*Security agencies focus on party leaders

Even as the National Chairman of the Independent  National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, commenced the process of announcing the results last Sunday, some youths in some states of the North were already mobilised to wreak havoc under the guise of protesting the results of  the presidential election  of April 16, 2011. This report captures how political leaders attempted to profit from the riots which, unfortunately, turned out to be dysfunctional and unhelpful.

By Jide Ajani, Editor, Northern Operations

Because the gun was pulled, many died. Perhaps, had the leaders of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, known what would follow, they would have pulled back the hand of time.  But they couldn’t.

Once the  results of penultimate Saturday’s presidential election began filtering in, and the National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega, commenced the process of announcing the results, it became obvious that President Goodluck Jonathan was coasting home to victory. Panic set in for leaders of  CPC.

The party leaders could not believe the results that were being announced.

A CPC source explained to Sunday Vanguard that some of the reasons the party is not accepting the presidential results  is because “no presidential election was conducted in the South-East geo-political zone and that results of the election in the zone were merely fabricated,” just as in the “South-West geo-political zone where some of the ballot papers used had no serial numbers on them.”

Protesters in Kaduna

A meeting initially slated for the residence of the CPC presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), on Monday evening, did not hold.

But, at an earlier meeting at CPC’s National Secretariat in Akinkunmi Street, Utako District, Abuja, in the afternoon of that Monday,  to review the outcome of the presidential election, at a time when the results were being announced, the party leaders sought consolation in the outpouring of resentment to the possible victory of  Jonathan.

That was actually where the CPC leaders miscalculated.

At the  meeting, which had Prince Tony Momoh, National Chairman of the party; along with Mustafa Salihu, deputy national chairman; Baba Galadima, national secretary; and Abu Mai Kano, CSO to General Buhari and head, Security Committee of the Buhari Campaign Council, Galadima’s position that CPC ought to have won the election did not change – earlier meetings of the party’s leadership had always seen Galadinma express confidence in the ability of CPC to win the presidential election at the first ballot.

Sunday Vanguard was reliably informed that “Galadima was of the view that CPC is a political party to beat, and noted that since the night of April 17, 2011, the country-home of  Namadi Sambo in Zaria, Kaduna State, had been razed  by a mob.”

He stated that, at the same time, some youths were  on their way to the palace of the Emir of Zauzau, but were, however prevented by some policemen from gaining access into the main palace.”  Had the leaders of CPC known that the protest would turn into carnage, the killings may have been  stopped.

Shops set ablaze at Tikania Kakuri, Kaduna.

Sunday Vanguard’s investigation  of the processes leading up to and sustaining the unrest, revealed that some politicians had further emboldened the youths with the utterances they made.

Therefore, when results started filtering out that Jonathan was cruising home to victory, the irate youths took to heart the earlier admonition for the rejection of any result that did not favour Buhari.

And, by the time the CPC candidate came out to condemn the killings, many lives had been  lost and properties worth billions  of naira destroyed.  Did his counsel come a little too late?
We may never know.

In Adamawa, Kano, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Bauchi and parts of Niger State, where the violence was serious, many died.  National Youth Service Corps,  NYSC, members were killed in the violence that followed – 51 of them died. Houses were torched, places of worship were burnt, INEC offices in Kaduna and Bauchi were razed.

But the security agencies are carrying out their investigations into the culpability of some politicians.

Back to the meeting, the source confided in Sunday Vanguard: “Galadima stated that some of the ballot papers used during the presidential election in the South-West had earlier been thumb-printed in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which were allegedly brought to the collation centres for counting.”

A vehicle set ablaze by protesters

Interestingly, CPC was in a race against time after the Monday meeting which was held hours before the announcement by Jega that PDP’s  Jonathan had won the election.

In fact, that meeting witnessed the party’s national chairman advising that “Galadima should hurry up with the compilation of the various positions of the party in time for his signature, so that the letter of complaint would be submitted early to Jega before the final compilation and declaration of the presidential election.”

It was at that same meeting that CPC  lampooned Jega as it was expressing surprise “at the eventual conduct of (Attahiru Jega) to have accepted the 2011 presidential result…, accusing the INEC boss of  failing to honour even his promise to Nigerians to conduct credible, free and fair  elections.”

Jonathan won with 22,495,187  votes while Buhari came a distant second with 12,215,853 votes. Over 10 million difference.

Meanwhile, security agencies are beaming their searchlight  on some influential politicians in the North, specifically CPC leaders, as well as  some religious clerics with a view to ascertaining their level of involvement in the riots and wanton destruction of lives and property.

In fact, Sunday Vanguard was made to understand that the reason some of them have not been picked up yet, according to our source, is “because there is a need to allow tension to continue to go down as it already is but that does not mean that people would not be held accountable for their roles once that is established.”