BlackBox Nigeria

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja today put paid to speculations that the presidential candidate of the All Progressive Congress, Muhammadu Buhari, might be barred from participating in Saturday's presidential election.
Justice Adeniyi Ademola Wednesday morning adjourned the eligibility suit seeking to stop Mr. Buhari till April 22 and 23 for hearing, meaning there is no more obstacle on the APC candidate's path.
The hearing will come up about a month after the election.
The court however dismissed the applications filed by two persons seeking to be joined as defendants in the suit. One of the applicants is a pro-democracy activist, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa.

The judge said the adjournment would affect all the pending suits against Buhari in his court. Justice Ademola had consolidated all the suits in a bid to hear them as a single suit since they all relate to Buhari's eligibility.

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Sulaimon Mojeed-Sanni

In the last 15 years, the Nigerian democratic climate has matured. Even though we might still be haggling about the use of Permanent Voter Cards and Card Readers that ordinary should be welcomed by all without secondary considerations. We can assume to have moved from nascent and fledgling democracy to something more decisive, engaging and still evolving.

Over these years, Nigeria and Nigerians have been working assiduously to develop the basic tenets of a functional democracy, from clamouring for the freedom of the press to demands for right to self expression and association, the clamour to enhance equality before the law, allowing for majority rule while minority have their say, ensuring rule of law and due diligence, separation of power amongst others. The essence of the above tenet is to allow for wider participation and far reaching scrutiny, considering that the most basic signpost to a functional democracy is citizen participation in government. 

One avenue Nigerians have explored and are still exploring in the last 5 years to engage and indirectly participate in everyday governance of the country is through the social media. The social media has arguably  taken the role of the fifth columnist where every rumour, action and inaction of government is first oozed out. The popularity of the social media platform as a viable tool to pass and disseminate information ascribes the logical presumption that the social media to a large extent would determine who wins the 2015 elections.

For easy contextual clarification, www.WhatIs.com, defined Social Media as "the collective of online communications channels dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration. Websites and applications dedicated to forums, microblogging, social networking, social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis are among the different types of social media." Breaking it down to the Nigerian internet world, social media include the usage of Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, 2go, YouTube, Google+, Path, LinkedIn, among others that are not so popular. The definition of social media is in the state of constant flux, due to the influx of new platform liberalizing the way humans connect each other near or far, but the most accessible to Nigerians are facebook, twitter, whatsapp and 2go. 

Due to accessibility, the social media has liberalised information sharing and allow for in-the-face campaigns, that hitherto apolitical citizens are now willy-nilly carried along as much as the politically conscious citizens. The Social media is so perfectly designed to manipulate our desire for approval and this can be seen in the build up to 2015 elections. In the history of elections in the country, the coming Presidential election has witnessed the highest number of online polls which has been done in both corporate and individual capabilities. What this implies is that the March 28 and April 11, elections would be a by-product of our online manipulation, consciously or unconsciously. Or better still, the parties with the highest number of online majority might rightly transcend to be the parties with the physical majority.

Through the social media the world has moved from being a global village to a global parlour, wherein from the corners of a large room, far reaching mobilisation, decisions and annihilation are carried out with re-vibrating national and global consequence. The Fuel Subsidy uprising of 2012 and the #BringBackOurGirls movement are two viable cases in point.

The social media is a coordinated platform for passing message amongst the next generation, thus, strengthening the possibilities of age group influence and voting pattern. Nowadays, no type of social media is completely isolated from others, as major networks adjust their functionality to offer more services to their users.  Unlike before when opinions on social media is at variance with societal reality, social media conversations these days are real-time conversations. Either by twittering, facebooking or whatsapping, immediate happenstances are communicated to a waiting online audience to savour. If online platforms can be used in urging citizens to get their Permanent Voter Cards, it can also be used to mobilised same citizens for specific interest, albeit in a legitimate manner. In essence, the social media polls and predictions are not wishful thinking and need to be taken extremely seriously in deciding who the results pans out in favour of. 

