The Court of Appeal sitting in Port Harcourt on Tuesday ordered the suspension of the National Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which was slated for Saturday, 30th October 2021.
The convention was suspended pending the determination of a suit brought by Prince Uche Secondus, the embattled National Chairman of the Party.
‘Anyanwu Has My Support For PDP Secretary’ — Ihedioha Denies Rejecting South-East’s Consensus Candidate
Secondus had asked the court to issue an order stopping the PDP from conducting its planned national convention on October 30 and 31.
According to Secondus, the convention should not hold until the court makes a final decision on the matter before it.
Although the National Leader of All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has not declared intention to contest any office in 2023, there have been different political movements mobilising support for him to join the 2023 presidential race.
Over the past few months, the ex- Lagos Governor’s campaign posters have surfaced in parts of Nigeria, the UK and the US.
Arguably, Tinubu commands a huge support base with his cult of followers, political loyalists growing daily.
He is also believed to enjoy the support of a broad spectrum of traditional rulers across the country, some of whom conferred him with honorary chieftaincy titles in appreciation for his philanthropy.
Prominent persons, including ex-lawmakers, Ministers and other politicians are campaigning for Tinubu to become President in 2023.
The Nation’s checks show that over 120 support groups, especially on social media platforms are promoting the presidential ambition of Tinubu.
Some of them include: Southwest Agenda 2023 group; Tinubu Support Group; Disciples of Jagaban; Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu – B.A.T National Forum; Tinubu for President 2023; Tinubu 2023 Support Group; Tinubu Solidarity Group; Northern Alliance for Tinubu 2023; Bola Ahmed Tinubu Group – USA; Tinubu Transformation Agenda 2023; I Love Tinubu; Tinubu Mandate Group; Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu Northerners; Tinubu Peoples Network; Vote Tinubu 2023 and Tinubu Grassroots Movement, among several others.
Here is a list of prominent personalities, groups who’ve ‘publicly declared’ support for the Tinubu presidency in 2023:
1. Hamisu Chidari — Kano Speaker Hamisu Chidari has declared that the party in Kano would support the 2023 presidential ambition of Tinubu.
Chidari said Kano State, which has the highest number of voters and delegates in the country, would repay Tinubu’s act of helping President Buhari, to become President in 2015.
2. James Faleke — Faleke who is member of the House of Representatives, has also asked Tinubu to run for president in 2023.
Read Also: Nigerians in Diaspora back Tinubu for 2023
He said Tinubu left office in 2007 but remains popular to date because “he is focused, consistent and persistent”.
3. Senator Adesoji Akanbi — Former Oyo South Senator, Adesoji Akanbi, affirmed that Tinubu remains the ultimate pathfinder, who is proactive and a problem solver for the next political dispensation.
4. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu — Lagos Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has also expressed support for the presidential bid of Tinubu, in 2023 general polls, saying, he has the quality to lead the nation.
5. Adeseye Ogunlewe: The former Minister of works Adeseye Ogunlewe has also called on Tinubu to declare his interest in the 2023 presidential election.
6. Mudashiru Obasa – Lagos Speaker Mudashiru Obasa on behalf of the Conference of Speakers, said the speakers have pledged their support for Tinubu Presidency at a meeting held in Kano.
7. Abdulsalam Abdulkareem Zaura — An All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship aspirant in Kano State, Abdulsalam Abdulkareem Zaura has also thrown his weight behind Tinubu, on his ‘presidential ambition’ in the 2023 general election.
Zaura said he is prepared to “fight with all his strength and last kobo” for Tinubu to be president of Nigeria in the next election.
8. Joe Igbokwe — A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Joe Igbokwe described the former Lagos State governor as a builder who laid the foundation for the growth of the state. said things would be okay if Tinubu becomes Nigeria’s president
9. Oluwo of Iwo in Osun State, Oba Abdulrasheed Akanbi – The Iwo monarch described Tinubu as the most qualified to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.
10. Senator Abu Ibrahim – A former deputy Minority Chief Whip of the Senate and stalwart of the APC from Katsina State, Senator Abu Ibrahim, has also canvassed for support for Tinubu. He spoke during the inauguration of Bola Tinubu Support Organisation (BTSO) held in Abuja, saying he could vouch for him having known the former governor for two decades.
11. Professor Mohammed Kuta Yahaya – A former Secretary to Niger State Government (SSG), Professor Mohammed Kuta Yahaya has also charged Nigerians to “create a Bola Ahmed Tinubu in each of the six geo-political zones.”
12. Tinubu Support Group (TSG) — The group has called on Nigerians to support the group to ensure the actualisation of a Bola Tinubu presidency in 2023 for a new and better Nigeria.
