Abia Govt Wants Jega to Supervise Supplementary Poll

Gov Theodore Orji

Emmanuel Ugwu, Umuahia

Abia state government Monday called on the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega to come over to the state and monitor the forthcoming supplementary governorship election.

State commissioner for information and strategy, Dr Anthony Agbazuere who stated the government’s position in the run-up to the supplementary poll slated for April 25, 2015, told a news conference that the state government believed that either Jega or a senior INEC official would be needed to do a better job.

He explained that the demand for Jega “to come over to Abia or send senior INEC officials to monitor the supplementary elections” was borne out of the fact that “we have no confidence in the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Prof Selina Oko and the state Returning Officer, Prof Benjamin Ozumba”.

The supplementary elections came about after INEC declared the April 11 governorship poll inconclusive on the ground that there was no clear winner with the PDP candidate, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu polling 248,459 as against 165, 406 votes scored by his closet rival, Dr Alex Otti of APGA. According to the state Returning Officer, the 83,053 votes margin of lead was less than the 179,244 registered voters in the polling units where election did not hold hence the need for supplementary election to determine the eventual winner.

Agbazuere said that the ruling PDP was prepared to participate in the supplementary governorship election but certain conditions needed to be put in place to ensure credible outcome of the poll.

“We shall no longer tolerate the intimidation of our party members nor accept a situation where INEC will aloe more party agents or observers for a political party than the number allowed for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),” he said.

AFA Asks AU to Probe SA over Attacks on African Nationals

  

*‎As SERAP Asks Jonathan to Refer SA to African Commission

By Tobi Soniyi in Abuja

A Civil Society Organization, Alliance for Africa (AFA) has called on the Africa Union (AU) to investigate the role played by South African government, agencies and traditional institutions in instigating the attacks on foreign nationals living is South Africa.

While condemning the xenophobic attacks in South Africa, AFA said ‎that the host government did not do enough to protect African nationals who were attacked by South Africans.

The statement which was signed by AFA's Executive Director, Iheoma Obibi‎ called on the AU to also tackle the rising cases of xenophobia associated with unemployment within the African continent.

The statement reads: ‎"We are specifically calling on the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (AUC), Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who hails from KwaZulu-Natal Province, where the attacks started to continue to denounce and use her good office to bring perpetuators of the ongoing violence against foreign nationals in her South Africa homeland to justice."

It also called  on African Human Rights institutions, Commission and Court to intervene by calling to question the South African government’s inability to safeguard the lives and properties of migrant Africa citizens within its borders and its inability to mitigate the repeating instances of jungle justice meted on fellow black African citizens including women and children.

The organization said this month's attacks on African nationals were not the first.