At 'A Day Social Media Training' organized by the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) in collaboration with Facebook Incorporated (Facebook) for Civil Society Organisations, Political Parties and Candidates, on Thursday 29 January, 2015, at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, it was unofficially stated that Facebook now has 14.8 million active monthly users in Nigeria, while 11.8 million of those users access facebook through their mobile devices like Android Phones, Blackberry and tabs. A report in 2011 by Portland Communications, a Kenyan-based public relations agency and Tweet Minster, a media platform, says Nigerians are the third most active Twitter users in Africa. The report came shortly after the Internet World Statistic for Facebook usage in 2011 established that the number of Nigerian Facebook users has increased from 400, 000 in the last four years to 4.3 million at the end of December 2011. The figure places Nigeria in the third position in terms of the number of Facebook users on the African continent, coming behind Egypt and South Africa with 9.4 million and 4.8 million users respectively. That figure would have triple by now! As at the moment, the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan had a total of  1,804, 195 likes on his facebook page, the highest in Nigeria, while is major opponent Muhammadu Buhari had mere 74, 260 likes.

According to Internet Live Stats (www.InternetLiveStats.com), Nigeria is ranked 8th among the list of Countries by Internet Usage in the world (2014). For proper clarification, the page defined an Internet User "as an individual who has access to the Internet at home, via computer or mobile devcie." As at July 1, 2014, number of internet users in Nigeria is pegged at 67,101,452, up from 46,680,049 (2011). In the current month of March 2015, the figure has risen to 74,594,149. 

If the information given by the Minister of Communication Technology, Dr. Omobola Johnson, while speaking at the Nigerian Internet Governance Forum (NIGF2014), is anything to go by, of the people with access to internet connectivity figure, Telecommunications Service Providers in Nigeria (majorly MTN, Airtel, Glo) connect over 63 million Nigerians to the internet. And going by Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) 2014 statistics, Nigeria has over 130 Million Active Mobile Phone Subscribers, of which 63 million are connected to the internet most probably through their phones. 

Juxtaposing the figures with the political reality, the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, recently stated that the official number of registered voters for 2015 elections is 68,833,476, with Lagos and Kano making up the highest number of possible voters. Playing on assumptions, it would not be out of place to assume that half of the figure released by INEC - 34 million - would be, people who are averagely knowledgeable and are among the 74 million with access to the internet and are most likely to be on one form of Social Media or the other. And considering that between 2011 and 2015, over 10 million Nigerians have joined facebook, one can start to imagine the comparative advantage already gained by any candidate the online community decides to cast their vote in favour of.

According to CIA World Factbook demographic statistics estimate(2014), 98.2 million Nigerians are between the age bracket of 15 – 55. If this is marched with the "How Africa Tweets" report which affirmed that Africa's tweeters are considerably younger than their global counterparts; 60 per cent of the continent's most active tweeters are aged 20-29, whereas the average age of Twitter users worldwide (according to Royalpingdom.com) is 39, one would understand why some politicians are paying through the nose to have social media presence.

Gone are the days when politicians keep obsolete facebook pages with no direct impact on the mood and voting pattern of citizens. Over the years, perceptions have changed, you cannot have a successful campaign without social media leveraging. Smart politicians, activists and socio-economic commentators are utilising the new media to penetrate the minds of their followers. Being social media savvy creates this aura of innovativeness and shows understanding of contemporary demands. Real or imagined, in the build up to this elections, politicians, using both monetary and ideological alignment cajoled perceived social media warlords into their camps. These set of people have no guns nor instrument of oppression to coerce but rather have the world wide web, twitter and a near "moronic" cult followers. 

Despite the growth in the usage of twitter among the elites in Nigeria, most public figures are yet to join the burgeoning Twittersphere. Although, Twitter in Nigeria is widely used for social conversations; it is fast becoming a go-to for real-time important information. Sadly, many political gladiators are still lagging behind in the use of social media. Maybe post 2015 elections,  governments, businesses and development agencies would see reason why staying out of a new space where social dialogue will be taking place, is a bad economics.

Another fast information sharing platform in recent time is Facebook Inc., owned WhatsApp. The app runs on almost all devices and operating systems for phones and tablets. According to Zuckerberg, the platform as at 2014 has 450 million active users with the potential to grow astronomically in the coming years. A good number of Nigerians are on Whatsapp. It is easy to use, highly compatible with any internet enabled phone and even allows for short videos sharing.

Another key factor why the social media would be a strong determinant of the election is that, unlike the conventional media, the social media is obtrusive, unregulated and does not obey the conventional rule of stopping political campaigns 48-hour to the D-Day. Thus, campaign would be done till the last minute of voting.