13. Nigeria Diasporans for Asiwaju Worldwide – The group has said the country stands a better chance of being transformed under a Tinubu Presidency.
14. Southwest Agenda 2023 group — The group has assured Tinubu of 12 to 13 million votes, ahead of the 2023 presidential election. It has also intensified its sensitisation, consultation and mobilisation tour in the state.
15. Disciples of Jagaban (DOJ) – The pro-Tinubu group, has said that it wants the National Leader of APC to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari as president in the 2023 general elections stating that Tinubu remains the most courageous and a staunch democrat that cannot be manipulated by Nigerian crooks.
16. The Ahmed Bola Tinubu Support Group – This is another prominent group promoting Tinubu’s presidential ambition. The group, located in Stuttgart, Germany, was created on May 29, 2020 and its Facebook profile says it has 12,000 members.
17. Northern Region Supports Tinubu 2023 for President (NRST-23) — This group, is led by its national Coordinator, Hon. Dahiru Hamma Dikko, where it has reiterated the need for all to help deepen the lifespan of Nigeria’s democracy beyond 2023 by rallying round Tinubu’s presidential aspirations.
18. Speakers of States’ Houses of Assemblies from North-west – The Speakers forum endorsed Tinubu, for president in the 2023 general election.
19. The Forum of Political Parties – The Lagos-based forum on Saturday threw its weight behind Tinubu, for the 2023 presidential race. The forum consists of political parties (registered and de-registered) in Lagos State.
The hoodlums stormed the school premises with weapons and descended on the teachers, inflicting varying degrees of injury on them.
There was palpable tension as thugs were allegedly hired by students of Community High School, Ijoun, in Yewa North Local Government Area of Ogun State, on Monday, to attack and send their teachers away from the school.
The incident occurred barely one week after some students of Unity High School, Kajola, Ibooro, in the same local government also reportedly hired thugs to beat up their teachers.
A source, who did not want his name in print, said that the hoodlums stormed the school premises with weapons and descended on the teachers, inflicting varying degrees of injury on them.
The source said the attackers invaded the school at about 10.45am on Monday and freely used weapons such as machetes and axes on Messers Stephen Oyelekan and Kayode Olatunji, before fleeing.
The matter was said to have been reported at the Eegua Police Station while the victims had been taken to hospital for treatment.
Also, the principals of Junior and Senior Secondary Schools, Mr. Sowunmi and Kayode Amusa respectively, were said to have informed the Adele of Ijoun Community, Chief Olaleye Emmanuel, and the head of the Amotekun in the community.
When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Abimbola Oyeyemi, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, said although he had heard about the incident, he had not been formally briefed.
Former Kwara State governor and president of the 8th Senate, Bukola Saraki, has revealed the lessons he learnt from a political movement that swept his proteges out of power and threatened his political prestige in the state.
‘Otoge’, which translates to “enough is enough”, was used by the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state to campaign against decades of domination of Kwara politics by Saraki’s family during the 2019 governorship election.
Prior to that election, loyalists of Saraki had won most elective offices in the state.
The former senate president appeared on Arise TV’s ‘The Morning Show’ on Tuesday, where he gave his view on why the political movement was successful and the alleged reasons why the people of Kwara fell for it.
Saraki said the Otoge movement taught him that “elections have to do sometimes with sentiments or propaganda.”
He said, “if you come to Kwara today and talk to people, you’ll find that a lot of them will tell you that ‘we were sold lies and propaganda…we have made certain mistakes in following up the issues’ and that at the end of the day, they were better of then than now.”
Saraki’s prior domination of Kwara politics could be traced to his late father, Olusola Saraki, who had transferred the baton of leadership to his son.
The younger Saraki and his siblings had at some point held different elective positions at the same time.
The ‘Otoge’ movement was seen as Kwara people’s way of protesting against the political hegemony of the Saraki family by voting massively against its loyalists during the 2019 general elections.
But Bukola Saraki argued that the Kwara APC deceived the people of the state by using propaganda to grab power.
“So, one of the things you also learn in politics is that you must also accept that sometimes the electorates will go. The electorates are always right, they will go with their emotions at times and later the electorates too can come back and say “I think we got it wrong here”.
“Because at the end of the day in Kwara, there was no substance. It was raw propaganda and that’s what they are saying.
“Since we lost the election, I immediately congratulated the other party and I told my supporters to give them support.
