Aproko Corner: 2015-03-29

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Jonathan Statement On Presidential Election

President Goodluck Jonathan

Fellow Nigerians,
I thank you all for turning out en-masse for the March 28 General Elections.
I promised the country free and fair elections. I have kept my word. I have also expanded the space for Nigerians to participate in the democratic process. That is one legacy I will like to see endure.
Although some people have expressed mixed feelings about the results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), I urge those who may feel aggrieved to follow due process based on our constitution and our electoral laws, in seeking redress.
As I have always affirmed, nobody’s ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian. The unity, stability and progress of our dear country is more important than anything else.
I congratulate all Nigerians for successfully going through the process of the March 28th General Elections with the commendable enthusiasm and commitment that was demonstrated nationwide.
I also commend the Security Services for their role in ensuring that the elections were mostly peaceful and violence-free.
To my colleagues in the PDP, I thank you for your support. Today, the PDP should be celebrating rather than mourning. We have established a legacy of democratic freedom, transparency, economic growth and free and fair elections.
For the past 16 years, we have steered the country away from ethnic and regional politics. We created a Pan-Nigerian political party and brought home to our people the realities of economic development and social transformation.
Through patriotism and diligence, we have built the biggest and most patriotic party in Nigerian history. We must stand together as a party and look to the future with renewed optimism.
I thank all Nigerians once again for the great opportunity I was given to lead this country and assure you that I will continue to do my best at the helm of national affairs until the end of my tenure.
I have conveyed my personal best wishes to General Muhammadu Buhari.
May God Almighty continue to bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
I thank you all.
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR
President,
Federal Republic of Nigeria
March 31, 2015

Muhammadu Buhari Officially Declared Next President Of Nigeria

Sahara Reporters Media

The Independent National Election Commission (INEC) declared All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Muhammadu Buhari president-elect of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
President-elect Muhammadu Buhari's All Progressives Congress won the 2015 Nigeria presidential elections by a comfortable margin of 2, 571, 759 votes after securing a total of 15,424,921 against Peoples Democratic Party's (PDP) 12,853,162 votes.
The announcement by INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega was met with jubilation from many in the streets of Abuja and Lagos, many of whom sensed president-elect Buhari's impending victory in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
International election monitors lauded Nigeria's 2015 presidential elections as free and fair. The European Union Election Monitoring Commission and African Union announced yesterday that Nigeria's election satisfied regional and international standards.
The 2015 presidential campaigns at times took dramatic turns with fears over new INEC anti-corruption provisions like Permanent Voters Cards (PVC), the decision to postpone elections originally slated for February, attempts to remove INEC Chairman Jega, the escalating war between Nigeria's security services and Boko Haram, and revelation of President Jonathan's involvement with illegally rigging the Ekiti State gubernatorial election in 2014.
Muhammadu Buhari will be under enormous pressure because he is the first candidate in Nigeria's history to successfully dislodge an incumbent head of state through elections. President-elect Buhari will also need to contend with the expecations of the Nigerian public to deliver on his campaign promises of economic reform, job creation for unemployed youth, electricity and ICT infrastructure improvement, and holding government officials and ministries accountable for corruption.
President-elect Buhari is set to be sworn in on May 29th, 2015.

Open Letter To President-Elect Muhammadu Buhari

Your Excellency Sir: Let me quickly jump in front of the oncoming bandwagon in offering my congratulations. I know you do not have too much time for niceties because much has been left on the Augean Stables for you to clean up. Let me be one of the first to offer my two kobo on how you should begin the art (for, in Nigeria, it is indeed an art) of governing us for the next four years. My advice is neither in chronological order nor even in any order of preference. But most of it stems from lessons learned in the huge fall from grace to grass of your immediate predecessor, Mr. Goodluck Jonathan.