One common trend before the arrival of the social media is the muffling of the voices of the youths in politics. However, the pattern of play is changing with the young people taking their destiny into their own hands through social media. A country's competitiveness depends on its capacity to improve on modern trend, thus, engaging the youths through the platform they have come to identify themselves with cannot be undervalued. 

If one looks at the effect of social media in the emergency of Barack Obama, the Arab Spring, Enough Is Enough Movement, Save Nigeria Group, etc, one would realize that the strength of making government work, vote count and protecting the sanctity of our collective matrimony lies in the new appendage that is fast getting common "Office of The Citizen". 

In June, 2009, Clay Shirky, gave a TED talk titled "How social media can make history" where he talked about the transformed media landscape, and what it means for anybody who has a message that they want to get out to anywhere in the world to be able to do so with little or no hindrance. With social media, election observation has been made easier that citizens would not be there just to cast individual votes, but also to help ensure the sanctity of the votes cast.

Sulaimon Mojeed-Sanni, a development worker, writes from Centre for Democracy and Development. Twitter handle @SM_S0407 

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The Social Democratic Party, SDP on monday, denied allegation that it had withdrawn its earlier endorsement of President Goodluck Jonathan for the candidate of the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, General Muhammadu Buhari.‎
The party said its endorsement of President Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, remained unchanged, insisting that it was committed to the adoption of the president for Saturday's election.
Addressing newsmen in Abuja, through its National Publicity Secretary, SDP, Dr Abdul Isiaq, the party said it was not true that SDP and 12 other political parties endorsed the candidature of Buhari for the forthcoming election.

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The police in Lagos have arrested a 42-year-old man, Alli Mustapha, for allegedly killing one of his customers, Idowu Maliki, in the Ikotun area of Lagos State.
It was learnt that Mustapha had a shop at Imope Compound in Ikotun, where he sold petty goods to people in the community.
The Niger State indigene was alleged to have sold a stick of cigarette to the deceased on Saturday, March 7, which the latter refused to pay for.

Our correspondent learnt that when the victim returned to the shop some minutes later, an argument ensued between him and the suspect.
In the ensuing scuffle, our correspondent learnt that Mustapha hit Maliki's head with a long stick and he slumped.
Efforts to revive him failed as he was later confirmed dead at the Igando General Hospital.
In his statement to the police, Mustapaha admitted to committing the crime, adding that the deceased had first hit him.
He said, "I don't know the man's name, but he comes to my place to buy things. On the fateful day, he came to buy a stick of cigarette. He did not pay for it.
"He returned few minutes later and wanted to enter my shop. I refused to allow him. But as I tried to stop him, he took a stool and hit me with it.
"Then he started looking around for other things to hit me and that was when I quickly grabbed a long stick which I usually kept in my shop to protect myself, and hit his head with it."
It was learnt that the victim was first rushed to a private hospital, but was rejected before being taken to the Igando General Hospital.
It was also learnt that his corpse had been deposited at a morgue in Isolo.

The police arraigned Mustapha on one count of murder before an Ebute Meta Magistrate's Court.
The offence was said to be punishable under Section 221 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, Nigeria, 2011.
The magistrate, F.J. Adefioye, asked the Investigating Police Officer, Sergeant Olaniyan Rasak, to give the facts of the case to the court.
Rasak said, "On that day, the deceased bought cigarette from the defendant without paying. Few minutes later, he returned to the man's shop and along the line, argument ensued.
"The deceased punched the defendant on his nose. The defendant then picked a stick in his shop and hit him on the head."

The police prosecutor, Iyobosa Onaiwu, asked the court to remand Mustapha in prison.

The defence counsel, Beauty Otighi, asked the court to prevail on the prosecution to speedily duplicate the case file for legal advice and ensure the 30 days window period was not exceeded.

The magistrate, Adefioye, said, "The defendant is hereby remanded in custody pending the Directorate of Public Prosecutions legal advice. The case is adjourned till May 25, 2015."

