INEC report on Ondo poll indicts Obanikoro NEWS Page 8
Newspaper of the Year
News Kidnap suspect lynched in Kwara P65 Sports Coach: Bosnia ’ll clip Eagles’ wingsP23 Business ATMs at risk as banks miss deadline P11
•Nigeria’s widest circulating newspaper
VOL. 9, NO. 2821 THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2014
•www.thenationonlineng.net
TR UTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM TRUTH
EKITI 2014
N150.00
•Sambo on Ekiti, Osun: we’re going to war front AND MORE •Fayemi deserves another term, says wife •ON PAGE 9 •APC members, police disagree •Senator speaks
APC faults Jonathan campaign day after Abuja blast •PDP justifies President’s singing, dancing in Kano
P
From Gbade Ogunwale, Abuja
RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan came under fire yesterday from the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) “for exhibiting the traits of an insensitive and utterly hardhearted leader by returning to his illegal campaign trail, barely 24 hours after 75 of his compatriots died in a bomb blast in Abuja, and as news broke that 200 school girls have been abducted by Boko Haram in Borno.” Interim National Publicity Secretary Lai Mohammed in a statement said the party renewed its call on the President to urgently convene a stakeholders’ summit and pursue a nonpartisan approach towards ending the insurgency, as it is now very obvious that the challenge posed by it is beyond the capacity of the government. But the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Minister of Information Labaran Maku rose in defence of the president. The APC said: “The President’s quick return to the hustings was reprehensible and has shown that his visit to the scene of the blast was merely to avoid the kind of flak he has received for refusing to visit Yobe, where 43 school children were massacred recently, rather than a genuine show of sympathy by a truly compassionate leader. ‘’The message that President Jonathan is sending to Nigerians is that keeping his plum job, at all cost, is more important to him than the security and welfare of the SEE same people who voted him into office. Otherwise, the President ALSO would not have rushed back to PAGES his illegal campaign trail at a time
2&3
Continued on page 4
•APC Governors (from left) Rochas Okorocha (Imo), Tanko Al Makura (Nasarawa), Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun), Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti) and Abdulfatah PHOTO ABAYOMI FAYESE Ahmed (Kwara) encouraging a victim of the Nyanyan bomb blast in Abuja at the National Hospital...yesterday .
A president who said his ambition is not worth the blood of anyone is now dancing gleefully on the graves of over 70 of his compatriots. What is so important about the illegal campaign stop in Kano? —APC
The PDP-led administration was popularly elected and shall never allow terrorists ...to dictate the tempo of government... no government allows terrorists to influence —PDP the course of its action
Boko Haram: Eight girls still missing as troops rescue 80 14 others out of kidnappers’ den
T
•Shettima
HE Defence Headquarters said yesterday that only eight of the 129 students abducted by Boko Haram from the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok in Borno State were still missing. Eighty of the students were said to have escaped from Boko Haram’s
From Yusuf Alli, John Ofikhenua, Grace Obike, Abuja, Tony Akowe, Kaduna
camp or rescued by troops. Some of the girls were alleged to have been freed by the sect on compassionate grounds. Troops were ordered last night to rescue the eight remaining girls before
Suspected abductor captured
dawn. One of the abductors was arrested. According to the Director of Defence Information, Maj-Gen. Chris Olukolade, who spoke with our correspondent last night, the girls were “rescued in a village on one of the routes taken by the insurgents after ab-
ducting the girls”. Gen. Olukolade said: “More students of the GGSS, Chibok have been freed this evening in the ongoing Search and Rescue Operations to free the abducted students. “With this development, the principal
Continued on page 4
•FOUR DEAD, 283 MISSING IN FERRY DISASTER P69 • BOKO HARAM KILLS EMIR P4