Top Stories
Fake
crash helmets flood Nigeria
By
OUR REPORTERS
COMMUTERS are in for more hectic times as the seeming genuine drive by the
Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) to check-mate carnage on Nigerian roads
through its order for the compulsory use of crash helmet for motor-cycle riders
has opened a can of worms. As the order issued about three months took effect
on January 1, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) quickly placed an
advertorial on specifications for the crash helmets the cyclists, popularly
known as okada riders, and their passengers ...
Balarabe Musa explodes!
THE epoch
presidential election ruling is a testimony that Nigerian opposition parties
are weak and opportunistic. If not so, the Supreme Court ruling which he said
was a legal exercise that lacked the peoples legitimacy could not have been...
N40m
Scholarship scam rocks Borno
From SADIQ ABUBAKAR, Maiduguri
MIRACULOUS disappearance of N40 million from the vaults of Borno State Scholarship
Board of the State Ministry of Education has been blamed for the inability
of West African Examination Council (WAEC/NECO) to release 2007 Statement
or results of all the indigenous students thereby robbing them of admission...
Unspent
Funds: Contract scams rock ministries
From CHUKS EHIRIM; Abuja
BIDDING to conceal their inadequacies and avert punishment, federal ministries
which under utilised their votes have flouted the directive of President Umaru
Musa Yar'Adua, that all unspent funds from last year's budget be returned
to the...
NEWS
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to be patriotic, shun violence
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for National Daily on Oshiomhole
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corrective heart surgery in India
• Senate gets request for four
new states
• Ekaette, N/Delta Minister
a spent force –Urhobo leader
• Tanker driver stabs motorist
to death
• Oil melt-down, good omen
for Nigeria –Businessman
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goes tough on crime
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LG Council suspended
• 1999 Constitution Review:
Rep slams NASS leadership over N1bn allocation
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see Nigeria through 2009 – Gov Daniel
• Lawmakers query commissioners
on 2008 budget allocation
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rate, says commissioner
• NGO to curb pipeline vandalism
• Speaker urges Nigerians
to live in peace, harmony
• Gov Oshiomhole dares lawmakers
over sacked workers
•Gov Jang held hostage at
Budget presentation
• Jos riot is poverty-motivated
–Gov Yuguda
• Beneficiaries of Harmony
Estate laud Gov Saraki
• House Minority Leader distributes
N100 million poverty alleviation materials
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Ohakim for free Xmas ride
Ghana makes democracy statement with Atta Mills
OBVIOUSLY, Ghanaian opposition could not have which for less as its leader
John Atta Mills was at the weekend declared the next president following a
peaceful ballot that secured the West African nation's place as a model democracy
on a volatile continent.
After Ghana's December 7 election proved indecisive, Atta Mills won the second
round ballot with a razor-thin victory having secured 50.23 per cent of the
vote to against 49.77 per cent by Nana Akufo-Addo, the country's Electoral
Commission announced.
"I assure Ghanaians that I will be president for all," an elated
Atta Mills declared, on Saturdayafter the official results emerged, mindful
of his thin mandate.
He swiftly called on his supporters to be "circumspect and do nothing
to provoke anyone."
"The time has come to work together to build a better Ghana." He
told a jubilant crowd outside his campaign headquarters. Meanwhile, opposition
supporters flocked the streets in frenzied celebration across the capital,
Accra.
The historic vote was Atta Mills' third outing at presidential and it was
so close that authorities had to order a rerun in one district which recorded
a ballot shortage earlier.
Ghana's ruling party candidate, Akufo-Addo, had threatened to reject the results,
but withdrew his court challenges and conceded peacefully.
As Akufo-Addo conceded defeat and congratulated his rival, the ruling party
ended court filings questioning some districts' voting results to promote
national unity.
President John Kufuor role in stabilizing the electorate has stood him out
as a true elder statesman. He appealed on both sides to accept the outcome,
a call which appeared aimed at his own governing party.
Ghana has remain one of the few states in Africa to successfully transfer
power twice from one legitimately elected leader to another in proof that
democracy has truly matured after an era of coups and dictatorship in the
1970s and 1980s in the country.
No doubt tensions had ran high in closest vote in Ghana's history, triggering
fear that violence could erupt as it did in Kenya an East African nation that
also was a model of stability until a similarly tight 2007 ballot unleashed
weeks of tribal bloodbirth.
But thanks to the strong role also by the former United Nations (UN) Secretary-General
Kofi Annan who helped broker peace in Kenya last year that flew home New Year's
Day and worked behind the scenes to calm tensions, Peter Pham, an Africa expert
at James Madison University in Virginia said.
The 64-year-old tax expert who will be inaugurated president Wednesday takes
over the reins of power at a period of global economic lull. He takes charge
amid Ghana's recent discovery of oil, amid its world's No. 2 cocoa producer
status. As poor Ghanaians complained that wealth is not trickling down, Atta
Mills accused the government of corruption.
Pham, the Africa scholar, called the vote "a milestone."
"It's the first case in Africa I can think of where a country has seen
two successive transfers of power from democratically elected incumbents to
democratically elected successors," he said.
Being a transfer between opposing governing powers, Pham said it "is
an important indicator of the vibrancy of a country's democracy and the maturity
of its political institutions."
Atta Mills who served as vice president under former coup leader Jerry Rawlings,
who stepped down in 2001, woul work to dispel any notion his rule could hark
back to Rawling's strongman era.
Ensuring economic growth will be his biggest challenge. Ghana's economy has
been growing by more than 6 per cent a year and oil is eventually expected
to rake in between $2 and $3 billion a year.
However, the New York-based Eurasia Group consulting firm says Ghana's economy
is projected to slow along with the rest of the world. Atta Mills will "grapple
with a growing budget ... high rates of youth unemployment, falling remittance
and aid levels, and surging inflation," it said.
Most Ghanaians remain among the world's poorest, earning an average of only
$3.80 a day and a tenth of the adult population is unemployed and 40 per cent
are illiterate.
Atta Mills who spent much of his career teaching at the University of Ghana
and served as the country's tax chief under Rawlings, earned a doctorate from
London's School of Oriental and African Studies before he became a Fulbright
scholar at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.
