The Crisis rocking the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC may not be over anytime soon as Police Officers have yet again surrounded the national secretariat of the party.
Th security operatives condoned off the entire Blantyre Street where the party’s headquarters is located.
Although the security agents, numbering about 80 in 11 Patrol vehicles, were very civic in handling proceedings, allowing free flow of vehicular and human movement, along the street, inside the secretariat was empty. Eyewitness reports reveal that none of the warring factions of the party were at the scene.
However, there was speculation among some secretariat staff on who among Mai Mala Buni, the embattled chairman of the party’s caretaker committee and Sani Bello, the acting chairman, was truly in charge of the party’s affairs.
POLITICS NIGERIA earlier reported that Bello took control of the party last week after policemen surrounded the premises of the secretariat. Later on, Nasir El-rufai, the Governor of Kaduna state, appeared on a live Television interview on Channels TV to state clearly that ‘Buni was gone’ and that Bello will organize the party’s convention.
He further alleged that Buni was aware of a court injunction that could cripple the party’s chances in the upcoming 2023 general elections but kept mum about it. However, Buni’s camp issued a statement that he handed over to Bello to manage affairs pending when he returns to the country from a medical trip abroad.
This development has caused so much rancour within the party leading to the rise of factions. However over the weekend, President Buhari waded into the matter and called for order within the party’s ranks.
Efforts by the embattled Chairman of the Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) and Yobe StateGovernor, Mai Mala Buni to meet President Muhammadu Buhari over the crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress (APC) hit the brick wall.
Naija News had earlier reported that the embattled APC Chairman had left Dubai for London to meet Buhari in a bid to regain control of the ruling party.
According to sources, the embattled APC leader was expected to return to Nigeria last Wednesday after his medical trip to Dubai, but he changed his mind.
A source had said, “He will now travel to London to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari on the situation in the party.”
However, sources have now told The Guardian that Mai Mala Buni has not been able to see Buhari since his arrival in the UK.
It was gathered that the Yobe governor was blocked from having access to the President.
The source said: “As we speak, Buni is still struggling to find a way to see the President. He can’t see him and you know why it is so. Anything can still happen though before the end of today.”
According to the sources, Governor Abubakar Sani-Bello of Niger State has also jetted to London to meet Buhari.
It was gathered that Sani-Bello, who has the backing of Governors Nasir El-Rufai, Rotimi Akeredolu of Kaduna and Ondo respectively and others, travelled to London to prevail on Buhari not to give Buni a listening ear.
“The Bello group is equally not taking chances. They wont take the risk of allowing Buni to get to the President first before them. Even if Buni ends up telling his stories, Bello would be there to let the President know the facts according to the group. They see this as a campaign to save the soul of the APC,” the source added
Presidential hopeful, Dele Momodu has slammed the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) over the creation of a directorate of politics and governance.
In a memo dated February 28, which was signed by the Assistant General Overseer (Admin/Personnel) Pastor J. F. Odesola, the church announced the creation of the directorate for politics and governance ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The RCCG stated that the newly-created directorate, which will be headed by Pastor Timothy Olaniyan, is to coordinate the affairs and activities of members interested in seeking political offices in 2023.
In a statement on Friday, the church denied setting up its directorate to support the purported 2023 presidential ambition of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo or any church member.
Reacting to the development, Momodu said the creation of the directorate by the leadership of the church was nothing but an invitation to Armageddon.
The media entrepreneur said the setting up of the political arm of the church was unnecessary, warning the church leadership not to mix religion with politics.
Momodu, a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), also linked the purported presidential ambition of Osinbajo to the setting up of the directorate.
The full statement reads below:
“Fellow Nigerians, let me state clearly that I consider myself a bonafide member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) even if I don’t attend church services regularly due to my absence from home arising from my enforced itinerant lifestyle as an international journalist. For clarity, I have lived partly in England since about 27 years ago when I was forced into exile by the Abacha military regime in July 1995. Once we settled into our home in Cricklewood more than two decades ago, my Family and I attended the JESUS HOUSE in Brent Cross, the headquarters of the RCCG in the United Kingdom, ably led by Pastor Agu Irukwu, a respected and respectable gentleman. Indeed, I celebrated my 50th birthday at JESUS HOUSE on May 16, 2010, and I felt truly blessed. My Family still attend the Church to this day and whenever I am in England on Sundays, I venture to attend too.
