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President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan yesterday made history when he ordered that henceforth, females interested in becoming combatant officers for the Nigerian armed forces should be admitted into the Nigeria Defence Academy.
Minister of Defence, Adetokumbo Kayode who made the disclosure at a media briefing in Abuja, said, though the issue had been under consideration by the military high command for sometime, President Jonathan took the decision to start it immediately because it is the right thing adding that "Other countries in Africa are already doing it and they are not better than us".
Photos: Are of US Female Soldier Lavena Johnson who was Raped/Murdered in the barracks in strange circumstances.Will The "Men" who beat their wives in the 9ja Army allow this to become a norm instead of a "killing" ground of our women ?
We remember the allegation that the 9ja Army fathered upto a whopping 250,000 kids during the Liberian conflict !
Main Story:
"Presently, we have female armoured tank drivers, female Para-troopers, Jumpers, and so on. We will follow international best practices in this regards. We want to have strong, virile armed forces devoid of discrimination".
Expatiating on the new directive, the minister said, "As you are all aware, the Nigerian Armed forces had always had opening for female officers. However, these have always been limited to non combat duties thereby limiting their career path irrespective of their competence or skill".
"To redress this obvious anomaly and in line with conviction of the President that every Nigerian irrespective of Gender or any affiliation should be given equal opportunity to excel in his or her chosen field of life, Mr. President has directed the immediate enlistment and training of female regular combatant commission officers into the Nigerian armed forces".
"The training of the female regular combatant cadets along with their male counterparts will be at the NDA, Kaduna where they will pass out with a degree in a chosen academic field and a regular combatant commission into the Nigerian Armed forces".
The minister continued, "As you might already know, we have various types of commission in the armed forces namely; Regular Combatant Commission, Short Service Combatant Commission, Direct Regular Commission, Direct Short Service and Executive Commission. Of all these types of commissions, it is only the Regular Combatant Commission that can give an officer the opportunity to aspire to head any of the services or rise to become the Chief of Defence staff".
"It is in this consideration that the Presidential directive was given in other to provide the female officers the same opportunity of rising to the pinnacle of their profession. This directive is also aimed at providing women, career opportunities that would allow them to compete with their male counterparts for the highest offices in the military".
"The female regular combatant officers will therefore have the opportunity, as their male counterparts, to command major units of the army, fly fighter jets of the Airforce and to be seamen officers who could command a combat going vessel of the Nigerian Navy", the minister said..
Reacting to a question, he said, “there will be no discrimination with regard to training. The same standard will be applied to both male and female intakes. There will no gender issues involved as it will be strictly be in compliance with NDA statutes”.
LaVena Johnson (July 27, 1985 - July 19, 2005) was a Private First Class in the United States Army whose death, officially ruled a suicide, has attracted international attention amid claims she was raped and murdered. She was the first female soldier from Missouri to die in Iraq.
Johnson's death was officially ruled a suicide by the Department of Defense. However, her father became suspicious when he saw her body in the funeral home and decided to investigate. The Army initially refused to release information, but did so under the Freedom of Information Act after Representative William Lacy Clay, Jr. raised questions about it at the congressional hearings over Pat Tillman's death.[3]
The autopsy report and photographs revealed Johnson had a broken nose, black eye, loose teeth, burns from a corrosive chemical on her genitals, and a gunshot wound that seemed inconsistent with suicide. Several reporters have suspected that the chemical burns were to destroy DNA evidence of a rape
Previously:
Amnesty International Report on 9gerian (sic) Soldiers
women despoiled by police and army
"Disturbing trends of despoil and sexual violence against women and girls at the hands of police and security forces" have been revealed in Nigeria. Some security forces act as if they were entitled to despoil local women, and they are sure never to face justice.
"There were three men. I have pain even today… they used my daughter too. She is 12 years old… They also despoiled my sister. Another man despoiled a woman who was 4 months pregnant and she lost the child…they were military men. Everyone in the village saw them, they didn't hide, they didn't care. I didn't tell the police because I fear them."
This is one of the testimonies presented at a press conference in Lagos, Nigeria, today by the human rights group Amnesty International. The testimony is part of a report on sexual abuse of women by Nigerian security forces, which according to Amnesty could almost be termed systematic.
despoil by police and security forces is endemic in Nigeria as is the abject failure of the Nigerian authorities to bring perpetrators to justice, the human rights group said at the press conference. They called on Nigeria's federal and State authorities to urgently overhaul the legal and social systems that tolerate widespread despoil and sexual violence against women and girls across the country.