Biodun Ladepo

(Declaration of Assets) Even before your official swearing in ceremony scheduled for May 29th, go ahead and declare your assets as you promised. Do it publicly. In fact, find some money and buy space in a few national dailies and online media outlets and declare your assets. I am sure your Vice, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, will follow suit. Nigerians know both of you are not stupendously rich, so no need to worry about having to explain how you came about your assets. Then go ahead and make it (in private, of course) a requirement for all your ministerial, judicial and heads of MDA appointees, to also declare their assets.
(Appointments) Please look beyond the APC for a combination of brains and brawn. Make deliberate efforts to find talents in other parties (believe it or not, there are good people even in the PDP) and appoint them to, not just inconsequential positions, but key positions that will task their intellect and vigor. Look beyond active politicians for skilled people because many of them want to serve and can serve very well but for myriad reasons, could not participate in politics. Spread your appointments across the nation as fairly as possible. I know the southwest practically elected you (the north had always been with you) and you will be pulled by those of us from the southwest to reward us and not marginalize us like Jonathan did. But you are president for the whole country. Beam your searchlight on the east, south-south and all over the country and look for talents. If you try hard, you will find talents in the states that voted against you. You will find talents among Nigerians living abroad. You have to demonstrate the level of maturity that Jonathan lacked and show the world that you are not vindictive. How nice would it be if you could ask Nuhu Ribadu to be Minister of Interior, in charge of the Police, Immigrations, Prisons, Civil Defense and Customs? These are parastatals that have become cesspools of corruption and need someone of Ribadu’s incorruptibility, energy, patriotism and attention-to-detail to lead. How about Raji Fashola for Ministry of Works or Ministry of Justice? You get my drift?
(Corruption) Nigerians trust you and to some degree, trust Osinbajo. But that is not the same and will, of course, not be the same for your appointees. You cannot single-handedly eradicate corruption in Nigeria. In fact, no one can eradicate corruption from any country. You can only do your best to reduce it to the bare minimum. To this end, you must return transparency and independence to the EFCC and ICPC. Once nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate to serve for a specified term, the chairpersons of both organizations should only be removable by (a simple majority) legislative impeachment. This removes the EFCC from Executive control and allows every political party to have a say in how it does its job. Please ask your political appointees to sign an undated Resignation Letter before you appoint them. This will serve you well in the future if they misbehave and you need to sack them. All you would need to do is put a date on their Resignation Letter and ACCEPT their resignation. This letter serves to keep them on their toes. I have heard other members of your party (and specifically Prof. Osinbajo) promise to not go after those who have perpetrated corruption before your election. I hope that is not true. Nigerians expect you to go after those who stole the future of their children. No, you should not allow this to consume you and detract from more important things. Nonetheless, we cannot afford to let them go scot-free. They must pay, if only to serve as deterrence to future thieves.
(Judiciary) You must overhaul the judiciary as a matter of urgency. The process of litigation in Nigeria is too long, too tedious, too expensive and too prone to abuse that justice is often delayed and thus often denied. Please embark on the construction of more courtrooms, upgrade the infrastructures of the existing ones, improve the welfare of judiciary workers and build more prisons to house those convicted in your new, expedited process.
(Federal Budget) This is too fat. You have to demonstrate to Nigerians that you are going to live by example. All those billions of naira usually allocated for food in Aso Rock need to be drastically cut down. Everybody working in or visiting Aso Rock is already being paid handsomely. They can pay for their own food. Make the cafeteria in Aso Rock a pay-for-your-own-food establishment for everybody. Cut down on the number of people traveling out of town and out of country who collect estacodes and allowances for doing practically nothing on such trips. Then invite the Senate leader and the Speaker of the House of Representatives and ask them to lead their respective legislatures in taking drastic cuts both in salaries and in other emoluments. Nigerians find it unconscionable that a Senator earns more than the President of the United States. Your predecessor was too compromised to have the moral authority to ask the legislators to take a pay cut. You do not have such a problem. They - the legislators - are looking for motivation, direction and purpose. You must provide that leadership.
(NNPC) I don’t need to tell you that this is the nation’s jugular. Fortunately, you are probably the most knowledgeable about this sector out of all who have governed Nigeria. So, there is very little anybody can tell you about this that you do not already know. You must appoint persons of absolutely unquestionable character to head this Ministry and the various parastatals that support our oil industry. Your Minister of Petroleum must believe in refining our oil within our country. And so that person must commence the construction of new refineries and the repair of old ones. If you have to borrow money to do anything, this is one sector you must get going almost right away. By the time your party comes to ask for our votes in 2019, we must be paying far less at the pumps than we are currently paying and exporting finished oil products to neighboring countries.
