OBASANJO SCORES SA POLLS HIGH

The head of the AU observer team to SA. Nigeria’s former leader Olusegun Obasanjo says South Africa’s general elections were free fair and credible.

Obasanjo who had  toured the Kwazulu-Natal, Nkandla, Durban and two other areas, observing the polls  said the electorate had exercised their voting rights with enthusiasm which was indicative of their desire to make a success of the polls despite genuine fear.

He said his impression of the polls is a testimony to the birthing of a mature democracy in South Africa. The chief AU observer argued that the incidents of electoral malpractices were isolated and would not affect the credibility of the election. ‘We cannot legislate for the behavior of electoral officials, we must make allowance for human error’ The former Nigerian leader argued adding that if 4 electoral fraud incidents were reported in the entire country, the electoral commission-IEC deserved to be congratulated

The Democratic Alliance leader, Helen Zille was conservative in her summary of the elections, saying that results released so far were in tandem with the party’s earlier prediction. However Zille had harsh words for the IEC, saying that it failed to provide ballot papers and boxes on time

With 51% of the votes so far counted, the ANC leads with about 65%. The Democratic Alliance maintained its strong lead in the Western cape province as in previous elections with 17% and the new party, COPE-8%. The country’s electoral commission said 74% of registered voters have so far been confirmed to have participated in the polls.

CONNECTAFRICA

OBASANJO URGES PEACEFUL SA POLLS

The head of the AU’s observer team to the South African elections former Nigerian President Obasanjo has urged voters to cast their ballots in a peaceful manner and desist from any acts of violence. He hoped this year’s elections will be a beacon of democracy, not only for SA, but the continent as a whole.

“We would like to see the elections conducted in a democratic manner, where every registered voter will have a chance to cast his/her ballot,” said Obasanjo.

South Africans head to the polls today, to elect their leader in the forth democratic elections since the fall of the apartheid regime.

Observers have termed this year’s elections as a hotly contested exercise since the fall of apartheid in 1994 in which the ruling party, the African National Congress headed by Jacob Zuma faces a tough opposition from the Democratic Alliance and its break-away COPE.

The elections also come at a time when South Africa faces dire challenges of an economic meltdown, sky rocketing poverty, political violence and the infamous HIV/Aids epidemic. The southern African country witnessed acts of xenophobic violence meted out at African foreign nations a year ago.

Obasanjo has also called for a huge voter turnout, saying that he would like to see an 80 percent voter turnout in this year’s elections.

“It is a pity that in some countries, less than 50% of voters cast their ballots. We hope that South African youth, particularly will see the need to vote for a new leader.

On his perceptions towards Jacob Zuma, who the opinion polls have predicted as the next South African leader, Obasanjo steered clear from expressing his views on Zuma’s personality. He instead hailed Zuma as a popular leader and a Pan-African.

“We know Zuma as a popular leader who is also down to earth. Such attributes are important for any African leader. We all know that there are many things that people say about their leaders, both in their favour and against; but what is important is the leader’s focus.”

Obasanjo, also a former AU chairman said that the million dollar question that every South African should be asking now is, ‘Is the leader we are electing a man of vision? Can he/she be trusted to further improve our living standards? Can he dream realistic dreams and actualise those dreams?’

SOURCED FROM AFRICAN NEWS

DRC REBELS, GOVT. TO MEET

The Democratic Republic of Congo government has agreed to a long-standing rebel demand for talks, to start on Monday, officials say.

Until now, the Congolese government has refused calls for direct talks with General Laurent Nkunda’s forces. Their advance in recent months has forced some 250,000 people from their homes, sparking a humanitarian crisis.

DR Congo and Rwanda also agreed to take action against Rwandan Hutu FDLR rebels based in DR Congo. Rwanda is accused of backing Gen Nkunda, who is an ethnic Tutsi, like many in the Rwandan government.

Gen Nkunda says he is protecting his Congolese Tutsi community from attack by the FDLR, some of whose leaders fled to eastern DR Congo after the 1994 genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Both Rwanda and Gen Nkunda have accused the Congolese government of not doing enough to tackle the FDLR Hutu rebels.

SOURCED FROM BBC

UN SCRIBE INDICTS REBELS, GOVT IN DRC CRISIS

The UN secretary general has issued a report saying that all sides in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have committed serious human rights abuses.

