a veritable third force, and Bola Ahmed Tinubu's All Progressives Congress (APC) ruling Party as well as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by Atiku Abubakar, were left reeling in the face of a formidable display of organizational discipline and focused messaging by the Obi-Datti led LP. 

While the Obi-Datti led LP sought to project a unity of purpose coupled with disciplined messaging, Tinubu's APC took the often travelled path of ethno-religious bigotry by presenting a Muslim-Muslim ticket with Tinubu's running-mate Kashim Shettima having a well-documented history of being in bed with the Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram, while the Atiku-led PDP again put forth someone with a well-documented record of not only losing major elections dating back to the early 1990s, but also being one of the most corrupt individuals in the history of Nigerian politics.  

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigeria's supervisory electoral body promised a free, fair and transparent election with a veritable voter authentication mechanism, as well as real time upload and transmission of election results. At the end of the day, the 2023 elections were at best a sham with widespread issues of voter suppression through intimidation and in some cases, murder, including the blatant altering/falsification of results to favor the ruling APC.  

Even more damming is that Tinubu’s own organization, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), which was formed on 15 May 1994 by a broad coalition of Nigerian democrats to challenge the then military junta of the sadistic dictator, Sani Abacha, challenged the transparency and legitimacy of the just concluded 2023 general elections. 

Worse still is that barely a month after the elections, the Islamist terrorist groups have once again resumed their blood-letting, perhaps in recognition of the fact that the incoming administration of Bola Tinubu and his second-in-command, Kashim Shettima, will subtly acquiesce to their ethnic and religious killings, as the two (Tinubu and Shettima) are known sympathizers and benefactors of Boko Haram and its sister band of killers. 

 

If President Buhari's goal was to leave a legacy beholden of the true tenets of democracy, he failed woefully, which is not surprising when one considers the rudderless leadership, he has subjected the country to over the last 8 years.  

The legitimacy of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, if he is sworn-in will always be a viable conversation piece. He will be the first person chosen to lead Nigeria to get less than 50% of the votes. There are also doubts as to the veracity of his educational qualifications, as to date, his purported degree from Chicago State University in the United States of America, remains unsubstantiated.  

Furthermore, there are serious legal questions surrounding his forfeiture of close to $500,000 to the United States government in 1993 for his involvement in drug trafficking. The latter, as well as the specter of the fact that he may have presented fraudulent educational credentials may be enough to cast a shadow over his fitness for that exalted office.  

There is a palpable air of illegitimacy hanging over Tinubu's hollow victory, and regardless of what the Supreme Court rules in response to the petitions filed by both the LP and the PDP, near irremediable damage has been done to the collective psyche of Nigerians, as well as the nation's nascent democratic institutions.