(Transportation) I take you at your word that you will revive the moribund Nigeria Airways by first deploying most of the aircraft in the currently bloated Presidential fleet to the national carrier. It has been a national embarrassment that the Giant of Africa has been unable to manage its airline. Remember that what killed Nigeria Airways was corruption (from ticketing fraud to spare parts fraud and) general poor maintenance record. Your new Nigeria Airways must be peopled with crack professionals and technicians – people who take aviation safety and customer service seriously. On the railways, you will agree with me that the situation whereby people and merchandises heading from Abuja to Ondo, Ile-Ife, Sokoto, Ado Ekiti, Birnin Kebbi, Akure, Benin City, Ogbomosho, Oyo, Jalingo, Yola, Damaturu, Dutse, Calabar, and many more key towns cannot even contemplate taking the train. Train tracks do not pass through these places! And the tracks we have are single tracks that force trains to wait for each other for hours at trains stations. These were the tracks betrothed to us by the colonial masters and we are yet to improve on them. Please start building new tracks and get rid of those archaic, used locomotives with which your predecessor “transformed” us back to the Stone Age. Remember, a viable rail system will ease the pressure on our roads as large goods such as petroleum tanks and containers will find it cheaper and faster to use the railways.
(Defense) Like NNPC, this is another sector about which nobody can lecture you. As the Boko Haram quagmire has shown us, there has been gross corruption or negligence or incompetence of all of the foregoing in the Ministry of Defense dating back to before your predecessor. Things just got past him more because he knew next to nothing about this sector and he was too incurious and too afraid to ask questions. Luckily for us, you know what is going on and nobody can accuse you of being too afraid to ask questions. The ranks of our military leadership, the officer corps, has been politicized and bastardized to the point that they have lost credibility with Nigerians. The respect and adulation normally enjoyed by the military has been erased and replaced with scorn and derision. People now see the military as a bunch of willing tools in the hands of politicians; a rag-tag bunch who will scamper off the battlefield with tails tucked between their legs at the sound of Boko Haram’s Hilux trucks. You have to restore the dignity of the Nigerian military. Heads have to roll. In fact, heads that have left the service but responsible for the rot in the military must be recalled and set rolling. You must set up a panel of former military officers, aided by a crack team of accountants, to look into the books of the military and find all the missing trillions – the reason our military lacked weapons and other equipment when called up to defend the country; the reason why thousands of our citizens were easily massacred by terrorists; the reason why we lost parts of our country to a Boko Haram and the reason why our country became the butt of jokes in international military circles. You must reorient the military to the path of professionalism – training for war in peacetime as if they are at war; training them in some of the best countries in the world and with some of the best militaries in the world; equipping them with the most modern war-fighting equipment; taking care of their welfare and that of their family and building for them infrastructures that befit the status we want them to occupy in the world. If you have to reduce the size, please do so. Remember, size is not might. Most advanced nations have moved away from large, slower military to smaller and more mobile, more nimble forces. That is the direction we should be headed. We should be building a smaller but more lethal force.
(Intelligence) There are too many unintelligent personnel parading themselves as intelligence operatives in our country. Like the military, they too have been co-opted into serving the whims and caprices of the government of the day. And they do not know what they are doing. I make this last statement boldly, confident that I know what I am talking about. Our intelligence organizations should complement the efforts of the law enforcement agencies and the military. In fact, they should be integral parts of those organizations and should not, themselves, be exempted from being scrutinized. You need to infuse the DMI, the NSA, the DSS and all the others with well-trained (internationally well-trained) professionals who can teach basic and advance intelligence gathering, packaging and dissemination to the end user. The gun-toting, sunglasses-wearing and suit-decked so-called intelligence personnel are just collecting pay checks. Where, for example, is the Boko Haram leader? Where are the Chibok girls? How are weapons getting inside Nigeria – and I mean heavy weapons? How are fighters getting inside Nigeria and how are they getting re-supplied? You need to overhaul this sector.
(Medical) Please send a bill to the legislature prohibiting all government officials from using government money to fund any aspect of medical care they receive abroad. They can exercise their inalienable right of free movement, but Nigeria should no longer pay for anybody to receive treatment abroad. In the mean time and while the bill snakes through the legislature, use your executive powers to deny requests for overseas medical travels that involve the use of government funds.
Clearly, your biggest challenge is electricity. This is the giant killer that has “killed” those before you. If you fail in everything above and succeed in stabilizing electricity supply, increasing its generation and distributing it effectively, your name will be written in gold. This will task your brain and sap your energy the most. Every sinew of your being must be engaged when you appoint people to solve this very huge problem. With the talents that abound within our country and outside, with the resources at our disposal, you can eradicate our dependence on all sorts of generators. With stable electricity, you won’t need to create too many jobs as Nigerians will create jobs by themselves.
Your Excellency, I know you have a full plate and you are no spring chicken. That is why assembling a team of very qualified and able people from across the country and the Diaspora will make your job easier. All you need to do is provide the motivation, purpose and direction and they will execute. Begin, Sir, by appointing a credible spokesperson who also has a strong background in the media – a true professional. I think Reuben Abati has proved to us that ability to churn out bombast-laden articles does not make an effective spokesperson. You need someone who will command the professional respect of members of his/her journalism constituency as well as be able to articulate your programs and actions without being condescending and patronizing. Sir, please do not appoint someone who will attack your political enemies. That job should go to your party’s spokesperson.
Good luck (not Goodluck) Sir.Abiodun Ladepo
Oluyole2@yahoo.com
Ibadan, Oyo State.

