APC ON FIRE: Six Presidential Candidates for Primaries may Emerge; Buhari, Atiku Abubakar, Senator Bukola Saraki, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Rochas Okorocha and yet to decamp; Aminu Tambuwal.

Though, formal campaigns for next year’s general election are yet to begin, the race for the presidential tickets of the major political parties is certainly hotting up. The parties are also exploring possible permutations that would give them political advantage in the various geopolitical zones.

While President Goodluck Jonathan may not have any strong challenger for the Peoples Democratic Party presidential ticket, in the All Progressives Congress, it looks set to be a four horse race between former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari; former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; former governor of Kwara State, Senator Bukola Saraki; and Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso. Each of the aspirants has some things going for him in the race, and downsides, too.

This is inspite of the fact that Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, yesterday declared his intention to run for the presidency on the platform of the party and newspaper publisher, Sam Nda-Isaiah, has been holding consultations about his presidential aspiration.

Buhari, a native of Daura in Katsina State, ran unsuccessfully for the presidential office in the 2003, 2007, and 2011 general elections. He has a strong grassroots support in the North, and across the country. Buhari is famous for an impressive record of honesty and a tough anticorruption stance. He is generally seen as the foremost contender for the APC presidential ticket.

The modified direct primaries approved on August 21 by the national leadership of APC for the choice of the party’s presidential candidate, beginning October, also appears to put the former Head of State in pole position. The system, which will involve about 300, 000 party members chosen from the ward, local government, and national levels voting to elect the presidential candidate, is hailed for its ability to reduce the influence of moneybags.

But, Buhari, a Muslim, is criticised, especially, in the South and among the country’s Christian population, for his alleged strong religious views. He is also believed to lack the wherewithal to finance an effective campaign and maintain strong political structures in the different states of the country. At 72, it is thought in some quarters that Buhari may not have the energy and drive to effectively lead a large and diverse country like Nigeria.

Atiku, 68, is from Adamawa State. He was presidential candidate of Action Congress in the 2007 election. Ahead of the 2011 general election, he was consensus candidate of the Northern Political Leaders Forum and contested unsuccessfully against Jonathan for the PDP presidential ticket. He also contested the presidential primaries of the now defunct Social Democratic Party in 1993 and placed third after Moshood Abiola and Babagana Kingibe.

The former vice president maintains robust political structures across the country and he is believed to have cross-party sympathy. Atiku is thought to have a huge war chest for campaigns and maintenance of his structures. He runs a media office that is widely adjudged to be the most vigorous in the country at the moment. His wide political network fits perfectly into the modified direct primaries approach adopted by APC for the election of its presidential candidate.

However, Atiku does not seem to have strong grassroots popularity. The October 11 governorship bye-election in his native Adamawa State may also be a hurdle before Atiku, as sources within APC say it may be taken as a gauge of his popularity and strength in his home state and, thus, his capacity to effectively hold the party’s presidential ticket.

Saraki, a native of Kwara State, is a medical doctor and senator. He successfully led the Nigeria Governors’ Forum as governor of Kwara State.

Saraki comes from a strong political background and he, apparently, leveraged his position as NGF chairman to make a lot of contacts across the country. He has a good control of APC in his state, and the party, the ruling party in the state, has a big chance of  retaining control of the state in the next general election, which stands Saraki in good stead in the presidential race. Saraki, 52, also has age on his side.

But Saraki’s North-central origin may not count in his favour in the North, as most people in the region may likely prefer someone from the North-west or North-east.

Kwankwaso, 58, has a strong experience in the civil service and politics. He was the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives in 1992 and delegate to the Constitutional Conference in 1994. The former defence minister swept to power in 2011 with a strong political ideology anchored on the Kwankwasiyya Movement, eight years after losing the governorship seat to Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau.

Kwankwaso has strong support among the APC governors and in Kano State he is widely admired for his excellent performance. The Kwankwasiyya Ambassadors of Nigeria, a group backing his presidential aspiration, though based in Kano State, is a strong political force trying to take the message of his performance beyond the state.
However, Kwankwaso does not seem to have political structures beyond Kano State that can support an effective presidential campaign.

Besides the four aspirants, House of Representatives Speaker Aminu Tambuwal is also widely speculated to nurse a presidential ambition on the platform of APC. He is currently a member of PDP, but there is a strong suspicion he may soon defect to APC.