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TWO persons were shot dead on Tuesday in the Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State in a clash between supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party and those of the All Progressives Congress.‎
The incident, which took place in Omoku, was said to be a reprisal after an initial violent clash took place in Okwuzi community within the area.
One of the deceased, according to a source, was a relative of the Commissioner for Power, Mr. Augustine Nwokocha, whose house was touched in the violence.
Apart from Nwokocha's house, some other buildings were also set ablaze as members of the PDP and APC tore at each other amidst sporadic shooting that began at about 8am.
The fight between the two parties in Okwuzi on Monday did not claim any life within the community, but two persons reportedly lost their lives in Omoku.
Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni is the local government area of the Rivers State Chairman of the PDP, Mr. Felix Obuah, while Nwokocha is the leader of the APC in the area.
An eyewitness said the incident had caused confusion in the area as residents, traders and passers-by took to their heels to avoid being hit by bullets.
Confirming the incident, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Ahmad Mohammad, told newsmen that it was a clash between two political parties in the state.

Mohammad also confirmed that two persons were killed during the clash.
He said, "The skirmishes in the two communities in Onne local government area, and which started in Okwuzi yesterday (Monday), was as a result of a clash between supporters of two political parties in the state.
"I can confirm to you that two persons were killed during a reprisal, as a result of the spillover of the clash, in Omoku this morning (Tuesday) but there was no reported case of house burning.

Efforts made to reach the State Commissioner for Power, Mr. Augustine Nwokocha, to react to the incident at Omoku and how he was affected was futile as his mobile phone was switched off when our correspondent called.

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By Moses Adeyemi

One of the most interesting student leadership program went down over the weekend at the prestigious Lagos State University as the Students' Union in conjunction with ACTIVISTA Nigeria facilitated a seminal for student leaders in the citadel. The theme of the discussion was: STRENGTHENING STUDENT UNIONISM FOR EFFECTIVE ADVOCACY.

Five leadership challenge studies where initiated and the program which also included practice sessions thought participants at the event use of online gadgets like Google and its techs as well as proper organisation of events and how to seek funding.

A youth advocate and pioneer President of Education Right Campaign, Mr Olamide Eleto was on hand at the program where he discussed on the topic 'Building a responsible and responsive student union'. He emphasised on how student union leaders today lack responsible leaders and how they collect money from politicians which he tagged absurd, he advised student union leaders to work hand in hand in with faculty presidents so that they can support each others when it comes to struggle. He concluded by saying leaders need to be good ambassadors of Nigeria and that involves more commitment to make the country better.

The second presentation was from Mr Marcus Olanrewaju, a youth leader and former Speaker of the LASUSU Student Representative Council who talked about 'Student Unionism in nigeria and the challenge of leadership'. He criticised current leadership of student movements positing that "the days of unionism has died". He further disclosed that what we now have are thieves and their only aim wass to make money . He advised leaders to be more dedicated and lead the students with more passion. He concluded by saying " LASU is a world class university and so many things are needed to reposition the university and all lies in the hands of the unions.

Action Aid Communication Advisor Miss Oyeleye lectured on Effective communication. In her presentation, she informed the audience on how communication was essential in the world and leaders need to address issues in a more creative way so that what they say will be understand by those that are on the same course with them. She talked about how issues need to be ananlysed, how the media need to be carried along if things need to be acheived and how to look at communications tools to end the problems. She concluded by saying Dialogue is also important in communication advocacy and how there is need for us to deal with the things that appeal to the mind of nigerians.

Oyinkansola Sadiq-Mabeko who is the Lagos Coordinator of Activista trained student on how google can be used for different activities like creating a calender of events, forms for events etc. She took the Students on a practical session on how these created through google drive. Oyin concluded by running through the Google rules and how things are done.

The last presentation for the day was given by the National Coordinator for ACTIVISTA Nigeria Mr Ewebiyi Keye James who talked about " building capacity for efficient resource mobilization, he started by giving definitions of resources as a stock or supply of money or materials. He went further to say mobilization is essential in getting resources and that includes formulating independent budget, building strong relationship with people and he said building capacity for efficient resources includes using the capital and skills for essential things. when we develop a resource mobilization plan we examine our strengths, weaknesses, opportunity and threats. He concluded by saying all leaders need networking and good partnership with many organizations so that funds can be raised and used adequately for the goods of students.

