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February 27, 2015 by Niyi Odebode, Sunday Aborisade and Friday Olokor Leave a Comment

INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega

Members of the All Progressives Congress in the Senate on Thursday alleged that there was a fresh plot by the Federal Government to prevent the Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman, Attahiru Jega, from superintending over the forthcoming general elections.

The APC senators, led by George Akume, told a news conference in Abuja that they heard from a reliable source that the Head of Service would direct Jega to proceed on his pre-retirement leave next week.

We have received information from a very credible source that next week, the Chairman of INEC will be given a letter from the office of the Head of the Civil Service to proceed on a terminal leave, they said.

The opposition senators alleged that the Federal Government was trying to use a circular from the HoS dated August 11, 2010 to place Jega on compulsory pre-retirement leave.

They said, Whether the letter emanates from the HoS office or the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, it does not make sense. Even if we go by the terms of the Civil Service circular of August 11, 2010, (it) is not applicable whatsoever to the INEC chairman.

The lawmakers explained that the circular, with reference number HCSF/CMO/1772/TI/11, talks about clarifications on pre-retirement leave, which is only applicable to tenured officers who are career civil servants.

They said anyone who has spent 30 years in service or has attained 60 years of age was bound to disengage officially from the service. The senators however said that the case of Jega did not fall into any of these.

The lawmakers claimed that Jegas offence was his readiness to conduct the elections when the Peoples Democratic Party-controlled Federal Government was not.

Read more from the original source:
Jonathan, PDP plotting to remove Jega APC senators

President Goodluck Jonathan | credits: File copy

The All Progressives Congress has described as unacceptable the excuse offered by President Goodluck Jonathan for not investigating the tape in which some Peoples Democratic Party leaders were purportedly giving orders to a general to help in rigging the June 21, 2014 Ekiti governorship elections.

Jonathan had said last week that security agencies could not investigate the tape because the soldier who recorded the incident, Capt. Sagir Koli, had fled the country.

However, the APC in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the President was wrong to have said the audio tape had not been investigated because the army captain who leaked it had not come forward to authenticate it.

It wondered whether the President would have said the same thing if it was the voices of the APC chieftains that were involved in the illegal act.

The APC said the security agencies need no prodding or even a presidential directive to launch an investigation into a weighty issue that amounts to a subversion of democracy.

It said, Some people were found to be undermining democracy using a powerful national institution like the military, and all the President could say is that there will be no investigation until the officer who secretly recorded the tape has come forward to authenticate it. What a disingenuous argument!

Is the President not aware that Capt. Sagir Koli, who recorded the tape, went into hiding because his life is in danger? Is the President not aware of the fate that befell Capt. Kolis 15-year-old younger brother who was arrested and tortured at a military facility in Ibadan over the issue?

Does the President not appreciate the patriotism which the officer exhibited by exposing those who criminally subverted democracy?

The APC queried basis the President declared the audio tape a fabrication when he had now confessed that he had not even listened to it, and when almost all those who were at the rigging meeting, such as the then Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro; Governor Ayodele Fayose, the Minister of Police Affairs, Jelili Adesiyan; and Senator Iyiola Omisore, had confirmed that they attended the meeting.

Originally posted here:
Jonathans excuse for not probing Ekiti tape, weak APC

National Publicity Secretary, All Progressives Congress, Alhaji Lai Mohammed | credits: File copy

The All Progressives Congress on Wednesday described President Goodluck Jonathans reason for the delay in probing the Ekiti rigging audio tape as untenable and an after-thought.

The APC said the Presidents waffling on the issue showed that he might have something to hide.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in London, the opposition party said the President was wrong to have said the rigging audio tape had not been investigated because the army captain who leaked it had not come forward to authenticate it.

The statement party read, Some people were found to be undermining democracy using a powerful national institution like the military, and all the President could say is that there will be no investigation until the officer who secretly recorded the tape has come forward to authenticate it. What a disingenuous argument.

Is the President not aware that Capt. Sagir Koli, who recorded the tape, went into hiding because his life was in danger?

Is the President not aware of the fate that befell Capt. Kolis 15-year-old younger brother who was arrested and tortured at a military facility in Ibadan over the issue?

Does the President not appreciate the patriotism which the officer exhibited by exposing those who criminally subverted democracy?

The party queried the basis on which the President declared the audio tape a fabrication when he had not listened to it, and when almost all those who were at the rigging meeting, including ex-Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro; Governor Ayodele Fayose; ex-minister, Jelili Adesiyan; and the Osun PDP governorship candidate, Iyiola Omisore, had owned up to attending the meeting.

Obanikoro invoked the Presidents name, saying he sent him to clinch victory for the PDP in the Ekiti governorship election.