"Why We Could Not Defeat Boko Haram"- Army Commander Writes A Powerful Letter To President Jonathan

The officer stated that corruption, maladministration, lack of resources, and low troop morale have militated a successful campaign to end Boko Haram's deadly reign of terror in the northeast.
The officer's lengthy complaint, which he claims would jeaopardize his life, forewarns that if his pleas continue to be ignored by the country's leadership that both the Nigerian Army and the country will crumble under the insurgency.
"If all issues raised in this letter are not urgently addressed, the Nigerian Army will soon be history and by implication there will be no country called Nigeria," the officer gravely states. "No country without a strong army will survive."

Below is the full text of the officer's letter addressed to President Goodluck Jonathan
PLEASE MR PRESIDENT SAVE THE MILITARY AND NIGERIA FROM COLLAPSING

1. Sir, I am constrain to write you this letter which I consider it a matter of more than great importance for me to inform you and put to record issues that are happening in the North East (Operation Zaman Lafiya). I choose this medium to write you this open letter because I have written similar letter but no action was taking which I believe some forces have blocked it are now after my life. in the field. My combined wealth of experience as a staff officer and now commanding officer are the disturbing fact that necessitated me to write you this letter. While as a staff officer, I was among those who believed that the commanders in the field are not doing well. But presently, as a commander in the field, I found out that it is not the fault of any commander that the defeat of the so called BOKO HARAM (BH) has not been achieved.
2. First and foremost sir, the Nigerian Army is poorly equipped in the North East, if all the battalions are well-equipped as required; it will not take the Army more than two weeks to flush out the BH. Presently there are four units in my location here in KONDUGA including 21 Armoured Brigade HQ. If all the units are provided with all their requirements, we can advance and flush out BH out of North East. Mr. President sir, the Nigerian Army is well-trained and capable of defending our nation. It has demonstrated the capacity to even successfully enforce peace in other nations. Why not in our own country Nigeria?
3. The fact about NE operation is that we are poorly equipped, understaffed, high corruption from Army Headquarters down to battalion level. Commanders see it as opportunity to make money. My predecessor has complained of the same problem. Instead of ASA addressing the issue raised by him, the army authorities decided to Court Martialled him. All the units in NE are understaffed, but on payroll their strength are complete just to collect more allowances than what each unit is supposed to. The commanders see it as a personal money making venture rather than taking care of men and equipment. This ugly trend led to loss of many officers and soldiers and thereby having adverse effect on the moral (sic) of troops. Majority of soldiers in the operation area wear mufti (civil cloths) under their military uniforms in case there is an attack and the troops cannot withstand the BH, they found it easy to disguise as civilians to enable them escape. This is not the traditional practice in the NA. Though it is lack of adequate equipment and poor administration from the higher authority that resulted to this ugly trend by our troops
4. Sir, another bad and unprofessional act is that soldiers don’t take to orders from their superior officers because they have lost confidence/trust from them. The case of former General Officer Commanding 7 Division Major General A. Mohammed is enough evidence to show that all is not well in the Nigerian Army. It will interest you to note that worse cases has been recorded before that of the former GOC and more are still happening, but nobody is ready to investigate the root cause of problems facing the troops in the field.
5. This brings me to a recent occurrence which is my main purpose of writing this letter. As I mentioned earlier, due to the failure of the authority to address issues that I made mentioned, when a unit is attacked and overran by the BH not because the soldiers are unable to fight, but lack of weapons, ammunitions and communications equipment, the soldiers on many occasions will ran away, and a commander cannot stand and fight alone as a result of this. Presently seventy percent of commanders in the NE are facing Court Martial due to the reasons mentioned. We the commanding officers are very worried over this development. This is because we many soon find our self as victims of this maladministration from our higher authorities.
