One could recall the many failures and total imperfections in elections conducted that snowballed into total conundrum of the nation’s democracy when the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu appeared before the Senate and House of Representatives joint Committee on INEC on 5th January to defend INEC’s 2025 budget defence.

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Mahmood who was appointed by the former President Muhammadu Buhari on 21st October, 2015 has never added value to the nation’s electoral process in barely ten years, hence, the conduct of elections under his watch has always been fiasco, confusion and utter disappointment to the political players and Nigerians who have long yearned for perfect elections.

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Undoubtedly, perfect election has the potential to strengthen democracy, restore confidence and throw up well-meaning Nigerians to make themselves available to contest elections in the interest of development of the nation, but as it were, INEC under Yakubu remains a nightmare to politicians and not even their political rivals during elections.

It’s no gainsaying that humongous fund has been pumped into INEC through appropriation by the National Assembly in anticipation that if funds were judiciously utilized under the items listed, in previous years, electoral processes would have been sanitized much more to the advantage of electoral players, but it’s being a sad story from year to year.

When the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and Permanent Voters Card were introduced by the INEC, with request for sufficient funding, Nigerians were upbeat and in expectation of a new way of conducting election in consonance with the best global practices, but with huge funds committed to the initiative, there are no good testimonies till date.

The very essence of BVAS ended in conduit pipe, the same way funds committed to it under Mahmood ended. The machine which was touted to be a device which would be used to isolate fake votes from genuine ones has never been so. A development that results of one Local Government has surpassed the entire 20 Local Government Council Areas for two electioneering times under the watch of Yakubu.

From State to State during general election, there were cases of INEC staff compromising election processes without subjecting them to in-house disciplinary action. Painfully, these staff of the electoral umpire walk around free and even go to court to defend the cases.

One wonders the questionable election results each year and how INEC’s agents would defend them as principal witness when the said results became subject of litigations. We believe that the 21st century digital age should have enhanced activities of the electoral umpire and not the other way we are seeing. Conducting election in Nigeria is not a rocket science, hence, decrying complications in conducting election in Nigeria as we saw during the budget defence last week by the INEC boss was completely an attempt to confuse the lawmakers.

The increase of INEC’s budget from N40 billion to N126 billion currently before the National Assembly for legislative action is too staggering, humongous and would be a waste if this fund is approved under the leadership of Godswill Obot Akpabio as Senate President.
The 10th National Assembly, it is believed, has wise men and women in Senate and the House of Representatives and Nigerians are counting on them to save the nation of waste of hard earned resources by not approving the sum of N126 billion for INEC. This is at the backdrop of the fact that nothing good could come out of INEC under the current structure.

Also, it will be an honour done to themselves as patriotic Nigerians and elder statesmen to decline approval of N126 billion proposal, even as items raised by the INEC boss for the proposal are not only feeble, there are also unrealistic.

The parliament should be seen to be doing all it could to curb financial leakages and retaining the N40 billion budget since 2025 is not the general election year would be appropriate. This will avoid the surge of INEC’s proposal to a trillion naira in 2027 general election if the current proposal of N126 is sustained.

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If nothing is done to curb the menace of ‘yahoo boys’ immediately, Kogi State is about being the biggest hub of yahoo boys, given their activities and the large number of boys involved. These boys have relocated to Lokoja, Kogi State capital and are living a larger than life.

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They are proudly cruising around town in very expensive vehicles worth over N50 million like lexus, venza and other brand of prado jeeps and are competing with themselves. Most of them ranging from age 19 to 35, could be seen wearing ear rings with dreadlock hairs.

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In Kogi State, every property owner like buildings particularly in Lokoja want to have a yahoo boy tenant as they have resources to rent without bargaining the cost. Most of them lodge in expensive hotels, while others still in school rent costly apartments in Lokoja. They have good network among themselves, i.e yahoo boys in the Prince Abubakar Audu University, Anyigba know their group in Confluence University of Science and Technology and in other tertiary institutions which is easy for the group to flock together.

Civil servants can no longer afford to pay rents as rent has gone beyond the normal ceiling because of ‘easy money’ in hands of yahoo boys which they throw around. Notwithstanding, some reasonable yahoo boys have resorted to buying properties with the money which is believed among them that they don’t deal with cash as such, but transfers.

Yahoo boys in Kogi patronises herbalists and possesses voodoo laced with human blood used as ritual or dug from a graveyard at night which they believed hynotises their victims to part away money into their account and that is what has been their modus operandi.

If any of their member loses loved one, celebrating marriage or any kind of event, they are always there either in pure white or black attire to spray money.

In fact, Kogi is in gridlock of yahoo boys! And we demand a serious clamp down, security agencies should see Kogi as another challenge and not just the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission operatives. As the number of yahoo boys is multiplying so is the consequence on the society as their activities may likely snowballed into serious insecurity.

It is no exaggeration to say that the agony of losing money in bank accounts would be a child play, but money in hands very young boys could create another arms bearing gang posing security threat to the society as some desperate politicians could hijack them.

We call on the Inspector General of Police to create anti-yahoo unit in the Nigerian Police to tackle this ever spreading menace. A stitch in time saves nigh!

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When the news of arrest and detention of the leader of factional Indigenous People of Biafra broke on the international and local media platforms on Thursday, what may have come to mind of any reasonable and responsible citizen should be “what a good riddance to bad rubbish”, given his act of terrorism and atrocities of high proportion against the State and humanity especially in the South Eastern Nigeria.

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Simon Ekpa, a Nigerian citizen who is based in Finland had over the years sponsored, promoted, aided and abetted terrorism in the South East which is an industrial region of the country. The South Easterners are the most industrious, if this is not an exaggeration, the most resourceful and businessmen of the country, but met brute attack, carnage, human and material waste over the years due to terrorism orchestrated from far away Finland in guise of fight for the independence of the region.

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The sit-at-home order every Monday across the South Eastern State by the Simon Ekpa-led faction has crippled businesses of South Easterners thereby incurred loss of humongous amount of money. Though, this order is unwanted and unwarranted, the Igbo people cannot ventilate their frustration for fear of attack, hence, they are forced to live by the order until help could come from anywhere.

It is no gainsay the fact that there have been endless killing in the South East, destruction of properties, fear of investment and even the relocation to other parts of the country due to Ekpa-led terrorism linked to IPOB operatives.

The Eastern Security Network, ESN, an armed arm of IPOB has wrecked the six States comprising the region and they continue to remain a nightmare to the rest people. The operatives are armed with dangerous and sophisticated weapons and well-funded from Finland. No thanks to Simon Ekpa, an acclaimed Prime Minister of Biafra in Diaspora.

We demand therefore extradition of Simon Ekpa in accordance with the Nigerian laws, but due process must be followed with convincing evidence of terrorism. Government must mobilized the legal instruments and take advantage of Finnish laws to bring Ekpa home hale and hearty to face terrorism charges once and for all.

All security agencies as well as Interpol must be patriotic enough to ensure the success of extradition of Mr. Simon Ekpa as there can be no better time than now to activate legal instruments and ensure Ekpa faces justice over sin against his fatherland.

Extradition being a process that involves the transfer of an individual from one State to another, usually through a treaty or agreement between the two nations remain the legal process of bringing Simon Ekpa home as the citizens are eagerly waiting to see justice to have been done.

We therefore, urged the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi to activate the relevant provisions of the 2004 Extradition Act to ensure Mr Ekpa is brought home to face the charges. In this way, Nigerian would earn respect in the Committee of nations as fight against terrorism would have been taken to the global level.

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