Author: Naomitheboss

Senator Rufai Hanga, former Chairman of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) says there was an agreement that the National leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu would succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.

Hanga said the purported agreement is the reason why Tinubu remains in the ruling party after Buhari’s first term.

“This is an open secret. There was an implied agreement. Even in law, there is implied and expressed act. If something is expressed, there are no two ways about it. There was an implied agreement that he would take over. That is why he didn’t back out after the first tenure. If Tinubu knew that he would not benefit, he would have backed out during Buhari’s first tenure. But he knows there was an agreement,” he said.

Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, on Friday, criticised the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), for ignoring the calls to ban open grazing and approving N6.5bn for ranching in his home state of Katsina.

Ortom, who spoke to journalists in Makurdi, described the decision as hypnotical and called on the President to extend the gesture to all the states of the federation.

The governor, who took credit for initiating the call for ranching in the country, argued that Benue State deserved to be given a N100bn ranching grant.

He said, “I also read somewhere that Mr. President approved N6.5bn for ranching in Katsina State. What kind of hypocrisy is this? Are we a serious country at all?

“It is hypocrisy for the Federal Government to approve money for ranching in a state and leave others out. In fact, the governor of the state, in his remarks, said N5bn had already been remitted to their coffers. So, I begin to wonder where we are headed.

“Our agitation in Benue State since 2017 has been for ranching and the governor of Katsina State said it is un-Islamic for anybody to talk about open grazing,” the governor said.

Former governor of Osun State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, has revealed that former President Olusegun Obasanjo warned the leaders who supported President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 that the General was unfit to govern the country.

The former governor bemoaned what he described as “the failure” of President Buhari, to deliver on his campaign promises.

Oyinlola, who said that he played a critical role in the campaign that brought Buhari to power, said he was regretful of his action, adding that he should have listened to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s warning that Buhari was unfit to govern the country.

The former governor said this in an interview he granted BBC Yoruba, which was monitored by Newsflash Nigeria.

Oyinlola said, “I am saddened that Buhari said he did not know what restructuring is. I played an important role in the process that brought Buhari to power. One of the policies we sold to the South was restructuring but it was shocking that in an interview, the President said he didn’t know the meaning of restructuring. May God forgive us and have mercy because this was contrary to what we envisaged.

“We made a lot of promises to the people but none of the promises he made has been fulfilled, especially on the security issues. It was like Boko Haram would be forgotten within six months of Buhari’s becoming the President. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo warned us that Buhari was not fit to run the country but we did not listen to him.

“We thought that since he was once a military Head of State, he would know how best to handle the insecurity that the country was faced with. Since we gained independence, and civil war, there’s no moment scarier than what we have now.

Former governor of Abia State and the lawmaker representing Abia North Senatorial District in the Senate at the Senate plenary on Thursday stated that he voted against the use of electronic means to transmit election result by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the debate of the on the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2021 because there was mobile phone network in his village.

Kalu who was called upon by the Clerk of the Senate to cast his vote for or against the electronic transmission of result by INEC said:

“Because there is no coverage in my village, Senator Abaribe knows that that there is no coverage in my village, where we come from, I vote NO.”

Sen. Kalu is from Igbere, a suburban town in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State. Igbere is located 66 miles from Aba the Commercial City of Abia State and about 50 kilometres from Umuahia, the Abia State capital. The town is barely 8kilometre from Abriba, a major town in the state with very high GSM network coverage.

Protocols,

Gentlemen of the Press,

APC HAS MURDERED DEMOCRACY

We have called you this afternoon to join our voices and anger with that of Nigerians and all lovers of democracy in condemning what happened in the National Assembly yesterday Thursday and today Friday.

How a representative of the people enjoying their mandate blatantly turned their back on them and toed the line of a political party interest that is clearly against the people.
By the choice of the All Progressives Congress, APC to put party interest before National interest, they have vividly murdered democracy by the actions of their members in the two chambers of the National Assembly yesterday and today. For us in PDP, today is a Black Friday for democracy.

It’s an established fact in all democracies world wide that a free, fair and credible election is the tripod of any democracy. The action of APC in swaying their members against Electronic transmission of Election Results clearly undermines and shows in unmistaken terms that APC is not ready to face the Nigerian electorates.

It also shows that the dilly-dallying of APC all the while in amending the Electoral Act is deliberate as they never wanted from inception to do anything that will deepen democracy in our country.

This is notwithstanding that the party is a huge beneficiary of Electoral Reform carried out by the PDP administration.

We therefore unequivocally condemn and reject the amendment of Electoral Act as passed by the National Assembly and urge President Muhammadu Buhari to fulfil his anti-corruption crusade and see this as corruption and the big

scam.

The PDP will take all necessary legal steps to ensure that this APC scam is not allowed to stand in any way.
We therefore call on all lovers of democracy who see free, fair and transparent election as vital, to stand up against this fraud.

Before I end these remarks gentlemen of the Press, may I commend members of the PDP in the two chambers for standing up for democracy when it mattered. History will be favourable to them.

I like to also urge the Press as vanguard in the democratic struggle to take up their arms against this anti democratic action.

Thanks for your attention and God bless. Happy Sallah in advance.