The Heads of Mission of the European Union and the United States of America in Nigeria have condemned the violence surrounding elections in Nigeria.

Against the backdrop of the violence in several Northern states, occasioned by the declaration of President Goodluck Jonathan as winner of the April 16, presidential election, the Cross River State Police Command has beefed up security to forestall any breakdown of peace in the state.

RUMOURS of the withdrawal of the Peoples Party of Nigeria, PPN, Governorship candidate, Gboyega Nasir Isiaka for the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Gen. Adetunji Idowu Olurin became very rife yesterday but Isiaka said there was no truth in it.

National Coordinator of the Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC, Otunba Gani Adams, has called on politicians to refrain from statements capable of inciting violence during and after the elections, noting that the unity of Nigeria should not be threatened.

In what appears to be a demonstration of being their brothers’ keepers, state governments in the Southern part of the country have been responding to distress calls from members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, from their various states who are serving in the north and were trapped in the violent protests that greeted the announcement of the results of the last presidential election.

OVER 23,000 policemen and other security agents have been mobilized for today’s governorship and House of Assembly elections in the five South East states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo.

ABIA State governor, Chief Theodore Orji, yesterday called on political and religious leaders in the North to prevent the recurrence of the senseless killing of the Igbo anytime there was crisis in the Northern part of the country.