Meanwhile, ahead of the presidential election, PDP and APC are plotting strategies focused on gaining advantage in states and geopolitical zones with high voting strength.

LoudNewsToday gathered that PDP strategists are banking on support from the South-south and South-east, while APC is counting on the North-west and North-east, with both parties readying to slug it out in the North-central and South-west, which are seen as battleground zones.

A senior presidency official said, “The general permutation for the 2015 presidential election is based on the support of the South-south states, irrespective of the fact that Edo State and Rivers State are technically in the hands of the opposition APC.” 

PDP estimates to get at least 70 per cent of South-east votes. It hopes to get even more in the South-south, Jonathan’s native zone. But whatever PDP may lose in the South-south and South-east, it hopes to cover in the North-central, whose states are governed by PDP, except Nasarawa State, the source said.

“The low population strength in the two geopolitical zones of South-east and South-south is reinforced with the voting strength in the North-central.” The source explained that Jonathan would get more than 25 per cent of the votes in the North-east and North-west states. He said PDP strategists believed the party would get between 40 and 50 per cent of the votes in the South-west, which they recognised as the stronghold of the opposition.
The South-west has the second highest voter population after North-west.

An APC chieftain, who is among the main strategists of the party, told  LoudNewsTody  that whatever votes PDP could garner would be countered in the states of Kano, Bauchi, Kaduna and Katsina, which he described as the stronghold of the opposition.

Australian Negotiator: Politicians Funding Boko Haram.

Davis

A Perth-based international adviser, Dr. Stephen Davis, who survived months of extreme danger to try to rescue more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by terrorist group Boko Haram, has alleged that one of the primary sources of funding for the terror group is Nigerian politicians.

“That makes it easier in some ways as they can be arrested, but of course the onus of proof is high and many are in opposition, so if the president (Goodluck Jonathan) moves against them, he would be accused of trying to rig the elections due early next year,” he said.

LoudNewsToday had exclusively reported that one of the key federal government negotiators trying to secure the release of the Chibok girls from the clutches of Boko Haram was Davis.

Davis has worked in Nigeria in the past with the Archbishop of Canterbury and Head of the Church of England, Justin Welby, to negotiate the release of kidnapped oil industry workers in the Niger Delta.
Speaking yesterday in an interview on ABC News, an Australian television station, Davis, 63, said he had realised the only way to stop the kidnappings was to stop the sponsors of Boko Haram.

While Al Qaeda was involved in training Boko Haram recruits, Davis said one of their major sources of funding - aside from raiding banks - was Nigerian politicians.

“That makes it easier in some ways as they can be arrested, but of course the onus of proof is high and many are in opposition, so if the president (Goodluck Jonathan) moves against them, he would be accused of trying to rig the elections due early next year,” he said.

“So I think this will run through to the election unabated. These politicians think that if they win power they can turn these terrorists off, but this has mutated.

“It’s no longer a case of Muslims purifying by killing off Christians. They are just killing indiscriminately, beheading, disembowelling people - men, women and children and whole villages.

“I would say it's almost beyond the control of the political sponsors now. Terror groups are linking up in Somalia, southern Sudan, Egypt and we have fairly strong evidence they are talking with ISIS members.
“They will link up with ISIS and Al Shabaab and I think that what we are seeing in that region is the new homeland of radical Islam in the world,” he told his interviewer.

Davis, who returned to Australia after a four-month sojourn with rare footage of the intense fighting in Nigeria's North-east, as Boko Haram stepped up efforts to establish an Islamic state, said he established extensive contacts with tribes and terrorist groups in Africa, including three small cells of Al Qaeda, while working as a troubleshooter for oil and gas company Shell in the Niger Delta.

When news broke in April about the girls’ kidnapping from a school in the village of Chibok, near the Cameroun border, Davis, who had recently moved to Perth from London, decided he could not sit on his hands.

During the journey in North-eastern Nigeria, his life was threatened more than once, but his Australian passport saved him.

“When confronted by groups with an AK-47 in my face they'd say, ‘you are American, we have to kill you’,” Davis said.

“When you say, no I’m not American, they think you are British, and say you will still die, but when I said I’m Australian, they said that’s all right. I have no idea why but it’s certainly been helpful.”
The devout Christian managed to smuggle out of the country footage of a handful of schoolgirls who escaped from Boko Haram.