Amnesty launched the report "Nigeria: despoil - the silent weapon", which draws upon the testimony of survivors and "identifies disturbing trends of despoil and sexual violence against women and girls at the hands of police and security forces." The report argues that these acts are compounded and encouraged by failures at every level of the judicial system and persist because of consistent failure by the state to tackle the abuse of women and girls by the police and security forces.
Whether abused by police, security forces or in their homes and community, the report outlines the enormous difficulties faced by women and girls who are despoiled or sexually abused in Nigeria.
"The harsh reality is that if you are a woman or a girl in Nigeria who has suffered the terrible experience of being despoiled, your suffering is likely to be met with intimidation by the police, indifference from the state and the knowledge that the perpetrator is unlikely to ever face justice," said Kolawole Olaniyan of Amnesty.
At the press conference, there was further presented evidence of the use of despoil and sexual slavery by the Nigerian security forces "to intimidate communities in the Niger Delta." The oil-rich but impoverished Delta has fallen into violence as local rebels fight for a greater part of oil revenues to be channelled to the region.
The group further outlined how despoil is used by the police as a means of torture to extract confessions from suspects in custody and how women and girls rarely seek prosecution for fear of intimidation by the police and rejection by their families and community. When they do, widespread failures throughout the judicial system result in only an estimated 10 percent of cases ever being successfully prosecuted.
The report outlines serious obstacles to the reporting and prosecution of despoil in Nigeria, including inadequate training of police that results in the humiliation and intimidation of the victims and police investigations hampered by corruption and incompetence. On the legislative level, differences between federal, state, Shari'a and customary law lead to uneven standards of justice and arbitrary decisions concerning the seriousness of the crime.
"Our report depicts the near total failure of the Nigerian state to protect women and girls from these terrible crimes. The Nigerian government has taken no meaningful action to translate its international legal obligations towards woman and girls into national law, policy and practice. It is now time that the state and federal authorities meet those obligations and offer real security and justice to women and girls in Nigeria," Ms Olaniyan said.
Amazing pic of Christians protesters protecting Muslims during their prayers in Egypt yesterday. Naija lets take note! Jos lets take note! We can too,
The illegal arms shipment intercepted this week at Nigeria's busiest port came from Belgium through Germany, a navy spokesman said Thursday.
"I can confirm to you that the origin of the impounded consignment of arms, military equipment and vehicles is Belgium. The vessel came to Nigeria via Germany," Captain Kabir Aliyu told AFP.
He said those arrested over the illegal shipment were Nigerians, but refused to give details because of an ongoing investigation.
The shipment, including pistols, hundreds of ammunition, bulletproof jackets, military boots and other related banned items, was seized at the Lagos port weeks after the discovery of a weapons cache sent from Iran.
Aliyu said the military items were packed inside a vehicle painted in army green, while eight heavy duty trucks painted in military camouflage were also impounded.
Small Union Jack stickers had been placed on some of the vehicles, but the spokesman said they seem to have been used as a disguise.
Officials at the Belgian embassy in Nigeria were not immediately available for comments on the latest shipment.
Last month, Nigerian security agents intercepted an illegal arms shipment that included rockets and grenades at the same port which had been loaded in Iran.
Nigeria reported the shipment to the UN Security Council.
Iran is under four sets of UN sanctions for pursuing the programme, which the West suspects is cover for a drive for a nuclear weapon, a charge Tehran denies. The sanctions include a ban on arms sales.
Tensions are rising ahead of next year's general elections in Africa's most populous country of 150 million people, which has witnessed voter fraud and violence.
More Arms Intercepted at Tin Can Island Port
Four men have been arrested and paraded by the Nigerian Navy for illegal importation of military uniforms, boots and ammunition into the country.
The items which were concealed in a car with other personal effects were discovered when security operatives were inspecting a container at the tin can island ports in Apapa.
One of the suspects who claimed to have served in the U.S. military said the items were his personal effects.
It was gathered that the arms were concealed in a jeep inside a container and comprised machine guns, pistols, military uniform and boots.