Through the student Leadership Workshop,
participants felt more empowered to make a difference in their campus and environment and commit to growing as a leader. Certificates where also distributed to participants.
Yhemmie_blaq

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The Peoples Democratic Party on Tuesday said it had discovered plans by the Lagos State Governor Raji Fashola and a national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, to financially induce all Lagos monarchs ahead of the general elections.

The Lagos chapter of the PDP said a meeting had been scheduled to hold on Wednesday (today) where Lagos monarchs would be given money.
The meeting, according to the PDP, is at the instance of Tinubu.

But, in a reaction, the Publicity Secretary of the APC in Lagos, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, said he was not aware of such a meeting.

Spokesman for the Lagos PDP, Mr. Taofeek Lawal, in a statement alleged that Tinubu and Fashola planned to move against any of the monarchs who refused to play along.

"In a carrot and stick style, any monarch who rejects the offer is to be victimised and may be deposed before Saturday," Gani said.

The party said further that the Lagos governor had been meeting with various groups and institutions under the government control, including market leaders, transporters, investors and civil servants among others to either induce or coerce them vote for the ruling party in the state.
It said, "We have been reliably informed by our source that the state governor has scheduled to meet monarchs in the state to induce or coerce them to adopt APC. He has also deducted N6bn from local government and state government accounts to compromise about 5,000 corpers and INEC officers on the day of elections at outlined voting and collation centres.
"Some corpers have already collected the money, which the governor calls support allowance. Some honest corpers have let us know this and that an offer of N200,000 per polling unit is planned for the Election Day by the governor who sent his lobbyists to them."

The PDP spokesman also urged Fashola to avoid forcing the monarchs to do APC's bidding in the March 28 and April 11 elections.
He said, "We caution governor Fashola not to victimise any monarch as he may just commit a sacrilege with spiritual consequence. On our part, we shall resist any unconventional way to defeat us in these elections. We shall resist any victimisation of our voters.
"We shall ensure that votes for PDP are cast and not compromised. We are indeed presently considering reporting Fashola to the National Human Rights Commission for violating the people's rights to express and vote candidates of their choice."

However, the APC said the claim was false.
"(It is) a joke, a fantasy, all noise and no substance; it is a moonlight story for the kindergarten. Please ignore Lagos PDP," Igbokwe said.

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FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo on Tuesday warned against handing over the reins of government to the military.‎
Obasanjo said the speculation that the government was planning an Interim Government had been substituted by speculations that President Goodluck Jonathan was plotting to hand over to the military. He said that doing so would undermine the integrity of the country.

The ex-President, while hosting Aisha Buhari, wife of the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, said, "I do hope we will get things more right. A lot of rumours are flying around; I think we have gone away from the rumour of Interim Government because that is not in our constitution.
"I hope we will soon go away from the rumour of handing over to the military because the military is not meant to run the affairs of a nation in terms of running government."

Obasanjo, who said that he was happy that the country had gone beyond the Interim Government rumour, added that he hoped the nation would also survive the rumour of handing over to the military.
He said, "The international community will not condone it, particularly the African Union where we have a situation, we have said and it is part and parcel of the constituting Act of the African Union. Any government that is brought about not on the basis of the constitution will not be accepted; will not be tolerated and will not be a member of the AU until that government is dismantled.
"It shouldn't be. We are the largest country in Africa; we should be a model, setting examples, we shouldn't be drawing Africa backwards. I hope we will not. I hope at the end of this exercise, we would be where we should be, leading Africa and showing examples for the rest of Africa and indeed the rest of the world.
"We have the goodwill of many people. I watched last night, President (Barack) Obama talking about our constitution; I watched our Brother from Ghana, the current Chairman of ECOWAS talking about our constitution. They are all interested, they all wish us well; should we wish ourselves anything less?"

Recently, the former President had warned the current administration not to plunge this country into chaos by following the footsteps of the former President of Cote d'lvoire, Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to hand over to the winner of the presidential election in his country.