“Our gubernatorial candidate who wanted to (challenge the outcome), went to the elections tribunal and wanted to go the Supreme Court [but] we called him and said ‘look, let’s cooperate, don’t go beyond election tribunal” and now it is the party themselves and the people that are saying ‘we made a mistake here’. So, what is learnt from that is that the electorates sometimes, maybe after there is fatigue or a party has been in government for so long, the people will say I want to try something else. Sometimes those decisions are made on sentiments as opposed to what is actually on ground.”
The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, who is one of the Kwara APC leaders, had few month ago said that he regrets supporting Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq as the party’s governorship candidate in the 2019 election.
“It was immediately after the governor emerged as the party’s candidate for the election that it dawned on us that we had entered one chance.
“Despite all the warnings from concerned party leaders and others who had reservations about his choice, our reaction then was that no matter what, his choice was better than where we were coming from. But we were wrong,” Mohammed had said in July.
Infamous for his propaganda, Mr Mohammed himself has been caught circulating fake news previously as opposition spokesman and now as cabinet information minister.
Lai Mohammed, President Muhammadu Buhari regime’s head of propaganda and state-sponsored disinformation, says his perennial agitation for social media clampdown in Nigeria is to prevent another global war.
On Monday, Mr Mohammed, who has called for social media to be regulated in Nigeria, insisted that the platforms spread fake information.
“With fake news today and misinformation — I have always said here that the next world war will be caused by fake news,” he said while defending his ministry’s 2022 budget before the house of representatives committee on information, national orientation.
While recounting the means of disseminating information decades ago, the minister explained that Nigerians had deserted the old means by embracing the “unseen enemy,” social media.
“Information is not what it used to be, 20 to 30 years ago if the state or federal government had a television or radio and probably a newspaper, that was what we needed,” he noted.
According to Mr Mohammed, the Buhari regime will always be criticised if it refuses to take adequate measures to regulate social media content.
“The people today, they don’t read newspapers, they don’t watch television — it’s social media. And it is most expensive; the most unseen enemy, they are there every moment, and until we go to the same battlefield with them, there is nothing the government will do that will seem right,” he said.
Infamous for his propaganda, Mr Mohammed himself has been caught circulating fake news previously as opposition spokesman and now as cabinet information minister.
Angered by Mr Mohammed’s notoriety for spreading misinformation, a lawmaker in January described the minister’s statements as “senseless and unpatriotic.”
“You can see even the U.S. that use to pride itself on the freedom of the press is now questioning the role of the social media,” he added.
Mr Mohammed had hailed former U.S. President Donald Trump for endorsing Mr Buhari’s Twitter ban on June 4.
“Congratulations to the country of Nigeria, who just banned Twitter because they banned their President,” Mr Trump had said after Mr Mohammed announced the ban of the social media platform primarily used to gather information and contribute to issues of national interest.
“Donald Trump has congratulated Nigeria,” Mr Mohammed said. “If that means anything, that that is what we ought to have done. But that’s just by the way.”
While defending the 2021 budget proposal of the Information sector of his ministry in October 2020, Mr Mohammed had reasoned that Nigeria should also go the way of China to tackle misinformation.
“If you go to China, you cannot get Google, Facebook or Instagram, but you can only use your email because they have made sure that it is regulated,” he said.
Stating that there was an urgent need for a policy to curb fake news on social media, the minister said, “We need a social media policy that will regulate what should be said and posted and what should not.”
He added that “We also need technology and resources to dominate our social media space.’’
Popular controversial artiste, Speed Darlington has accused female musician, Tiwa Savage of released the viral s*x tape by herself to stay relevant.
In a video making rounds, Speed explained that nobody blackmailed her but she did it herself so she can stay relevant.
He further mentioned that no one is willing to blackmail the female artiste but her quest to stay relevant on the internet is what led her to releasing the video herself.
It would be recalled that the internet was abuzz last week when the s*x tape went viral. It was immediately followed by reactions from several individuals including celebrities.
Nigerian artiste Damini Ogulu with the stage name Burna Boy has revealed that he might never get married.
The singer revealed this via his Instastory. He revealed that every time he tells his mother he is never getting married she gets mad at him.
He went on to state that he is no longer certain if he is saying it to taunt her or if he actually means it.
Arrested before payday, deported without paperwork, and now stonewalled by their former employers, hundreds of African migrants booted out of Abu Dhabi are attempting to restart their lives without essential documentation and funds.
The UAE claimed detention and deportation of over 400 persons in early September for offences such as human trafficking, assault and extortion — a claim that both migrants and human rights organisations have dismissed as false.
In the UAE, mass deportations of migrant workers regularly result in “wage theft”, with workers returning home without weeks, if not months, of unpaid wages.
