Jonathan Escapes Bomb Blast In Gombe

 Mathew Dadiya

But for Providence, Monday could have been a Black Day for Nigerians irrespective of political leanings: Just about three minutes after President Goodluck Jonathan left a rally ground in Gombe, Gombe State, a vehicle packed with explosives tore through the streets, courtesy of a female bomber.
She did not survive the blast. Fortunately, there were no other casualties.
The explosion occurred in a near-empty area, said a Deputy Superintendent of Police, Fwaje Atajiri.
Yesterday’s blast came as the International Crim­inal Court’s prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, urged all contestants to refrain from violence before, dur­ing and after the vote.
Bensouda said she would send a team to the country before the elec­tion, noting that “experi­ence has shown that elec­toral competition, when gone astray, can give rise to violence and in the worst-case scenarios, even trigger the commission of mass crimes that shock the conscience of human­ity.”
Meanwhile, former Ni­gerian Ambassador to the United States, Professor George Obiozor, has said that the February general election would determine whether the country will remain united or break up.
Obiozor spoke in Abuja yesterday while present­ing a keynote address a one-day symposium or­ganised by the HH Macau­lay Centre for Advance­ment of Democracy on the topic: “National Confab and the 2015 General Elec­tion”.
According to him, noth­ing is more disturbing than to see citizens begin to debate the future of their own country, saying that, at that point, they begin to question the basis of their own loy­alty to the country or its leadership.
“There is no denying that there is injustice in our country and history teaches us that throughout history, those denied justice have had no interest in peace. There must be justice before peace or all our efforts to keep Nigeria united will eventually be in vain,” Obiozor declared.
He added that it was only when Nigerian lead­ers provide a constitution that transparently empha­sizes the doctrine of inclu­siveness, equity and jus­tice for all citizens, focused on decentralisation and devolution power that the country would be brought into the club of modern democratic governments and unity in diversity.
In another develop­ment, Labour Party’s Board of Trustee chair­man, Dr. Dan Anyanwu noted that the Independent National Electoral Com­mission (INEC) was not ready for the 2015 gen­eral election.
He argued that there are many factors that could hamper the success­ful conduct of the election, insisting that many promi­nent Nigerians and other citizens in many states have not got their Perma­nent Voters Card (PVC). He therefore canvassed shifting the elections to a new date within the 90 days stipulated by the 1999 Constitution.
He also urged President Jonathan to give the mili­tary the required order and the support to ensure that the Boko Haram in­surgents in the North East are totally crushed before giving INEC the go-ahead to hold any election.
However, Barrister Mike Ozekhome, who also pre­sented a paper titled: “Fed­eralism, Judiciary and a New Constitution”, said that any attempt to post­pone the February elec­tions would mean a vic­tory for Boko Haram.
He added that postpon­ing the elections is like postponing the evil day: “I don’t believe in elec­tion postponement, INEC should brace up,” he de­clared.