Ban Ki-moon said both government forces and rebels loyal to Gen Laurent Nkunda had carried out arbitrary executions, mass killings, rape and torture. The report covers July to November, when the most recent fighting flared.

On Sunday, hundreds of angry Congolese civilians stoned a convoy of UN peacekeepers in North Kivu province. A spokesman for the UN mission, Monuc, said 20 pro-government Mai Mai militiamen being escorted to Goma were taken away by soldiers during the incident and presented to government officials as rebels.

Meanwhile, a UK-based aid group has been able to get medical supplies to eastern towns for the first time since they were captured by rebels 10 days ago.

Meanwhile, Mr Ban’s special envoy, Olusegun Obasanjo, has urged Congolese President Joseph Kabila to talk with Gen Nkunda in order to prevent the situation from worsening.

Mr Obasanjo said Gen Nkunda had presented three main demands – direct talks with the government, protection of minorities, and the “integration of his soldiers with the national army, and integration of those responsible for administration in the areas he occupied with the administrative cadre of the government”.

“He will want some form of a guarantee to ensure that those from inside who are integrated are safe and secure. He also talked about good governance and a professional army, well-trained, well-equipped and well-disciplined,” he added.

The former Nigerian pesident said he did not consider the demands “outrageous” and that Mr Kabila “did not say he will not talk” when they met recently.

“The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is not averse to such a dialogue,” he told reporters in New York.

Mr Obasanjo said his next round of talks in the country would focus on arranging a meeting between the government and Mr Nkunda.

SOURCED FROM BBC

OBASANJO MEETS KABILA OVER DRC CRISIS

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the United Nations special envoy for eastern Congo, met Congolese President Joseph Kabila late on Friday and will fly east for talks with rebel leader Laurent Nkunda.

Obasanjo is trying to avert a broader regional war breaking out after battles between Nkunda’s Tutsi guerrillas and the Congolese army forced some 250,000 people from their homes in Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu province.

“They met last night,” a source in the DRC presidency told Reuters. “(Obasanjo) is now due to go to the east to find out what it is Nkunda wants and tell him this is his last chance.”

No details of the meeting in Kinshasa were available.Obasanjo, who was named last week by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as his special envoy, met Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos in Luanda before flying to the Congolese capital, and has already spoken to Nkunda by telephone.

The United Nations says the fighting has triggered a humanitarian catastrophe. On Friday, aid workers began feeding tens of thousands of refugees in rebel-held areas.There are fears the violence could escalate into a repeat of a 1998-2003 war that sucked in the militaries of six African states and led to millions of deaths.

SOURCED FROM REUTERS

DEATH WISH FOR NIGERIA’S PRESIDENT?

No hecklers at the newsstands, no apocalyptic political analysts on local Nigerian TV stations, even the insipid commercial motor cyclist who rode me to work could only offer a slight chuckle at the prospects of President Umar Yar’Adua dead. Now if you are not Nigerian you may have to forgive my morbid humour in trying to figure out the public’s response to the rumoured death of president yar’adua. This is the second time in a little over a year that president Yar’adua has died and we aren’t closer to the truth on the president’s state of health, unlike the former there is no president Olusegun Obasanjo to play hell’s angel and advocate, apologies to he’s asking ‘Umaru’ if he was alive last year when the media had been rife that the president had suddenly taken ill and died. One year on and the media is asking the same question. The president’s spokespersons, official and pseudo have only helped in worsening this fiasco. We know the president went to Saudi Arabia to perform the lesser hajj, ten days on where is he? Why was he not available to open the Nigerian embassy in Brazil according to his detailed official log? How can it all be fine and dandy if the VP Goodluck Jonathan who was supposed to be attending late Zambian leader’s Levi Mwanawasa funeral shelved it?. According to the sun newspapers Goodluck was waiting for some good news from Germany. So dear presidential spokespersons what bad news was being shepherded after all the president told us in a recent interview it was no big deal to be ill, well or die. The president’s media harbingers better be prepared for an oily battle with a vibrant local press, already permutations and diabolical innuendos are rife, e.g. Obasanjo knew all along that this scenario would play out; putting an enervating leader in the saddle and a VP who has never been mentioned as a power broker in the nation’s polity either as governor or VP. The constitution is very clear on what happens if the president passes on; the VP takes over. This however is a difficult prospect to belly. In the run up to the last presidential election there were at least five presidential contenders from the region, at the end we learnt it was easier to step aside than take a hold of the plough, one after the other the entire lot honourably withdrew .Neither Goodluck nor Yar’dua were ever in the equation, leaving us in this quagmire, perhaps OBJ could yet speak to President Yar’adua on our behalf if his media men can’t do the job.