But the Area Controller of the Command, Mr. Austen Warikoru, told newsmen that, “We are yet to conclude the examination of the container, we cannot say anything now because we will not like to mislead the public, it is better we get our facts right.”
The Customs had about a month ago, impounded 13 containers of rocket launchers, assorted ammunitions, cartridges and other weapons at Apapa Port in which 754 packages of glass wool and stones were declared on the ship’s manifest as contents of the 13 containers.
The National Security Adviser, Gen. Andrew Azazi (retd.), had assured that those involved in the importation of the arms and ammunition would be arrested.
The NSA said, “At this point, the only thing we can say is that we have some armament we discovered at the port by the security agencies. We don’t want to make any conclusions about where they are going or where they are coming from.”
Four persons all male have been arrested and paraded by the Nigerian Navy for illegal importation of military uniforms, boots and ammunition into the country.
The items which were concealed in a car with other personal effects were discovered when security operatives were
inspecting a forty feet container at the tin can island ports in Apapa.
One of the suspects who claimed to have served in the U.S. military said the items were his personal effects.
It was gathered that the arms were concealed in a jeep inside a container
and comprised machine guns, pistols, military uniform and boots.
But the Area Controller of the Command, Mr. Austen Warikoru, told newsmen
that, "We are yet to conclude the examination of the container, we
cannot say anything now because we will not like to mislead the public,
it is better we get our facts right."
The Customs had about a month ago, impounded 13 containers of rocket launchers, assorted
ammunitions, cartridges and other weapons at Apapa Port in which 754
packages of glass wool and stones were declared on the ship�s manifest
as contents of the 13 containers.
The National Security Adviser, Gen. Andrew Azazi (retd.), had assured that those involved in the
importation of the arms and ammunition would be arrested.
The NSA said, "At this point, the only thing we can say is that we have some
armament we discovered at the port by the security agencies. We don�t
want to make any conclusions about where they are going or where they
are coming from."...
Who will be promoted & who will join Bode George ? Who is your favourite mallam ?
Former minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nasir El-Rufai, yesterday told a Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja, that it lacked the power to try him over allegations of abuse of office as minister. He said that the proper court to try him was the Abuja High Court.
Counsel to the former minister, Akin Olujimi, filed a preliminary objection saying that the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Matters Commission (ICPC) Act of 2000, which his client had been charged on, had been repealed and so the federal court lacked the jurisdiction to try the matter. “The prosecution acknowledges that the charges stand on nothing,” said Mr Olujimi. “The effect of a repealed law is that it is a nullity, and no charges founded on it can stand.”
In response to the preliminary objection, the prosecution said that the court could assume jurisdiction in the matter because it involved an agency of the federal government and a former minister in the federal cabinet. Trial Judge, Adamu Bello, adjourned ruling on the case to 13th October.
Mr. El-Rufai and two others were accused by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of illegally allocating land in the FCT to friends and relatives, some of whom included Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, the daughter of former president Olusegun Obasanjo. The other accused persons are Altine Jubrin, former director general of the Abuja Geographical Information System, and Ismail Iro, former general manager of the agency. All three men pleaded not guilty.
AC Ribadu & Oshiomole ticket : as Asiwaju Tinubu Drops Vice Presidential Ambition
If he had held Fash close to his breast who knows as Alamiyesegha is reaping the rewards of patient GodFatherhood
Bola Ahmed Tinubu is no longer interested in the vice presidential race and is, instead, strategising on how the Action Congress (AC) would team up with another party to claim the presidency as well as win all the South Western States, Sunday Independent can reveal.
It also emerged that AC may have concluded plan to field the former anti-graft czar, Nuhu Ribadu as its presidential candidate, with Edo Governor and former Labour leader, Adams Oshiomhole, as his running mate.
That appears to be a fantastic political masterstroke, designed to woo the disenchanted Northerners who appeared certain to lose the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s presidential ticket to President Goodluck Jonathan and draw the organised Labour and younger elements who see Ribadu and Oshiomhole as emerging leaders they could count on.
Tinubu, former Lagos Governor and AC foremost financier, has long been rumoured to be in alliance talk with Muhammadu Buhari to float a joint presidential ticket, a very risky arrangement that would have repeated the Social Democratic Party (SDP)’s Muslim-Muslim ticket in the 1993 presidential ballot.