“Beyond this, I have been a son of our General Overseer Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye and his very selfless wife, our Mummy G O, Mrs Foluke Adenike Adeboye for many years. I take this opportunity to congratulate Daddy G O on the occasion of his 80th birthday which occurred on 3rd March 2022. I pray for longer life in good health with much happiness, prosperity contentment and peace. Their first son, Adeolu Adeboye, is also very close to me, right from our time in England. I have had the privilege of sailing on.a cruise ship with Daddy and Mummy for a full week from Florida to Cozumel in Mexico to Cayman Island to Ocho Rios in Jamaica. Mummy had given me tips on that exquisite trip on how to improve the sales of Ovation and I was truly gratified and grateful.
“Naturally, I feel that I owe it a duty to tell our Church leaders, and our Church in general, the Gospel truth and nothing but the absolute truth. In the light of my relationship with the RCCG, this duty is even more imperative and compelling. I believe the leaders of the RCCG have laboured so hard to build one of the most formidable churches in the world. Nothing must be done to inadvertently cause a cataclysmic storm in the House of God. And the easiest way to create trouble in Nigeria today is any attempt to mix religion with politics. It goes beyond lighting the blue touch paper. It is like combining some highly combustible ingredients together in a chemical laboratory. It is not just that the effect may not be too pleasant, it is that the result and consequences will be catastrophic. God forbid.
“As soon as I read the memo establishing a political arm of our Church, I realised this was nothing but an invitation to Armageddon, if true. For that reason, at first, I assumed the memo was a joke, a fake document that was merely meant to stir the hornets’ nest, so I did not pay too much attention to it. However, when it started flying in from every direction to my phones, I knew someone had touched the tiger by the tail. I started working the phones to speak to a few contacts who should know about it and be able to confirm the veracity or otherwise of the document. The outcome was a resounding yes, the document had emanated from the Church and was acquiesced to by the upper echelons.
“I asked for what the motive(s) could have been, and the general conspiracy theory was that our church was setting up an extensive network for the obvious Presidential ambition of the current Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, although couched in terms which ostensibly suggested that the Church wished to support all of its congregation who wished to contest the next general elections and made their aspirations known to the newly formed Church department. Personally, that theory didn’t jell with me. To the best of my knowledge, Professor Osinbajo is not the only member of the church contesting the Presidential election. And it was not the church that nominated him as running mate to President Muhammadu Buhari. He got the job primarily because of his closeness to his former Principal, then Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and also because of his admirable credentials, ability and capacity. His religion was necessarily a factor, because a Northern Moslem must perforce pick a Southern Christian as his running mate in the current Nigerian clime. That was the only reason religion came into it, I believe. It had nothing to do with the fact that he is a senior pastor of the RCCG.
“Even if the Vice President has now decided to bear his own father’s name.by dropping that of his avuncular godfather, the church will still face a moral crisis if it wishes to jump on the bandwagon by drumming up support for Professor Osinbajo on religious grounds alone for many reasons, some of which I will now highlight.
“Although Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a Muslim, his dear beloved wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu is a staunch member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God and one of the leading lights of the Church. Asiwaju, her husband, is a frontline Presidential aspirant on the platform of APC, just like his godson, the Vice President. Even if the RCCG has a preference in Professor Osinbajo, mainly because of his status in the Church and his current position in Government, I expect the RCCG to “pretend” a little and behave as if it is not so. Not to do that would be tantamount to picking a child out of one’s children and say, “this is my favourite!” It is simply not right or proper for the RCCG to demonstrate such blatant and flagrant partisanship.
“As if that is not a tough cookie to handle, there is the fact that that there is a third contender, yours truly, Dele Momodu, who’s also a member of the RCCG and the youngest of the contending Church aspirants so far. I’m also the only member of the RCCG aspiring on the platform of PDP, as far as I know. Would the Church then ask its congregation to vote for one party over the other merely because it has decided to support one candidate in preference to the other regardless of the strong points one may have over the other? What a conundrum and crisis this portends for the Church and its unity and peace.
“The church cannot even afford to ostracise any aspirant on the basis of religious persuasion or denomination. It is the job of the church to seek out and promote the best candidates and then pray for them and galvanise support for them perhaps clandestinely.
“I also imagine that there is some degree of unconstitutionality to this attempt by the RCCG to descend into the political arena. Nigeria is a secular state as the constitution provides. To suggest that one candidate is the preferred candidate of a particular church or religious group and is being effectively sponsored by that church will breach not just the morality and ethos of the Church but also the deeply enshrined principles and grundnorm of our constitution, which are embedded and engraved for good reason.
“Furthermore, there are no guarantees that being a church Pastor or otherwise would make you a competent and truthfully honest leader. The church is too massive and extremely influential to reduce itself to such a level of myopia. Since what most Nigerians desire today is good and accountable leadership, our Churches should smartly work towards identifying the best materials in different political parties and support us spiritually and materially from the humongous resources it has pleased God to bless them with.
