When reporters asked for the opinion of Alhaji Umaru Yar'Adua, the presidential candidate of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on the massively rigged presidential election of last Saturday April 21, 2007, he replied that the election was the best ever. Both the local and foreign observers were speechless.
But, the persecuted Christians who have been at the receiving end of the governor of Katsina were not surprised, because Umaru Yar'Adua has told many lies to them in order to dispossess the Christians of their lands. And after lying to the Christians that their churches would be safe in his administration, he later denied them the license to build churches and even instructed them to relocate their already built churches so that he could relocate the land to build more mosques.
The more uneducated the majority of the Northerners were, the more they would be fooled by such political rulers as Umaru Yar'Adua and his fellow unrepentant partners in crime in the PDP.
The President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who claims to be a "Christian" lied that the April elections were free and fair. He refused to accept the truth until the former United States Secretary of State; Lady Madeleine Albright had a breakfast meeting with him and drew his attention to the indisputable facts on the glaring mismanagement of the electoral process and disenfranchisement of millions of registered voters and political candidates.
That how could the elections be free and fair when millions of registered voters and even the Nigerian Senate president could not vote?
But under age voters were seen mass dumb-printing ballot papers for the PDP in many areas in Northern Nigeria?
How could the elections be free and fair when the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Human Rights Watch (HRW), Transparency International (TI) and others monitoring groups caught the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conspiring with the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to rig the elections?
Alhaji Umaru Yar'Adua claims to be a pious Muslim and then engages in the celebration of gross electoral misconduct, irregularities and voter disenfranchisement perpetrated by his ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and caused the mayhem that left over 260 dead. And he is still so shameless and unrepentant in his denial of the crimes committed by the PDP during the April polls.
The Coalition of Opposition Political Parties (COPP) has already declared that the election of Alhaji Umar Yar'Adua as president-elect is illegal and unacceptable.
Reports from reliable sources confirm that the president-elect, Alhaji Umaru Yar'Adua, vice-president-elect, Jonathan Goodluck and leadership of the PDP have resorted to bribery and corruption, to pacify the dreaded Niger Delta militants, and other opposition parties to secure their support so that the mass protests planned by the Coalition of Opposition Political Parties (COPP), would be sabotaged.
Alhaji Umaru Yar'Adua should go ask Alhaji Shehu Shagari what happened to him when his ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) brazenly rigged the presidential election in 1983.
He was toppled in a coup. And it can happen again.
Mr. Integrity Umaru Yar'Adua has lost the dignity and probity of true leadership in his greed for power. And his so-called integrity has no credibility.