Late Moshood Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe were Muslims, but the ticket won a landside across the country widely split along ethno-religious lines.
Tinubu’s rumoured VP ambition has seen him criss-cross the length and breadth of Nigeria in the last two years to build bridges as he consulted with top opposition leaders and political parties, including the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).
He is said to have resolved to sit back and map out strategies for the AC to regain all its lost states in the Yoruba-speaking South West geopolitical zone as a bargaining chip for the party in its merger talks with other political parties in the country.
This agenda is believed to enjoy the backing of the five former governors of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) with whom he had been involved in series of mobilisation for the new party to be consummated from the years of consultations.
He was also said to have revealed the new move to his political associates and groups in the South West and across Nigeria in the last one month, a decision believed to be behind the lull and change of strategy in the political consultations among the opposition parties.
Sources close to the godfather of Lagos politics said he backs the decision by AC to support a younger element from the North with a running mate from the oil-bearing South South geo political zone, a deft move to dwarf the influence of Jonathan whose support base political scientists say is weak.
Tinubu and AC favour the candidature of Ribadu and Oshiomhole, two fellows whose support bases they believe could jolt the PDP in the ballot, sources said.
The choice of Ribadu over some other young Northerners like former Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nasir El Rufai, is said to have been informed by the high profile and public sympathy over his performance in the anti-corruption crusade, regardless of his romance with former President Olusegun Obasanjo and allegations that the latter used him to hound adversaries.
The choice of Oshiomhole as a running mate, sources added, flow from his coming from the same region as Jonathan and his wide appeal among Nigerians who relished his presidency of workers’ movement, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
Example
Noun: IBB is a kaita, so is Ota boy. Verb: Don't kaita what we have been building for 11 yrs in one day." I like that girl, please don't be a Kaita" Or In a Foolish Person's Thought: We are winning 1 - 0, let me kaita this game, so that I can get a red card and my opponent can win.
BODO, Nigeria — Big oil spills are no longer news in this vast, tropical land. The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates. The oil pours out nearly every week, and some swamps are long since lifeless.
Perhaps no place on earth has been as battered by oil, experts say, leaving residents here astonished at the nonstop attention paid to the gusher half a world away in the Gulf of Mexico. It was only a few weeks ago, they say, that a burst pipe belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the mangroves was finally shut after flowing for two months: now nothing living moves in a black-and-brown world once teeming with shrimp and crab.
Not far away, there is still black crude on Gio Creek from an April spill, and just across the state line in Akwa Ibom the fishermen curse their oil-blackened nets, doubly useless in a barren sea buffeted by a spill from an offshore Exxon Mobil pipe in May that lasted for weeks.
The oil spews from rusted and aging pipes, unchecked by what analysts say is ineffectual or collusive regulation, and abetted by deficient maintenance and sabotage. In the face of this black tide is an infrequent protest — soldiers guarding an Exxon Mobil site beat women who were demonstrating last month, according to witnesses — but mostly resentful resignation.
Small children swim in the polluted estuary here, fishermen take their skiffs out ever farther — “There’s nothing we can catch here,” said Pius Doron, perched anxiously over his boat — and market women trudge through oily streams. “There is Shell oil on my body,” said Hannah Baage, emerging from Gio Creek with a machete to cut the cassava stalks balanced on her head.
That the Gulf of Mexico disaster has transfixed a country and president they so admire is a matter of wonder for people here, living among the palm-fringed estuaries in conditions as abject as any in Nigeria, according to the United Nations. Though their region contributes nearly 80 percent of the government’s revenue, they have hardly benefited from it; life expectancy is the lowest in Nigeria.
“President Obama is worried about that one,” Claytus Kanyie, a local official, said of the gulf spill, standing among dead mangroves in the soft oily muck outside Bodo. “Nobody is worried about this one. The aquatic life of our people is dying off. There used be shrimp. There are no longer any shrimp.”
In the distance, smoke rose from what Mr. Kanyie and environmental activists said was an illegal refining business run by local oil thieves and protected, they said, by Nigerian security forces. The swamp was deserted and quiet, without even bird song; before the spills, Mr. Kanyie said, women from Bodo earned a living gathering mollusks and shellfish among the mangroves.