“Specifically, it is my belief that our churches should avoid anything that could further escalate the huge religious and socio-political conflagration already ravaging our long-suffering nation. Just imagine what would happen if other church denominations or other religions decide to support their own members only. It would be palpable anarchy in the making. Nigeria will then end up with a Babel of voices and a cacophony of noises which would not augur well for the wellbeing of us all, but only cause misery and upheaval.
“I sincerely hope and pray that our Church, the RCCG, will douse this unnecessary fire and recant and retrace its steps before it is too late.”
The Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG, has given further clarification to a memo it issued directing the creation of a political department in the church with the objective to help ” coordinate the engagement of our people who are willing to be involved in politics as well as mobilize support for them.”
The memo which leaked online came as political parties and politians gear up for electioneering campaigns ahead of the 2023 general election.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, a pastor of the RCCG, is believed to nurse a presidential ambition, but he is yet to officially declare his intention.
Comments on social media insinuate that the directive from RCCG, a leading pentecostal church in Nigeria with about 32,000 parishes, is geared towards rallying support for the VP.
According to him, the directive existed long ago and is targeting at getting people involved in politics.
“There is nothing connecting Osinbajo with the directorate; RCCG has been mobilising, creating political awareness long since transition from military to civil rule. RCCG has made it a policy to educate its members on political education – get voter cards, no violence.
“The directorate has nothing to do with Osinbajo or anybody. I don’t know why people are linking something the church has been doing which every organisation should be doing to him,” he said to The Punch.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has denied knowledge of the leadership change in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
It was gathered that INEC made this known on Thursday in a letter sent to Governor Abubakar Sani-Bello of Niger, who is the acting chairman of the party’s caretaker committee.
The officials pleaded not to be named disclosed that Sani-Bello had on Wednesday written to INEC in his capacity as the acting national chairman of the APC’s Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) inviting the commission to their National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting scheduled for next week Thursday via zoom.
Sources confirmed to Daily Trust that the APC had send a letter to the electoral commission revealing a change of guard from Governor Mai Mala Buni to Sani Bello.
“Yes, there was a letter from the APC, which the commission replied because there were legal issues…They did not do the right thing,” one of the officials of the electoral body said.
Another official said INEC in the reply told the ruling party that it was only the national chairman and national secretary of the party that could write such a letter.
This means that the commission was yet-to-be be formally notified of the leadership change in APC.
Which in-turn means the new leadership led by Governor Bello cannot formally write INEC for official matters.
The Electoral Act 2022 in Article 82 (1) recently signed by President Muhammadu Buhari stated that: Every registered political party shall give the commission at least 21 days’ notice of any convention, congress, conference or meeting convened for the purpose of “merger” and electing members of its executive committees, other governing bodies or nominating candidates for any of the elective offices specified under this Act.
Recall that the Niger State Governor had on Monday take over the leadership of the APC, claiming he has the backing of President Buhari
Confirming the change of leadership, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State said Buni who is on a medical trip in Dubai had been removed and won’t return as chairman.
El-Rufai accused the Yobe governor of widening crisis in the party, claiming that those loyal to Buni had obtained a court order to stop the APC convention from holding.
Also, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State had accused Buni and some ‘yahoo yahoo‘ governors of trying to destroy the APC.
Backing Buni, Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State had said the Yobe governor will return as the party chairman after his medical trip.
Speaking to his supporters, the embattled governor insisted that there was no crisis in the ruling party.
Thirteen governors elected on the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC) are set on a collision course with their remaining counterparts in the party as they insist that Yobe State Governor, Mai mala Buni retains his role as the Chairman of the party’s Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC).
The governors also threatened to abandon the broom party, if the decision taken at the National Executive Council of APC in 2020 that Buni should head the party until the national convention is held, is not respected by President Muhammad Buhari and other members of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF).
Internal wrangling in the party came to a boil on Monday with a faction of the APC governors claiming that President Muhammadu Buhari has named Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello as Buni’s replacement to head the CECPC.
Our reporter gathered that the 13 governors, who met in Abuja Monday night, contemplated leaving the APC for another political party as their future would be uncertain in their current party if what they described as “the ongoing illegality is allowed to stand”.
Another option on the table, which is being seriously weighed by the Governors is teaming up with the opposition People Democratic Party (PDP) as three of them defected to the APC from PDP.
The governors are reportedly upset with the way their colleagues in the “cabal” are belittling them in the decision-making of the party after first losing out on the fixing of a date for APC’s national convention and are now facing further humiliation with the attempted imposition of Governor Abubakar Bello of Niger State, as the CECPC chairman.