They detail the atrocities they endured, including being raped almost on a daily basis.
Following media reports that nobody knew where the girls were, he decided to reach out to his contacts.
“I made a few phone calls to the Boko Haram commanders and they confirmed they were in possession of the girls,” he said.

“They told me they’d be prepared to release some as a goodwill gesture towards a peace deal with the government, so I went to Nigeria on the basis of being able to secure their release.”

Arriving in Nigeria, Davis quickly set up talks with commanders and he believed he had brokered a deal.
Fearing being arrested, the Boko Haram commanders - holding the girls across the border in Cameroun - had a list of conditions.

They wanted the military to stand down and promised to drop the girls in a village before phoning to give their exact location.

Davis said they lived up to their promise, but in a region ravaged by war and corruption, the rescue was sabotaged.

“The girls were there, 60 girls, there were 20 vehicles with the girls,” he said.
“We travelled for four-and-a-half hours to reach them, but 15 minutes before we arrived they were kidnapped again by another group who wanted to cash in on a reward.

“The police had offered a reward of several million naira just 24 hours before we went to pick them up.
“I understand, from the Boko Haram commanders I spoke to, the girls eventually ended up back with them.

“I don't know what happened to the group that took them but I suspect it wasn't good,” he disclosed.
Davis said a young man kidnapped by Boko Haram and used as a driver later helped a handful of girls to escape.

One kidnapped girl, who managed to avoid having her mobile phone confiscated by turning it off and hiding it in her bra, managed to call her family while hiding in bushes, but had no idea where she was or which direction she should be heading.

After being told to walk west by following the sunset each evening, the four girls managed to cross the border from Cameroun and into Nigeria before being reunited with their families.
So far they are the only girls to have escaped from a Boko Haram camp.

When Davis later tried to contact, via text, the young man who helped them, he received a sobering reply.
“The person you are trying to contact has gone on a journey from which there is no return,” the reply read. “He was an infidel.”

Davis said the longer he stayed in Nigeria the more it dawned on him the kidnappings would not end.
“It became very clear that if I was able to get 50 girls released, then another group would kidnap 70 or 80 more. So by freeing 50 you were consigning 70 or 80 more to the same fate,” he explained.

Davis said initially journalists from around the world including CNN, the ABC and BBC flocked into the country, but they concluded it was far too dangerous to send any crew into the North-east of the country.
He said since then, the violence in North-east Nigeria and the threat of foreign journalists being kidnapped and beheaded, there has been limited coverage of the crimes being committed by Boko Haram.

“Boko Haram used to telephone Nigerian journalists and give them a story, but that doesn't happen anymore,” he said.

“They go straight to social media. They post their own material and they’ve learnt to become very savvy on social media and use it as an instrument to terrorise.”

Davis, who has a PhD in political geography, has worked as an adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

He also worked for Shell in Nigeria in an advisory capacity between 2002 and 2004.

B-O-M-B-S-H-E-L-L!!! Nigerian Made The British To Leave, What Are The Fulanis From Guinea Doing In Nigeria?.

fulanis

Alhaji Mujahid Asari Dokubo speaks.

**Ilorin is a Yoruba city, Emir of Ilorin is a Fulani. Bida is a Nupe town, Emir of Bida is a Fulani. Birnin Gwari is a Gbagi town, the Emir of Birnin Gwari is a Fulani. Why?

Boko Haram is not fighting for anything other than the seizure of political power by the Fulani people. They are using Kanuri territory to perpetrate the evil, but the main people instigating this bloodletting are the Fulani from Futa Djallon. We know where they came from. They are colonialists and if we made the British to leave, what are these people doing here? They are also colonialists.
You have to reflect and ask yourself some questions.

Kano is a Hausa city, the Emir of Kano is not a Hausa man; he is a Fulani. Ilorin is a Yoruba city, the Emir of Ilorin is a Fulani. Bida is a Nupe town, the Emir of Bida is a Fulani. Birnin Gwari is a Gbagi town, the Emir of Birnin Gwari is a Fulani. The Lamido of Adamawa who is residing in Yola is a Fulani, who claims he has other Fulanis in Cameroon and other places. These are not Fulani cities. We know where they all came from.