6. There is no sincerity in this operation; this is because the present acting GOC has never visited any location outside Maiduguri town not to talk of principal staff officers in Army Headquarters or even the COAS. But we keep on hearing all sorts of lies that Generals are leading the fight against BH. These are facts that can be confirmed from officers and soldiers in this operation including those in the 7 Division Headquarters. The GOC is so afraid that even with the Divisional Headquarters; he doesn’t go out and always locked himself inside his office. Infact it is a common knowledge among officers and soldiers in this operation that the acting GOC is here to make his money and earn his promotion to the detriment of the operation. The completion of his mansion at No 8 Gwamna Road in Kaduna which the GOC ignorantly disclosed that when he completed it, will be among the best houses in Kaduna, has turned to be a subject of discussion among troops.
7. The former 21 Armored Brigade commander is facing Court Martial today because the acting GOC does not want to see him and his garrision in Maiduguri town simply because of the huge monthly allocations from the Borno State government to the brigade garrision. He wanted to be collecting his money by using 7 Div Garrison, but in reality 7 Div Garrision does not have troops to claim such money. It is worthy to note that the GOC received 33,000litres of AGO and PMS each, 600 bags of rice monthly from Borno State government. All these items are diverted for his personal use.
8. Recently the newly appointed 21 Brigade commander lead 3 units to flush out the BH, that operation was successful, almost 300 BH were killed, weapons and vehicles were recovered from them, in the process the troops exhausted their ammunitions from the Div, the GOC simply replied that there was no ammunition this made all the troops to withdraw back to KONDUGA.
9. Presently more than 3000 officers and soldiers are either killed in action, deserted, captured as POW or on AWOL. But due to lack of proper administration the army directed that their salary should be stopped. This affect the families of those that are either genuinely killed in action or captured as Prisoners of War. It has also affected some of the troops that are still participating in this operation.
10. Mr. President sir, if all issues raised in this letter are not urgently address, the Nigerian Army will soon be history and by implication there will be no country called Nigeria. No country without strong army will survive. I decided to write you this letter because the life of officers and soldiers trusted in my care are no longer save. My life is also at the stake because the NA authority as usual will say I have communicated directly to you as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and may sanction me. As a citizen of this country and a commander in the operational area, with all the points I have mentioned in this letter, it is clearly that the Military authorities have failed the country, as such they should be held liable for their misdeeds. I have consulted seasonal constitutional lawyers if writing you this letter will be an offence, but they said it is my constitutional right to inform the C in C about what is happening in the NE and within the military which if not address will affect the survival of Nigeria.

As Cordon And Search Continues In Gwoza, Women And Elderly Found Locked Up Rescued; Another Bomb Factory Found

PRNigeria News Release
DHQ PRESS RELEASE
A number of women, the elderly and children who were locked up by fleeing terrorists in Gwoza have been freed by troops as cordon and search along with mopping up operations continue in the town. The freed hostages some of whom are so weak are being given medical attention while others are also receiving necessary care pending the arrival and activities of aid agencies. Some of them are also providing useful information for the intelligence in aid of troops operations in the area.
In another development, a building which have been converted to a bomb making factory have been unearthed by troops in the course of ongoing mopping up operations in Gwoza. The facility which is being used for the manufacture of various calibres of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) is still being carefully evacuated of dangerous materials.
Massive destruction of infrastructure and property including blowing up bridges and burnt houses including Emir’s Palace have also been noticeable. Troops are also carefully removing land mines placed in various parts of the town.
In Bama also in Borno State, troops on routine patrol in the suburbs of the town this morning recovered a large number of rifles and various arms believed to have been abandoned by terrorists who fled the area when troops were advancing to flush them of the town recently. Bama was liberated by troops on 16 March 2015 and troops have since been dominating the town with aggressive patrols to defend it against any further terrorists activities.