One of the Governors from the northeast geo-political zone protested that, “The cabal formed by our other colleagues has suffocated the life out of APC. The party has been reduced to the equivalent of a drug-dealing gang where decisions are now based on who can manipulate President (Muhammadu) Buhari better.
“Even if APC governors were constituted into a kind of electoral college to make decisions for the party, which is not the case, there is no way seven is greater than thirteen. When you have only seven governors forcing their decision on thirteen governors of equal jurisdiction then you know there is a problem.
“So, what we are saying is that we are ready for them. We are not saying that Mai mala Buni should not stop being the Chairman of CECPC, but our point is that there must be due process. There is the proper way to go about it, not some character sneaking to the President to snitch in the dark of the night and then come out throwing the President’s name around.
“If they want us to fall out with them as fellow APC Governors then we are ready. But this thing about being dictatorial must stop. It is a democracy, and the APC must run as a democracy. Or else there is no example we are showing anybody as leaders”.
Meanwhile, the 13 governors had their various Attorneys General write legal opinions on the illegality of what happened at the party’s secretariat on Monday.
Though Governor Bello has maintained that he was only acting as Chairman, since Buni was yet to return from his Dubia medical leave.
But with the inauguration of state chapter’s chairmen and reception of zoning committee report by Bello on Monday, pundits pointed to the fact that he was playing a script written by the seven governors, on behalf of Buhari.
The Presidency is yet to make any official statement on the status of Governor Bello and the fate of Buni.
The Buhari-led federal government has approved the allocation of houses for 22 Super Eagles team members which was promised to them by General Sani Abacha in 1994.
Twenty-eight years after the promise was made by Abacha, Buhari has decided to fulfill it.
The president, represented by the Minister of State for Science, Technology, and Innovation, Mr. Muhammed Abdullahi, stated this at Lafia, Nasarawa State, during the commissioning of the completed homes under the administration’s National Housing Programme initiative.
Abdullahi explained that the completion of the housing projects was the fulfillment of the promise of change made by the Buhari administration.
He praised Nasarawa State, for providing the land for the project, maintaining that the housing projects provided contracts for the Micro, Small, and Medium businessmen and women who provided employment for people through the engagement of skilled and unskilled workers thereby unleashing a value chain of economic activities that have made a positive impact on the lives of ordinary Nigerians.
He said: ‘These are some of the people our country remains committed to moving towards prosperity and away from poverty and we are already reaching them by providing opportunities for employment for those who were hitherto unemployed.’
The First lady of Akwa Ibom State, Martha Udom Emmanuel on Tuesday advised Nigerian women to boycott the 2023 general elections if their demands are not accepted.
Society gazette reports that the first lady made this known while addressing protesters of gender imbalance in Nigeria’s political sphere, at the gate of the National Assembly in Abuja during the celebration of the 2022 International Women Day.
In her remarks, Mrs Udom Emmanuel said: “With my colleagues and all the women in Nigeria, we join our voice to say No Bad Governance .all we are asking for, is to give us 35% of party leadership. We are not asking much.
“We are asking the men that are meant to sign the bill to do it. We are not second class citizens; we are first class citizens as the men are.
“We have waited for them under rain and sun for them to recommit the bill and together as women we must get what we are here for.”
International Women’s Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality.
Former Senator Ademola Adeleke was on Tuesday declared winner of the governorship primary election of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun State.
Adeleke who is an uncle to Music star, Davido, is set to represent the PDP in the keenly contested guber elections against the incumbent governor, Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
The governorship election is scheduled to hold on July 16.
The Primaries held at the 10,000 capacity Oshogbo stadium was also contested by Dotun Babayemi. POLITICS NIGERIA recalls that Adeleke emerged the flagbearer of the party in 2018 but lost to Oyetola.
The All Progressives Congress, APC, has reacted to reports that President Muhammadu Buhari has sacked the party’s caretaker committee and its chairman, Mai Mala Buni.
In a swift response made available to POLITICS NIGERIA, signed by Sen. John James Akpanudoedehe Phd, the national secretary of the party’s caretaker committee, the report was false. The statement read;
“Our attention has been drawn to sponsored media reports on an imaginary leadership change in the APC- CECPC.”
“The media report is fake news and should be disregarded. The APC is a progressive political party guided by rules. Leadership changes are not announced by ‘sources’ through name dropping in the media.”
“We urge our teeming supporters, members and indeed the general public to remain calm and support the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led APC CECPC conduct a rancour-free and credible National Convention deserving of our great party.”