They all migrated from far-flung places to their present locations. So if we know where they come from and we know that they are not from here, they came to colonise these territories. What are they still doing here? If the British left, the French left, the Germans left, the Portuguese left, the Belgians left, what are these people doing here? They are also colonialists, but this is what our elites are ready to accept.

Why should we allow foreigners to dominate the aborigines? When people like us talk, they say these are very sensitive issues, don’t touch them. Why should we not touch them? Why should the Sultan of Sokoto be the head of Muslims in Nigeria? Where did we meet and make the Sultan our head? So these are the things. But a lot of people don’t look beyond the surface. A man says he is born to rule; you have not asked yourself, if that man is born to rule, what about you? If the man is born to rule, you are born to be ruled.

So you become drawers of water and hewers of wood. A wise man in one of the great books I have read said: For I have seen a grave injustice on the surface of the earth that I saw the servants riding on horseback and princes walking on foot. The Hausa man in Kano is walking on foot; Sanusi, a Fulani man, a Gambari from Guinea is riding on horseback.

Fulani Sulu-Gambari in Ilorin is riding on horseback. These are the issues that we’ve not been able to capture. Why should injustice continue? Why should the indigenous Hausa population in Kano not be given back what rightfully belongs to them? Why is it that in Ilorin, the indigenous Yoruba people, the ones they call Baba Agba, are not given back what rightfully belongs to them? .

Chief Tom Ikimi is Political Warhorse when it Comes to Politics.

Tom Ikimi

Chief Tom Ikimi is political warhorse when it comes to politics. He has seen it all as a former National Publicity Secretary of the defunct National Republican Convention and a minister under General Sani Abacha.

He was also there when Gen. Muhammadu Buhari ran against Obasanjo when Prof. Maurice Iwu held sway at INEC. In short, Ikimi has fought many a political battle; some he won, others he was bruised but he came out a better man.

So, it was not surprising when recently he wrote a long letter to his party’s leadership, the All Progressives Congress, APC.

Ikimi has come far to know when danger lurks. For him, the APC was derailing and fast too. He has raised concerns that some critical decisions are shrouded in secrecy. According his letter, he accepted to become Vice National Chairman for the greater benefit of the party but developments have left him befuddled.

The political tactician might just be coming to a new reality; a reality that nothing looks like they seem. Perhaps, age has dimmed his acute sense of the future; maybe he hoped it would be different, but from all intent and purposes, this is one bitter pill he has to take into retirement. Time will tell!

Recently, he said that Tinubu has turned APC into private property and further declared that

no individual claims ownership of PDP like Tinubu is doing in APC.

He said, “The governors and the Tinubu groups decided on a zoning process that was limited only to party offices as well as the choice of individuals to fill them. They proceeded nin a manner that was neither open nor transparent. Most undemocratic and bizarre procedures then prevailed.

“The governors initiated a zoning plan that allocated the national chairman to the South-South. This proposal was reluctantly accepted by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, whose well-known preferred option had been to retain Chief Bisi Akande as the chairman forever. Nevertheless, he in the circumstance, proceeded to draw up a list of his cronies for the entire national executive all by himself. Very strange as this may sound, it was the reality. Nothing was ever referred to the National Interim Executive Council for approval or even information.”

Ikimi also lambasted Tinubu for parading himself as the national leader of the APC, saying no one gave him such a position. He added that it was unfortunate that some members of the party had tried to justify Tinubu’s unilateral appointment of Oyegun as the national chairman as a concession done to him as the national leader.

He said his problem with the ex-governor began when he opposed the Muslim-Muslim presidential and vice presidential ticket of the party.

“Asiwaju Bola Tinubu may recall that mostly for the same reasons I opposed his desire to run as vice presidential candidate to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar under the Action Congress banner in 2007. We settled for Senator Ben Obi from eastern Nigeria.“I know he nurses a grudge against me for the position I took which was strongly supported by leaders from five zones apart from the South-West. I have no regrets whatsoever for my courage to stand up against oppression or dictatorship. No matter what anyone might say against the PDP, no individual claims ownership of that party,”

I May Retire Very Soon As I Have Only 2-3 Years More To Live - Pope Francis

Pope Francis

The Pope has spoken publicly for the first time about his own death, suggesting that he only has two to three years to live and may retire early.

Pope Francis, 77, made the claims during a press conference on his return flight from a hectic, five-day visit to South Korea.