Daniel Ojo, a 31-year-old maintenance worker, said his former employer owed him two months’ salary by the time he was deported to Nigeria.
“They owe me around AED 4,500 (N502,544). I chatted to my boss, then he stopped responding to my messages,” Ojo said. “He’s ready to not pay me because I’m not there anymore.”
Workers must be paid regardless of whether they were deported or had a criminal record, according to Saeed Alhebsi, director of the UAE’s foreign affairs ministry’s human rights department.
“Termination of residency rights would not preclude employees from pursuing complaints against employers for the non-payment of wages through legal channels. Complaints must, however, be filed within one year,” Alhebsi said in written comments.
The UAE has a population of almost 10 million, with over 80 per cent of them being expatriates who send money home.
Nigerians have taken to social media to react to a viral photo of veteran Nollywood actor, Chiwetalu Agu donning his Biafra regalia once again.
A Twitter user, @Ozii-baba shared the picture claiming that the movie star stepped out over the weekend wearing the same outfit that got him into trouble with the Nigerian Amy and DSS.
He captioned; ”Chiwetalu Agu no dey hear word. His ears na for fancy
As Egedege dey trend, Mazi made sure he wore his cloth of the rising son.”
Massive reactions trailed the post as some netizens hailed Chiwetalu Agu for his courage, while others advised him to thread with caution.
See some comments below..
@papalolo2123; They encouraged him the more .. If something never happens to you , you will be more afraid of it .. but when it finally happen and goes away , the fear dies . The fear of military and dss no dey chiwetaluagu mind again , he don overcome that stage.. same thing for sowore
@Iraborchijioke; Passion and Compassion is what drives him.. He is a great Man.
@sgdavo; A Man must stand for something or fall for anything
@ellissmenia; Nice one. it’s not a crime to wear clothe
@okwudilionoh; This is a fabric of many colour without description of the meaning of the colour. Any interpretation you get it is left for you.
@ezeghiee; All this our Legends, even Queen Theresa Onuoha should also put on the rising son. I love her so much. Legendary.
@Anayo_Ella; Exactly Hundred points symbol They have given him licence to wear it without fear.
@beyondkhaleb; The reason why the state has lost its monopoly of violence is that it has gone after soft targets and hardened them. What fear can a man who has seen the peak of embarrassment from security agents have again?
@great_onuoha; u didnt listen to his interview wt bbc wen he said next time in d dss ell he would try nd see nnamdi kalu …..Anu la ta echi bu nta ……..he is a true nd fearless elder
Chairman, Southern Governors Forum and Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu has said security agencies are scared of shooting herders wielding AK-47 because of who they are and where they come from in disobedience to President Muhammadu Buhari’s order.
Governor Akeredolu stated this on Monday, at the 27th Nigerian Economic Summit held in Abuja with the theme: “Securing Our Future: The Fierce Urgency of Now.”
Speaking on the contentious issue of grazing, the Governor blew hot, asking, “Grazing routes? Grazing routes to where? It is not going to work. There are things we had in the past.
“Don’t let us imagine it now. Time changes. Grazing with AK-47 is an assault. Ban on open grazing; we are doing it effectively in Ondo State,” he said.
According to him, “Nomadic pastoralist is not a new thing. There were nomadic farmers all over the world. I know of people, high ranking who have ranches today. They can showcase their cows.
“Why are we pushing these people out? It is a culture that must be discouraged in the interest of those who are involve
“Even with the President order that anyone with AK-47 should be arrested, how many have been arrested?” he queried.
He also warned against using semantics to romanticise terrorism, noting that the various criminal activities of kidnapping, bombing and assault on the people in some parts of the country which are being referred to as banditry must be appropriately addressed as terrorism
Governor Akeredolu and his Kaduna state counterpart, Malam Nasir el-Rufai, and others were among the panelists at the summit which centred on addressing the security challenges in the country.
Akeredolu said: “In Ondo State, we don’t have terrorism. Our problem is farmer/herder clashes and kidnap for ransom.
“We have drug abuse and agitation for self determination. We have always preached the multi-level policing in Ondo State. We believe in layers of security”.
The governor, who explained that although there are criminal trespasses which can be treated by the state, stressed that before the Amotekun corps was established, the Police were not always ready to make arrest.
“Today, if you trespass on other people’s land, the Amotekun will go after you and arrest you.
“They pay compensations to the farmers and when they fail they are in court. It is the only way you can send signals to the people.
“When you commit a crime and the hands of law doesn’t catch up with you, another person will repeat it.
“I can assure you that when you do not have an effective policing system, there is little or nothing a Governor can do.
“And the criminal trial is taking too long,” Governor Akeredolu said.