Obasanjo also bemoaned hate campaigns among politicians, advising that they should focus more on what united the country as opposed to what divided the country.
According to him, for anyone who is interested in the future of this country, issues of insecurity, economy and unemployment, among others, should form the focus of political campaigns.
He said, "Unfortunately, issues that should have been the main item of our campaign, they did not. We have serious issues of security, we have serious issue of our economy, we have issue of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, we have serious issues of infrastructure.
"These are issues among others that I believe campaign of those who are interested in the present and the future of this country should be directed at.
"How are we going to get them and what are we going to do? Not trivial issues of certificate or no certificate, not trivial issues of somebody talking about someone is a Nigerian and not a Nigerian.
"I said it, this is what they had in Cote d'Ivoire and led them into almost a very serious problem, not issue of religion, not issue of tribe, not issue of section but issues of unity of this country and the hate campaigns that we have embarked upon now, I hope this will be the last time in the history of this country that we will have this type of campaign of hatred or division."

Obasanjo commended Buhari's wife, stressing that women had a role to play in politics and enthronement of good governance.

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There was anxiety in the camp of the All Progressives Congress on Tuesday as a Federal High Court in Abuja fixed Wednesday (today) for further proceedings in one of the suits challenging the eligibility of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari(retd.), to contest in Saturday's presidential election.

Justice Adeniyi Ademola is to rule on fresh applications by intended parties seeking to join the suits as defendants.
The judge fixed Wednesday (today) for the ruling after hearing the intended parties' applications on Tuesday.
Those whose applications for joining the suit as defendants were heard on Tuesday are Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, Chukwuma Ochu, Sunusi Musa, Ahmed Maitarki and the Fiscal and Civil Rights Enlightenment Foundation.

The suit was filed on January 26, 2015 by a lawyer, Chukwunweike Okafor, asking the court to declare Buhari ineligible to contest the presidential election slated for Saturday over his (Buhari's) alleged failure to submit his school certificate along with his Form CF001 to INEC.
The Plaintiff's counsel, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), had in his objection to the applications of the intended defendants, described the applicants as interlopers.
The existing defendants in the suit are the Independent National Electoral Commission, Buhari and the APC.

Earlier on Tuesday, the judge ruled that he would hear both the main suit and Buhari's preliminary applications challenging the court's jurisdiction together.
The plaintiff, through his counsel, Ozekhome, insisted that both the main suit and the preliminary applications should be heard together.
But Buhari and the APC had urged the court to hear and determine their preliminary applications which bordered on the court's jurisdiction first before entertaining the main suit.
The court agreed with the plaintiff and ruled that he would entertain the preliminary applications and the main suit together.
But when the suit will be heard depends on the outcome of the court's ruling on the applications of intended parties in the suit.

Buhari and the APC had challenged the mode of service of the plaintiff's originating summons on them, insisting that the issue bordered on the jurisdiction of the court.

Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), who is representing Buhari and Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), counsel for the APC, had while opposing the plaintiff's prayer to quickly hear the suit, argued that there was no law stipulating that pre-election cases must be heard before the conduct of the elections.

There are about 10 suits instituted against Buhari's eligibility to participate in the presidential election.

The plaintiff argued that failure of Buhari to submit his school certificate   to INEC contravened provisions of sections 131 and 318 of the 1999 Constitution and section 31(3) of the Electoral Act, 2010.

APC warns against disqualifying Buhari
Before the court's sitting, the APC warned against any orchestrated and last-minute disqualification of   Buhari in order to pave the way for an easy victory for President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party.

The APC, through a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed,   also cautioned against another postponement of the elections.
It said, 'If it is true, as it is being widely speculated across the country, that the Jonathan administration has procured a judgment to disqualify the APC presidential candidate on Wednesday(today), when the Federal High Court in Abuja is expected to rule on the issue, then it portends a great danger for the nation."
The party said in addition to other reasons, the six-week postponement of the elections might have been used by those who never wanted the polls to hold   to shop for such a "satanic judgment."
The statement partly read, ''Anyone who will disqualify a presidential candidate on the eve of an election can only have one and only one purpose for that: to trigger chaos and pandemonium across the country.
"Perhaps, this is the reason for the deployment of troops across the country to crack down on possible protests and create confusion.

''Then, those who orchestrated the disqualification will simply use what they expect to be angry reactions nationwide as an excuse to postpone the elections again, thus triggering a constitutional crisis, the end of which no one can predict.

''This is why we are hoping that good reason will prevail and nothing will be done, deliberately, to plunge Nigeria into crisis by the same people who have always been quick to say their political ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian.''

When contacted, the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP,   Abdullahi Jalo, said, "By now, Nigerians have become accustomed to the antics of the opposition. I don't think anybody takes them seriously any more."

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