Author: Leadership Newspapers

The people of Anambra should allow God's own candidate to emerge as successor to Gov. Peter Obi, regardless of the senatorial district he or she comes from.

The Catholic Bishop of Awka Diocese, Most Rev. Paulinus Ezeokafor, made the call on Wednesday at the Regional Priests Recollection held at Assumpta Parish, Nimo, Njikoka Local Government Area of the state.

The cleric’s call is coming against the backdrop of Gov. Obi’s preference that his successor should come from Anambra North Senatorial district.

Obi is of the view that the district had been marginalised in the politics of the state.

Ezeokafor said: ``Let us pray for the right candidate who would not only consolidate on the good work of Gov. Peter Obi, but would also strive to do better than him.

``Obi has changed the face of the state, restored the people's confidence in governance and has done a great job in all sectors of the state's economy.

``But let us forget about where his successor would come from. The bottom line is that we need a leader and not a ruler, we need somebody who would be ready to improve on Obi's qualities.”

On the mystery bodies discovered on Ezu River on Jan. 19, the Cleric urged the state and Federal Governments to unravel the mystery and fish out the perpetrators of this `heinous act'.

Ezeokafor, who contended that political killings were on the increase in Nigeria, warned that if allowed to continue, the country would end up achieving nothing.

``Nigerians should seek the face of God; I see no reason why some people would decide to be taking people's lives without recourse to God and humanity.

``Why should we allow these ungodly and unscrupulous person's waste people's lives,” he asked.

Ezeokafor said that the Regional Priests Recollection would provide opportunity for clergymen to have spiritual cleansing and have a sense of redirection which they are expected to impact on their parishioners. (NAN)

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar  on Wednesday in Ibadan said there could be no practice of genuine democracy in the country unless there was internal democracy within political  parties. Atiku stated this at a lecture he delivered at the...

Hajia Amina Zakari, the INEC National Commissioner and Chairman Political Party Monitoring Committee, says the commission has concluded plans to sanction political parties for financial recklessness.

She told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja that the recent audit reports indicated that most of the political parties had poor record keeping procedures.

According to her, a summary of the external auditor’s reports on the accounts of political parties for 2010, indicate that most of the parties did not follow financial guidelines.

Zakari said there were strict financial guidelines as stipulated by law and henceforth any party that failed to update their account books would be penalised.

She said the action became necessary before the commencement of general elections.

``Don’t forget that we have to handle the elections within a short time, we are improving the party processes, so we are not pampering the political parties.

``We are still in the process of refining the political parties and we are constantly reminding them about the implication of excessive spending.

Zakari said the commission could not wait any longer to apply the big stick on political parties for financial misconduct.

``We are not shying away from the fact that our internal capacity are not up to the required standard.

``We are in the process of building an internal capacity to be able to manage the process adequately.

``We have de-registered a lot of parties that do not meet the requirements as stipulated by the law, so also there are sanctions for political parties with poor record keeping procedures.

Zakari, however, warned political parties against reckless spending during the forthcoming AMAC elections.

``There must be money in politics but it must not be reckless, and not at the expense of the community,’’ she said.

 According to her, the parties should not use government money for campaign, they should be able to source for their money in a transparent manner.

``That is why the commission is always requiring to check their account books to ensure transparency and financial discipline,'' she said.