With new estimates that as many as 2.5 million gallons of oil could be spilling into the Gulf of Mexico each day, the Niger Delta has suddenly become a cautionary tale for the United States.
As many as 546 million gallons of oil spilled into the Niger Delta over the last five decades, or nearly 11 million gallons a year, a team of experts for the Nigerian government and international and local environmental groups concluded in a 2006 report. By comparison, the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 dumped an estimated 10.8 million gallons of oil into the waters off Alaska.
So the people here cast a jaundiced, if sympathetic, eye at the spill in the gulf. “We’re sorry for them, but it’s what’s been happening to us for 50 years,” said Emman Mbong, an official in Eket.
The spills here are all the more devastating because this ecologically sensitive wetlands region, the source of 10 percent of American oil imports, has most of Africa’s mangroves and, like the Louisiana coast, has fed the interior for generations with its abundance of fish, shellfish, wildlife and crops.
Local environmentalists have been denouncing the spoliation for years, with little effect. “It’s a dead environment,” said Patrick Naagbanton of the Center for Environment, Human Rights and Development in Port Harcourt, the leading city of the oil region.
Though much here has been destroyed, much remains, with large expanses of vibrant green. Environmentalists say that with intensive restoration, the Niger Delta could again be what it once was.
Nigeria produced more than two million barrels of oil a day last year, and in over 50 years thousands of miles of pipes have been laid through the swamps. Shell, the major player, has operations on thousands of square miles of territory, according to Amnesty International. Aging columns of oil-well valves, known as Christmas trees, pop up improbably in clearings among the palm trees. Oil sometimes shoots out of them, even if the wells are defunct.
“The oil was just shooting up in the air, and it goes up in the sky,” said Amstel M. Gbarakpor, youth president in Kegbara Dere, recalling the spill in April at Gio Creek. “It took them three weeks to secure this well.”
How much of the spillage is due to oil thieves or to sabotage linked to the militant movement active in the Niger Delta, and how much stems from poorly maintained and aging pipes, is a matter of fierce dispute among communities, environmentalists and the oil companies.
Caroline Wittgen, a spokeswoman for Shell in Lagos, said, “We don’t discuss individual spills,” but argued that the “vast majority” were caused by sabotage or theft, with only 2 percent due to equipment failure or human error.
“We do not believe that we behave irresponsibly, but we do operate in a unique environment where security and lawlessness are major problems,” Ms. Wittgen said.
Oil companies also contend that they clean up much of what is lost. A spokesman for Exxon Mobil in Lagos, Nigel A. Cookey-Gam, said that the company’s recent offshore spill leaked only about 8,400 gallons and that “this was effectively cleaned up.”
But many experts and local officials say the companies attribute too much to sabotage, to lessen their culpability. Richard Steiner, a consultant on oil spills, concluded in a 2008 report that historically “the pipeline failure rate in Nigeria is many times that found elsewhere in the world,” and he noted that even Shell acknowledged “almost every year” a spill due to a corroded pipeline.
On the beach at Ibeno, the few fishermen were glum. Far out to sea oil had spilled for weeks from the Exxon Mobil pipe. “We can’t see where to fish; oil is in the sea,” Patrick Okoni said.
“We don’t have an international media to cover us, so nobody cares about it,” said Mr. Mbong, in nearby Eket. “Whatever cry we cry is not heard outside of here.”
In a dramatic move, the Senate yesterday voted to delete an aspect of the Constitution which prohibits people indicted for various offences from contesting elections.
Ike Ekweremadu, the deputy senate president and the leader of the constitution review committee which made the recommendation argued that if left in the constitution, it can be used by government officials to witch-hunt political opponents.
Mr. Ekweremadu, a lawyer, also argued that other provisions in section 137 of the constitution can adequately cover the intentions of the deleted section. The section, 137 (1), prohibits people who have been indicted for embezzlement or fraud by state or federal panels of enquiry or tribunals from running for presidential office.
During the voting, 90 senators supported that it be deleted while only five senators voted for the retention of the section.
However, typographical errors and omissions prevented the Senate from formally passing the draft after the final reading on Wednesday.
Government of thieves
Various reactions across the country have trailed the vote for the removal of this section.