When asked how he was coping with his huge popularity, the Pontiff replied: “I try to think of my sins, my mistakes, so as not to think that I am somebody. Because I know this will last a short time, two or three years, and then to the house of the Father.”

He then made a chopping gesture with his hand and whistling noise.

If the Pope is proved right, it would bring the curtain down on a revolutionary papacy during which he has already shaken up - over the course of months since his election last year - Vatican institutions which have remained unchanged for centuries.

On the plane back from Korea, the Pope looked in good form and stood for an hour as he took questions from reporters, but he admitted he was struggling to keep up with his appointments, recalling how he cancelled a visit to a Rome hospital in June.

“The day I should have gone to the Gemelli (Hospital), up to 10 minutes before I was there, but I could not do it. It is true, they were seven very demanding days then, full of engagements. Now I have to be a little more prudent,” he said.

The hard working pope, who grew up in Buenos Aires and became archbishop there in 1998 before his election as pope, revealed his last holiday outside the city was in 1975, but he added that he was a dab hand at holidaying at home.

“I change rhythm. I sleep more, I read the things I like. I listen to music. That way I rest. In July and part of August I did that,” he said.

Pope Francis admitted that he had “some nerve problems”, which required treatment. “Must treat them well, these nerves, give them mate (an Argentine tea) every day,” he joked.

On Tuesday, bookmakers Paddy Power made Ghana’s Cardinal Peter Turkson 7/1 favourite to succeed the Pope, followed by Canada’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet at 8/1. England’s Cardinal Vincent Nicols stood at 20/1.

On the plane the Pope again supported the decision by his predecessor Pope Benedict to retire - the first pope to do so in 600 years - and suggested he might do the same.

“Let us think about what he said,” the Pope said of Benedict. “I have got old, I do not have the strength. It was a beautiful gesture of nobility, of humility and courage.”

The Pope pointed out that 70 years ago, bishops rarely retired. “They did not exist, but today emeritus bishops are an institution,” he said.

“I think that the emeritus pope is already an institution because our life gets longer and at a certain age there isn’t the capacity to govern well because the body gets tired, and maybe one’s health is good but there isn’t the capacity to carry forward all the problems of a government like that of the Church,” he said.

“I would do the same,” he added. “I would pray, but I would do the same. He (Benedict) opened a door that is institutional, not exceptional.”

Despite his talk of death and retirement, the Pope was also keen to lay out plans for future foreign trips, suggesting he still has plenty of energy.

After suggesting that the UN should get involved in halting the advance of the Islamic militants in Iraq, the Pope said he was willing to visit northern Iraq, even though “at the moment it is not the best thing to do”.

He said he was aiming to visit Philadelphia next year, had been invited by Barack Obama to the US Congress and by the secretary general of the United Nations to visit the UN in New York.

“So maybe the three cities together,” he said. “Then there’s Mexico. The Mexicans want me to go to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, so we could take advantage of that too, but it’s not certain.”

He was also mulling a quick trip to Spain, he said.

Following trips to Brazil, the Holy Land and South Korea, the Vatican has confirmed Francis will visit Albania in September and Sri Lanka and the Philippines in January.

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The New Map Of Nigeria, As Proposed By Nigeria National Confab if approved by President Goodluck Jonathan. 18 additional new states!

New Map Of Nigeria

 Nigeria could have 18 new states following the July 3rd recommendation of the delegates of the National Confab if approved by President Goodluck Jonathan.     The states which were carved from the 6 geo-political zones of the country will bring the total number of states in Nigeria to 54.   Members of the National Conference Committee on Political Restructuring and Forms of Government jointly headed by Ike Nwachukwu & Mohammed Kumalia released a copy of the newly proposed map of Nigeria with the additional states added. The additional new states are:
Apa from Benue
Edu from Niger
Kainji from Kebbi state
Katagum from Bauchi
Savannah from Borno
Amana from Adamawa
Gurara from Kaduna
Ghari from Kano
Etiti from South East
Aba from Abia
Adada from Enugu
Njaba from Anambra and Imo
Oil River from Rivers state
Anioma from Delta state
Ogoja from Cross River State
Ijebu from Ogun State
Ose state from Edo
New Oyo State from the present Oyo State  
 Meanwhile the closing ceremony for the CONFAB will take place August 21st 2014, where the final report adopted by the delegates will be handed to President Jonathan for consideration and approval.