Saturday, 1 June 2013
News Report: E-Guinea Presidency Says President’s Party Won Elections
Credit:
AFP
The party of Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema has
overwhelmingly won last week's local and parliamentary elections, the
presidency said Sunday, in a widely expected victory for Africa's
longest-serving leader.
Obiang's
PDGE party claimed "an absolute majority in all districts", the
presidential office said in a statement, without giving detailed figures for
the May 26 polls.
The polls
have been denounced as a sham by the opposition in the small central west
African nation, the continent's third-largest oil producer, which has been
under Obiang's iron-fisted rule for 34 years.
The
statement added that the opposition Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS)
party took just one seat in the lower house of parliament, one in the Senate
and five local council seats.
In the
political capital of Malabo, the PDGE won nine out of the 10 seats in the
National Assembly, five of the six Senate seats and 12 out of 13 council seats,
it added.
CPDS
spokesman Andres Esono Ondo charged that the "results are fabricated by
the PDGE which is characterised by fraud".
"The
results were known already in advance. As long as Obiang is the president of
the republic and president of the party, this country won't have
democracy," he said.
Before the
vote, the PDGE had grouped almost all of the country's political parties under
one coalition umbrella, leaving only two parties in the opposition.
The polls
marked the first time voters were electing senators.
The
parliamentary and local elections took place following constitutional reforms
which included the creation of a Senate and the post of vice president. Changes
also included limiting presidential terms to two.
It is not
clear whether the law is retrospective, and if Obiang will have to step down at
the end of his term in 2016.
The
71-year-old Obiang came to power in the former Spanish colony after toppling
his brutally despotic uncle in 1979 and having him shot.
News Release: Nigerian Presidency Says No Plan To Probe Obasanjo
The Presidency is constrained to state once again that there is
no truth whatsoever to rehashed reports in the media today that President
Goodluck Jonathan intends to order a probe of the Obasanjo Administration
because of the former President’s “constant” criticisms of the Federal
Government.
President Jonathan remains fully focused on the urgent tasks of
assuring peace, security and stability across the country to create the right
conditions for rapid socio-economic development and will not be distracted from
this objective by futile attempts to drive a wedge between him and other
respected elders and leaders of his party.
The President has nothing but the greatest respect for Chief
Obasanjo’s very notable contributions to national growth and development over
many years and far from taking offence or seeking retaliation, will always
welcome objective criticism and advice from the very highly-regarded elder
statesman.
What is more, President Jonathan regards his Administration as a
continuation of the unbroken chain of PDP-led governments started by Chief
Obasanjo in 1999 which have worked tirelessly to entrench democratic governance
and achieve rapid socio-economic growth in the country.
Rather than order a pointless probe of his predecessors, he will
continue to do his utmost best to build on the solid foundations for national
progress laid under previous PDP administrations.
Speculations and suggestions of an impending probe of the
Obasanjo Administration by President Jonathan are therefore nonsensical and
should be dismissed by all right-thinking Nigerians as the product of the
fertile imagination of mischievous political jobbers.
Reuben Abati
Special Adviser to the President
(Media & Publicity)
June 1st, 2013
News Release: Celebration Of Failure And Official Recklessness In Nigeria
Christian Foundation for Social
Justice and Equity and United Action for Democracy, North Central Zone
condemned in strongest terms the undemocratic, uncivilized and autocratic
posture of Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State parading himself as the Chairman
of the Nigerian Governor’s Forum (NGF) and profligacy of the Plateau State
Ministries, Departments and Agencies who have been recklessly using Plateau Tax
Payers’ money for advertisements on different media to congratulate and
celebrate the illusive pyrrhic victory .
It would be recalled that Jonah
Jang contested the Chairmanship of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum against
Governor Rotimi Amaechi of River State and lost the election with 16 votes to
Governor Amaechi’s 19 votes according to the result announced by the Director
General of the Forum who served as the Returning Officer for the election and
as viewed in videos posted on various social media. We are however taken aback
by Jang’s declaration of himself as the elected or selected Chairman of the NGF
even shamelessly desecrating it as an “act of God”.
It is very worrisome that highly
tribalistic people like Jang whose government policies and programmes are
tailored along tribes and ethnics which is evidenced in the over ninety percent
difference in the school fees being paid by Plateau State indigenes and
non-indigenes; a Governor whose tenure has been plagued with incessant strikes
by distinct labour unions especially in the sectors like education, health,
local government etc. A Governor who dissolved democratically elected Executive
Chairmen, the executive members and legislators of the 17 Local Government
Areas of the Plateau State and appointed Caretaker Committees without
conducting election for over a year; a Governor that has failed to pay many civil
servants in the state and threatens labour unions that the state government
will enforce “No work, No pay rule” if the unions failed to call off industrial
strikes; a Governor who has been alleged of contributing to the prolonged
ethno-religious crises in the state. Definitely Nigerians does not
want a Governor of these characteristics as the Chairman of the NGF even
without the humiliation at the election.
In the same vein, we consider
President Goodluck Jonathan’s Mid-Term Report as a Mid-Term failure. The nation
was told that Nigeria has fastest growing economy in the globe and that the
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has increased in the last two years of his
government yet chronic poverty has increased geometrically. Investors are
afraid of coming to invest in Nigeria as a result of the security problems, our
roads remained a death trap for users and the air is neither safe, power supply
is still epileptic and our mothers and their children continues to die at
birth. Corruption has been institutionalized under Mr. President’s watch. May
29 should be a Democracy Day celebration and not the present mere civil rule
celebration. It should be a day to celebrate achievements and not
using state money to celebrate failure. No sector in Nigeria fared
better.
We therefore call on Mr. President
to as a matter of urgency address the social inequality and widening gap
between the rich and the poor of Nigerian masses which is a direct effect of
corruption, unemployment, high inflation, insecurity, illiteracy, government
wastage, pipeline vandalism, poor power supply, labour strikes and unstable
economy and stop celebrating utter failure.
We also urge Governor Jonah Jang to
stop parading himself as the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum and be
bold enough to accept defeat and honour the democratically elected Governor
Rotimi Amaechi as the Chairman of NGF while calling on Nigerians to defend our
country’s nascent democracy.
Signed:
Joseph Sangosanya
Executive
Chairman
Christian
Foundation for Social Justice And Equity
Afolabi Olajide
Acting Zonal
Coordinator
United Action For
Democracy (UAD)
Special Report: US Country Reports on Terrorism 2012
Country
Reports on Terrorism 2012 is submitted in compliance with Title 22 of the
United States Code, Section 2656f (the “Act”), which requires the Department of
State to provide to Congress a full and complete annual report on terrorism for
those countries and groups meeting the criteria of the Act.
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