CHRIS OLUKOLADE
Major General
Director Defence Information
PRNigeria encourages institutions to be transparent in their information management as it provides news items from authoritative sources for free use by the media

APC Protests Falsification Of Presidential, National Assembly Results In Delta

Sahara Reporters

Members of the All Progressives Congress (APC)in Delta State earlier today staged a protest in Asaba, the state capital, over what they alleged to be massive falsification of last Saturday's presidential and National Assembly results.
The APC members gathered outside the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Asaba, but armed soldiers and police prevented them from gainingaccess into the premises of the electoral commission.
Benjamin Ogbalor, the director general of the APC governorship campaign organization, and O'tegaEmerhor, the APC’s candidate in the April 11, 2015 governorship election, led today’s protest. The APC leaders accused INEC’s returning officer in last weekend’s election of conniving with some members of the ruling party to inflate the PDP’s vote tallies and to manipulate the election results.
Addressing reporters during the protest, Mr. Ogbalor stated that unjustly allowed manual accreditations that paved the way for the PDP to embark on massive rigging in order to get bogus figures.
“On the election day, PDP rigged massively and they got bogus figures. Being a peace loving party,we did not do anything. We did not go into any form of violence. But we kept our result sheets from the various local governments right from the presidential and National Assembly results.
“You will recall that the presidential and National Assembly [elections] have the same accreditation, so the upper limit for accreditation for Delta State is already established by the cumulative results from the local governments and also the cumulative results from the National Assembly. So we were surprised to discover that the PDP has rewritten all the results since it dawned on them that our presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, is leading,” the APC official said.
He alleged that the polling figures from Delta “have been inflated and falsified to make up some of the deficits that have been recorded nationally,” describing the manipulation as “unfair andcriminal.”
He regretted that the returning officer “is a professor [who] is condoning this kind of criminality.” Continued Mr. Ogbalor, “The act is condemnable and that is why we all came down here to INEC office in Asaba to protest. We are protesting the already rewritten results by the returning officer in collaboration with some PDP stalwarts in Delta State. They have used the military might and other security agents to stop the APC from going into the INEC premises to express our dissatisfaction.”

Fayose Urges Nigerians To Accept Presidential Election Results

Ayo Fayose Ayo Fayose

Ayodele Fayose, has urged Nigerians to accept the outcome of the Saturday presidential election in good faith.

“The election result is the will of God and Nigerians and all lovers of peace, progress and development of Nigeria must accept it,” he said in a statement issued by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka.

He hailed the resilience and commitment of President Goodluck Jonathan and General Mohammadu Buhari (Rtd), and underlined that the results should not been seen as victory or loss for any political party, adding, "To me, Nigerians and democracy won."He praised Nigerians for believing in the democratic process, noting that by the election, Nigerians have shown that Democracy has come to stay in the country."I salute Nigerians, especially the great people of Ekiti State. "I salute President Jonathan for laying the most solid foundation fordemocracy in Nigeria. And I salute Major General Buhari for being a resilient and dogged fighter. Governor Fayose urged Nigerians, irrespective of their ethnic, religious and political affiliation to respect the outcome of the election in the interest of peace, progress and development of the country."Nigeria as a country is greater than any individual or group and itis my plea that no one should do anything to rock the boat of peace in the country."

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Buhari Leads With 3 Million Votes After Controversial Results From Rivers, Akwa Ibom Give Jonathan A Boost

Election observers as well as Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State had declared that last Saturday’s elections in the state turned into a fiasco, marked by intimidation and shootings of APC members and widespread manipulation by security agents. Even so, the Independent National Electoral Commission in the state declared that Mr. Jonathan polled more than 1.48 million in the state, leaving Mr. Buhari with a little more than 69,000 votes.
Despite this figure and results from Akwa Ibom that gave the incumbent president 953,304 votes, the APC presidential candidate maintains his lead.
Two sources told SaharaReporters that several top APC politicians have already arrived in Abuja in preparation to declare victory in the presidential polls.
The delay in announcing polling results from the South South and South East zones had caused apprehension within the country and heightened allegations that President Jonathan’s associates were surreptitiously attempting to inflate the incumbent president’s vote tally from the two zones.
Below are updated polling figures:

Updated Results for Presidential Candidates Table Sahara Reporters Media

Updated Results for Presidential Candidates Sahara Reporters Media

Aproko Corner

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