Posted by By TOPE ADEBOBOYE, Lagos and MODESTUS CHUKWULAKA, Abuja on
To further register its displeasure over the conduct of the last general elections and the massive fraud that characterized the exercise, a coalition of opposition groups will tomorrow hold a protest rally across the country.
To further register its displeasure over the conduct of the last general elections and the massive fraud that characterized the exercise, a coalition of opposition groups will tomorrow hold a protest rally across the country.
Prominent legal practitioner and political activist, Dr Tunji Braithwaite, who disclosed this in Lagos Sunday, said Nigerians would be fully mobilized to protest the conduct of the elections that produced Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar'Adua as President. "Nigerians would be mobilized to protest the injustice meted to them by the ruling party," he said.
This is coming just as a pro-democracy organization, Nigerians United for Democracy (NUD) berated South African President, Thabo Mbeki, "for his indecent haste in congratulating Yar'Adua," regretting that Mbeki's hasty congratulatory message has deepened Nigerians' agony over the elections.
And at the weekend, a religious dimension was added to the litany of protests trailing the outcome of the elections as the Chief Imam of the Barnet Plaza Mosque in Abuja, Sheikh Umar Aliyu Yanda, assured that God would punish "those who have robbed Nigerians of the opportunity to choose their leaders."
Braithwaite spoke after a church service at the St. Paul's Anglican Church, Breadfruit, Lagos which also had the Vice Presidential candidate of the Action Congress, Senator Ben Obi, in attendance.
According to him, pro-democracy groups in the country were determined to reclaim the mandate from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
His words: "We will get all Nigerians into the streets on May 1, to reclaim that stolen mandate called presidential election in this country. Already, they have filled the Senate. More than 90 per cent is filled by the PDP through a process of selection and this time around, they have played out their hands.
"Every force, all forces of democracy have come together this time around to wrest the sovereignty of these people for so many years. You will notice that the international communities have not congratulated Yar'adua. They will not congratulate him, because there is no way that election that was held on April 21 can stand."
Obi, in his own reaction, reiterated that the last election was nothing but a conspiracy against the sovereignty of the country, accusing the PDP, INEC and the police of awarding votes to candidates of their choice.
"It is our duty as responsible leaders to ensure that it does not hold. What is happening today is continuation of elongation programme of Obasanjo. And that is why these senators who do not see what we saw then are now realizing it," he said.
The special service was organized by a coalition of opposition political parties to pray for peace, justice and righteousness to reign in the country.
In a statement issued by the NUD in Abuja Sunday by the Chairman of its Publicity Committee, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the group criticized Ghana's President and current African Union Chairman, John Kufuor for commending President Olusegun Obasanjo for organizing "peaceful" elections in Nigeria.
NUD wondered why Mbeki ignored the widely-publicised report of local and international observers that the election that produced Yar'Adua was massively rigged and totally unacceptable to Nigerians.
Said the group: "By his hasty congratulatory message, Mbeki has aligned with those who willfully thwarted the sovereign will of the Nigerian people by stealing their votes, just like he has aligned with the oppressors of the Zimbabwean people in Southern Africa.
"One wonders if Mr. Mbeki's sense of good judgment has been so blurred by selfish considerations, including the oil concession given to his country by Nigeria and the increasing takeover of the Nigerian economy by South African companies, that he could not spare a thought for the good people of Nigeria."
Recalling Nigerian masses' support for South Africa in the apartheid era, the group said: "South Africa is free today thanks to God and all freedom-loving nations, especially Nigeria, whose people stood solidly behind their brothers and sisters in South Africa."
The group also recalled the role played by Mbeki's predecessor, Nelson Mandela, when Nigeria found itself in a similar situation in 1993.
"President Mandela stood shoulder to shoulder with the Nigerian people, and it is on record that it was on the basis of his principled stand that he fell out with the then Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha. Unfortunately, while Mbeki has emerged Mandela's successor, he has proven that Mandela's shoes are too big for him to occupy," it said.
According to the group, the AU chairman has succeeded in making a laughing stock of Africa and its leaders by describing the elections as peaceful.
"Africa has remained poor because of the antics of leaders like Mbeki and Kufuor, who have continued to condone the misdeeds of their peers who subject their citizens to sub-human existence through anti-people policies, greed, selfishness and outright incompetence," the group said.