Original post:
Rigging tape: Jonathan hiding something, APC alleges

The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has challenged Governor Ayodele Fayose to explain to Nigerians why he imported men in Army uniform, suspected to be thugs, into his country home in Afao Ekiti onTuesday night.

The opposition party, which said the action of the governor might not be unconnected with his insistence that soldiers must be deployed to rig the forthcoming general elections, also challenged him to explain the roles of the young men in Ekiti.

A statement by the stateAPC Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatubosun, on Wednesday, said Nigerians must know why these young men were stealthily imported to Afao-Ekiti at night.

Olatubosun recalled that the party had earlier raised the alarm over the sowing of fake military uniforms for thugs to impersonate security personnel to enable them to rig elections.

He said the governors alleged rigging plan had manifested in some Oodua Peoples Congress members in military uniforms, operating as task force officials that had been terrorising the opponents in recent times.

Olatubosun said, Last nights importation of young men in six 18-seater buses to Afao-Ekiti home of the governor is a clear confirmation of our fear that Fayose means business as he has been boasting around that the presidential election will be a do-or-die affair.

We were monitoring these young men from Ibadan yesterday evening. They were brought in a luxury bus parked under the bridge at Iwo Road, Ibadan, where the men in charge were looking for smaller buses to convey these young men to Ekiti. The conditions for their hiring included that they must know Ekiti State terrain and Afao-Ekiti in particular.

The six buses left Ibadan late in the evening and arrived Afao-Ekiti at exactly9.15pmand the men disembarked in front of the governors house. What gave them away was the discovery of Army uniforms in their bags when they opened their bags to buy hot drinks and akara from road hawkers inside the bumps at Ikire.

But Fayose said the party was onlyraising an unnecessary alarm because there were no soldiers being kept at Afao as the party alleged.

The governor, in a reaction by his Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi, said, Election has not come; we have about 34 days to the election. What will that number of soldiers be doing in Ekiti when we are not in election period?

Continue reading here:
APC accuses Fayose of importing fake soldiers

By Erik C. Nisbet and R. Kelly Garrett February 26 at 10:50 AM

Confidence in the scientific community has diverged along ideological lines over the past two decades. Conservatives trust in science has declined, while the trust of liberals and moderates has remained relatively stable. This divergence threatens policymakers ability to engage in scientifically informed decisionmaking and makes political consensus less likely. But are conservatives unique in discounting science? Our new research suggests not. It turns out that liberals do it, too.

One explanation for the decline in scientific trust among conservatives is the Republican War on Science, purported to have emerged in the late 1990s. The claim is that fundamental psychological differences linked to ideology contribute to a scientific deficit unique to conservatives. In other words, conservatives are inherently predisposed to reject scientific evidence and to distrust the scientific community.

We are skeptical of this interpretation and join other researchers in arguing that conservatives and liberals can both be biased in how they process scientific information or trust scientists. Whether liberals or conservatives are more likely to distrust in science will depend on the specific issue under debate.

We recruited a diverse group of 1,500 adults from a national online panel of volunteers and randomly assigned them to read scientifically accurate statements about different science topics. Some read about issues where there is significant partisan divide, including climate change, evolution, nuclear power, and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of natural gas, while others read about issues that tend to be viewed as ideologically neutral, namely geology and astronomy.

Unsurprisingly, we found that conservatives who read statements about climate change or evolution reported more negative emotions and greater resistance to the information, compared to liberals who read the same statements and compared to other conservatives who read statements about geology or astronomy. This lead conservatives who read these messages to report significantly lower trust in the scientific community.

But we found a similar pattern among liberals who read about nuclear power or fracking. Liberals exhibited the same negative emotions and resistance to the information. They also expressed less trust in the scientific community.

One finding was more surprising, and perhaps more distressing. Although liberals who read statements about climate change and evolution reported greater trust in science than conservatives who did the same, these liberals also reported less trust in the scientific community than liberals who read ideologically neutral statements about geology or astronomy. This suggests that partisan battles over science can erode public confidence in the scientific community, even among those predisposed to trust the evidence.

Even though both conservatives and liberals interpret science in a biased fashion, this is not an excuse for either side to do so. Our findings neither exempt nor validate the well-organized and heavily funded climate denialist movement.

We believe that our experiment has two important lessons for science communicators. The first is that political journalismtoo often treats science like a political issue to be debated by non-experts in televised partisan theater. This type of coverage often obscures the actual scientific evidence and consensus, deepens polarization by providing partisan cues for both conservatives and liberals, and depresses confidence in the scientific community among liberals and conservatives alike.

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Monkey Cage: Biased interpretations of science? Liberals do it, too.