"This confirms what we have always been saying, that this is a government of thieves and therefore the anti-corruption campaign is dead," lamented Balarabe Musa, the chairman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties. Mr. Musa, in a phone interview from Kaduna added that, "we are now in trouble in Nigeria because we are apparently now being ruled by thieves in Nigeria." He likened the ‘Senate's abysmal act' to the failure of the National Assembly in passing the forfeiture bill sent to them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to confiscate properties of treasury looters.
This sentiment was echoed by Rotimi Akeredolu, the Nigerian Bar Association president who described the Senators' action in a terse text message, as a "futile exercise" adding that, "the Senate cannot on its own alone repeal any provision of Constitution."
A timely amendment
However, Sam Amadi, a lawyer, and director, Ken Nnamani Centre for Leadership and Development said the repeal of the act was not an anomaly. Mr Amadi said that in line with other constitutions across the world, the Electoral Act and not the Constitution should specify the eligibility of candidates to contest for election. "I think the clause should be removed completely from the constitution," Mr. Amadi said. "Our Constitution is not working because we have so many unnecessary things in it. Given our country where corrupt persons aspire to the highest offices in the land, the Electoral Act should be what is to be amended and the eligibility clause should be streamlined into criminal conviction and not just indictments." He also warned about what he called, "retaliatory indictments," saying, "we've seen in the past where governors set up panels and enquiries to get back at foes thereby discrediting the person(s) candidature for elections through such indictments and thereby creating confusion and legal challenges for the electoral process."
Another legal practitioner who welcomed the Senate's action is Chris Uche, who said, "the amendment of Section 137 (1)of the Constitution is timely and welcome to remove disqualification to contest election based on indictment by panel of inquiry given the abuse of that clause by governments."
According to Mr Uche, "the need has arisen because of the abuse of this provision by the federal and state governments to block political opponents from contesting elections."
Mr Uche based his argument on what happened to former Vice-President Abubakar Atiku and the former administration in Abia State which also issued a white paper indicting several politicians. "Happily, the Supreme court had in the Atiku case (AC vs INEC) in 2007, neutralised that provision which has now been repealed by defining indictment to mean trial by a court of law. Therefore, what the Senate has done is a legislative endorsement of a judicial reformation of the law by a proactive Supreme court."
Yinka Odumakin, the spokesperson of the Save Nigeria Group who recalled a statement credited to a Senator, Nuhu Aliyu, that the "National Assembly is full of criminals," warned that politicians should not think of using this avenue to pave the way for their return in the forthcoming elections.
He however recalled that the supreme court already ruled that an indictment by an admnistrative panel is not a judicial conviction. "We saw the way this section was abused under Olusegun Obasanjo. Even Orji Kalu set up a panel to do a counter-indictment of Mr. Obasanjo and Iyabo."
The cross carpeting law
Senate also deleted the section prohibiting lawmakers from cross carpeting. Section 68 (g) prohibits federal legislators from dumping the political party on whose platform they were elected unless there is a division in that party. It was deleted by a lean margin of 75 votes, two votes above the required minimum of 73.
Insertions were also made in the constitution, including two clauses in section 228 of the 1999 constitution, to enable the National Assembly make laws that will regulate internal democracies in political parties.
The new section, which got at least 89 votes on Wednesday now reads:
"The National assembly may by law provide for guidelines and rules to ensure internal democracy within political parties, including making laws for the conduct of party primaries, party primaries and party conventions."
Another insertion, to account for every day a governor or president whose election was annulled but wins the re-run election spent before the re-run election was also very popular with the senators. It was passed with 88 votes.
"In the calculation of the four year term, where a re-election has taken place and the person earlier sworn in wins, the time spent in the office before the date the election was annulled, shall be taken into account," the section reads.
The other recommendations which passed include clauses which make the Independent National Electoral Commission and its chairman above the authority of the president or any other body, and the recommendations to make the commission, the National Assembly and the Judiciary financially independent of the executive.
The independent candidacy clause and the recommendation to conduct election not earlier than 150 days before swearing in and not later than 90 days, were also passed overwhelmingly.
The draft amended constitution also recommended a fixed time for hearing and ruling on election petitions by both election petition tribunals and courts of appeal.
![pix200802192423062[1].jpg](http://odili.net/news/source/2010/mar/7/punch/images/pix200802192423062%5B1%5D.jpg)