Aghogho, CONNECTAFRICA

FUNDS UNRETURNED, BLACK-OUT LINGERS

Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole, says about N1.5 trillion ( 12 billion US dollars) released by the Federal Government for the improvement of the power sector in a decade was not spent, and yet remained unremitted to government coffers.

Mr. Bankole who spoke at the opening of the Annual Delegates’ Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Abuja also tasked legislators in the Niger Delta states to challenge their governors on their expenditure of the 13 per cent derivation fund, while President Umaru Yar’Adua in a message to the conference said the adoption of the federal system of government by the nation’s founding fathers could not be faulted.

The speaker vowed that nothing would stop him from presenting to the public the report of the probe panel that investigated the power sector in the last ten years.

On the Niger Delta crisis, he said: “There is a problem in the Niger Delta. The region is exploding.

A state in the South-South collects more than all the states in the North-East and the lawmakers in those states are not asking questions on how the money the governments collect from the federation account is used. No state Assembly from this region has asked the governors question.

“The National Assembly has started asking questions and this is called the oversight function. How much did the government spend, especially, as over $16 billion was spent on power, yet no power.

BAKASSI’S SWAN SONG

Several newspapers had captured the feelings of Nigerians and most especially bakassi indigenes before the final handing over of the disputed peninsular to cameroun just hours before the event began one had read ’ bye-bye bakassi’ and another ‘going going gone’and so on and so forth. A week before D-day, indigenes of the peninsular had complained of the high handedness of the Cameroonian gendarmes; there were unconfirmed reports of trigger happy gendarmes firing at defenceless civilians perhaps in a bid to drive fear into hearts of defiant bakassians who had pledged to disrupt the final handing over ceremony.

The fear of the unknown perhaps is what drove the organizers of the handing-over ceremony to calabar rather than bakassi for the handing over rites. Forget the banal post war rhetoric of ‘no victor no vanquished’ by Nigeria’s former president olusegun Obasanjo after he had signed the green tree agreement with Cameroonian leader paul biya. The air of melancholy hung heavy in the air at the venue as a visibly tired attorney general of Nigeria, Michael aandokaa backed away from the scrutinizing lenses of several the media hawks to sign the document of relinquishment. Fortunately for Nigeria the entire show lasted for 58 minutes and at the end of the day the only ones who had smiles on their faces where the officials of the international criminal of justice and the Cameroonian authorities. A stern looking Nigerian minister of justice later emerged from the venue warning Cameroonian authorities to abide by the provisions of the green tree agreement. The indigenes of bakassi may just hope to God that nothing awry happens otherwise their guinea-pig role -playing; apologies to Florence ita-giwa- the most famous bakassian till date- may linger longer than expected.

According to the federal government of Nigeria, less than 30% of resettlement work has been achieved and the Nigeria media is rife with stories about inadequate drugs, housing and food for the displaced bakassians. Their clarion call has suddenly become ‘take us back home’. In all honesty their voices have been silenced long before August 15, 2008, before the 2006 green tree agreement in New York and definitely longer than the ICJ’s ruling in2002 when they were denied the opportunity of a plebiscite or referendum by the Nigerian government to decide their future.

There are indeed genuine fears whether Cameroun can play its part in this landmark development. A Nigerian, George okon, who lives at a temporary shelter erected by the cross river state government at ikong, accused the camerounian gendarmes of looting, raping and killing Nigerians in the peninsula.

As a Nigerian I am indeed saddened not because of the loss of another potential revenue earner but that several people have suddenly been disinherited, and without a natural root they have suddenly become aliens in their own land with perhaps a new language, culture and profession.

Yes for Nigeria, it is undoubtedly a painful moment but then there have been some gains; for once every Nigerian stood up to be counted as a bakassian, upset and angry not over the loss of some natural resource but rather in the loss of a fellow country man’s homeland.

Finally I implore the federal government to ensure the speedy release of the budgeted one billion naira for the recreation of a new local government for the bakassians and maybe this would be the first step towards the much awaited healing process and regaining their identity.

EMMAFEMI CONNECTAFRICA.

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