"And to other leaders who will join the Mbeki and Kufuor bandwagon, we say ride on. But remember that the Nigerian people have opened a black book into which your names will be written, so that coming generations will never forget your ignominious role in the country's hour of darkness,'' it added.
Also in Abuja Friday, the NUD launched its protest against the elections with a special prayer session at the Barnet Plaza Mosque, Abuja.
"God will punish all those who have robbed Nigerians of the opportunity to choose their leaders," prayed Sheikh Umar Aliyu Yanda, Chief Imam of the mosque.
The Chief Imam said the prayers of the aggrieved reach God faster than those of the oppressors. "Therefore, God will answer the prayers of the millions of Nigerians who have been cheated in the polls," he said, adding: "There is no way they (who stole the people's mandate) can enjoy the fruits of this fraud in peace."
The event was attended by the presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, and other chieftains of the parties in the coalition.
In a similar development, Christians thronged Our Lady Queen of Nigeria Cathedral at Area 3, Garki, Abuja, on Sunday to pray for God's intervention in the political crisis triggered by the elections.
Rev. Akpan, who presided, warned leaders to tread the path of rectitude, saying they cannot create the foundation for stability through fraudulent elections.
Those at the service included the ANPP Chairman, Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, former Edo State Governor, Chief John Oyegun, former Enugu State Governor Okwesilieze Nwodo, Rear Admiral Lanre Amosun, Joy Munieh and Osita Okechukwu.
Meanwhile, the AC has commended Britain for speaking out against the massive rigging of the polls and advised other nations to take a similar position.
In a statement in Abuja issued by AC's National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party agreed with the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Sir Richard Gozney, who said of the polls: "It was not just a question of disorganization, but there was outright rigging, and the results were, frankly, not credible."
The party noted that Nigerians will remember those members of the international community who stood up for the truth and with the masses at this critical time. It berated the United States for being "less steadfast" in condemning the polls.
"We wish the US had been much more steadfast and less ambivalent in its own stand toward the deeply flawed polls," the party said.
The party said, however, that its concern, and those of millions of Nigerians, was that the issues at stake had gone well beyond just rigging of elections to the dangerous slide to a one-party state and the rule of one megalomaniac, who couldn't just imagine being out of power.
"With over 90 per cent of the membership of the National Assembly and 29 of 36 states in the PDP's kitty - all acquired through a shameless and brazen allocation of votes - the stage is set for a one-party state. The emerging scenario has no other name but dictatorship, long dreamt of by President Olusegun Obasanjo, and it will not stand," the party said.
The party recalled the amendment of the PDP's constitution to make the chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees an executive chairman, and to ensure that the government of the day reflects the view of the party as expressed by the BOT chairman.
"These developments will surely lead to a one-man government to be controlled from a chicken farm in Ota. All the talk about Yar'Adua being his own man or a good man is nothing but naivety.
This is because with the National Assembly members of the PDP knowing they owe their seats to the all-powerful BOT Chairman, they will willingly do his bidding for their own political survival, and may even impeach Yar'Adua if he tries to show any streak of independence. Under the circumstances, everything is stacked against him (Yar'Adua)," it explained.
AC said with its unprecedented rigging of the last general elections, the PDP has carried its sacrifice beyond the mosque and stolen more than enough for the owner to notice.
Also reacting, the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) has warned that recognising Yar'Adua as president-elect would amount to collaboration with a fascist regime. In a statement by its national publicity secretary, Osita Okechukwu, in Abuja, CNPP condemned Presidents Mbeki of South Africa and Kuffor of Ghana for suporting what it called illegality going on in Nigeria.
The CNPP called on Nigerians to boycott products from both countries for condoning electoral fraud in Nigeria while consolidating democracy at home.
The group paid tributes to the governments of US, UK the European Union, Canada other friends of Nigeria for rejecting the "sham" April elections in Nigeria, noting that the rejection of the election would demonstrate that the core value of democracy is the expansion of frontiers of freedom, where people have the right to choose their leaders.
"CNPP commends the international observers and their home governments for exposing the culture of impunity which is President Olusegun Obasanjo's legacy," the statement said.
It accused Obasanjo of doctoring the 2002 Electoral Act, subverting the constitution and the Electoral Act 2006, by using INEC to chase his perceived enemies and EFCC to hound his opponents, and wondered what INEC did with N60 billion spent on the election.