Category: News - Page 453 - African News Today

Opinion: INEC’s Troubling Missteps Amid Aso Rock’s Desperation by Farooq A. Kperogi

5Jan

By adminNo Comments

News, Nigeria

Opinion: INEC’s Troubling Missteps Amid Aso Rock’s Desperation by Farooq A. Kperogi

There is a noticeable whirl of feverish desperation in the Presidential Villa. No perceptive person can miss that. From indiscriminately arresting and detaining political opponents and critics, to squelching dissent in the traditional news media through blackmail and threats, to undisguisedly deploying security forces in the service of overt partisan agendas, it’s now starkly transparent that the Buhari regime is not interested in or prepared for a fair electoral contest. The starker the reality of impending electoral defeat stares the regime in the face, the more extreme the intensity of its desperation becomes. All the institutions that are crucial to a free and transparent election are now compromised. For instance, service chiefs, who are required by law to be apolitical, attended...

Opinion: The Many Contradictions of Muhammadu Buhari by Reno Omokri

5Jan

By adminNo Comments

News, Nigeria

Opinion: The Many Contradictions of Muhammadu Buhari by Reno Omokri

President Muhammadu Buhari has blamed everybody but himself for his problems and now that he has gotten to the end of his tenure, he has run out of human beings to blame, so he has now been reduced to blaming inanimate objects. I mean, on Christmas Day he told the visiting Federal Capital Territory Christian community that his anti-corruption war had not really taken off because the Nigerian system was slow. Well, he does have a point, because if the Nigerian system had been working, Muhammadu Buhari would have faced imprisonment for overthrowing the democratically elected civilian administration of President Shehu Shagari on New Year’s eve of 1983. But the same Muhammadu Buhari who said he cannot fight corruption effectively because the system is slow appointed Godswill Akpabio a...

Nigeria: Should Buhari probe the Power Sector, OBJ Won’t Escape Prosecution – Oshiomole

5Jan

By admin1 Comment

Corruption, Justice, News, Nigeria

Nigeria: Should Buhari probe the Power Sector, OBJ Won’t Escape Prosecution – Oshiomole

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Mr Adams Oshiomhole, on Friday said former President Olusegun Obasanjo would not escape prosecution if President Muhammadu Buhari decides to probe the power sector. The former governor of Edo State spoke in Jos during the opening of Plateau State Governor Simon Lalong’s reelection campaign at the Rwang Pam Stadium. He said, “Obasanjo said in 1999 that if he was elected President with his Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, he would fix the power sector in six months and that there would be electricity supply all over Nigeria. Many years later, we realised what he meant. “He and his Vice-President spent $16bn on power sector, after eight years there was more darkness in Nigeria than when they assumed office. So when President Muha...

Nigeria: Opposition Parties to Pull Out of Peace Accord If Amina’s Appointment Is not Reversed

5Jan

By adminNo Comments

News, Nigeria, Press Statement

Nigeria: Opposition Parties to Pull Out of Peace Accord If Amina’s Appointment Is not Reversed

Opposition parties under the aegis the Coalition of United Political Parties, the Inter-Party Advisory Council, the Peoples Democratic Party and other stakeholders in the 2019 elections have again called for the removal of Amina Zakari as the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s Ad hoc Committee on National Collation Centre. They threatened to pull out of the Peace Accord initiated by the Gen Abdusalami Abubakar-led National Peace Committee if Zakari’s appointment was not reversed. This came just as Presidency and INEC denied on Friday that the President and Zakari were blood relations as alleged by the PDP and other stakeholders. The coalition spoke in a statement by its first national spokesperson, Imo Ugochinyere, on Thursday. Ugochinyere said, “The de...

Nigeria: How Buhari’s Ally, Isa Funtua, Fraudulently Acquired KeyStone Bank and 9Mobile

31Dec

By admin2 Comments

Corruption, News, Nigeria

Nigeria: How Buhari’s Ally, Isa Funtua, Fraudulently Acquired KeyStone Bank and 9Mobile

How Isa Funtua fraudulently acquired KeyStone Bank and 9Mobile using AMCON MD Recently, a shocking story came out to public knowledge about how Keystone Bank and 9Mobile were acquired in controversial circumstances by the business interests of one Alhaji Isa Funtua, a close friend of President Muhammadu Buhari, via the instrumentality of Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON). As the smoke raised by the scandalous story is still swirling in the air, with some public groups challenging the government to come out clean on what could be a serious dent on its anti-corruption stance, there is indeed no smoke without fire. For starters, it is a confirmed fact that the son-in-law of Isa Funtua, Ahmed Kuru, is the current CEO of AMCON. Before him, the previous CEO, Chike Obi, was a fi...

Nigeria: Buratai Invites Editors to Maiduguri, Offers Each N500,000 by Churchill Umoren

31Dec

By adminNo Comments

Corruption, News, Nigeria, Security

Nigeria: Buratai Invites Editors to Maiduguri, Offers Each N500,000 by Churchill Umoren

...Army chief Buratai implores the media to take it easy and not pursue "negative" stories about it. Last week Army spokesman, Lt. Col SK Usman, at the behest of Army chief Buratai, invited 40 journalists, so many editors, to Maiduguri. All expenses paid. It was a meeting that had two phases. He met with Heads of NGOs and officials of UN agencies in the NE. The theme for the media? To implore the media to take it easy and not pursue "negative" stories about how the military high command are stashed funds meant for soldiers, allowing them die like hens when in combat with Boko. One of those they accuse was Babajide Otitoju of TVC. Usman personally accused him of " demoralizing" troops. Babajide was there at the diner and got his share took photos with d boss and promised to take it ea...

Opinion: Nigeria in the Throes of Anarchy – by Mike Ozekhome

31Dec

By adminNo Comments

Human Rights, News, Nigeria, Security

Opinion: Nigeria in the Throes of Anarchy – by Mike Ozekhome

A press statement by Mike Ozekhome's chambers on the unconstitutional siege laid by the Nigerian Police on Senator Dino Melaye's house, at no 11 Sangsha street Maitama, Abuja. On Friday, the 28th of December, 2018, a team of plain-clothed policemen, stormed Senator Dino Melaye’s house at No 11 Sangha Street, Maitama, Abuja, and barricaded the entire street before eventually forcefully gaining entry into his compound. The said plain-clothed policemen proceeded to beat up Melaye’s security whom they immediately handcuffed. They also arrested the cook and other domestic staff in Senator Dino’s residence. His relatives approached the head of the said security to find out why they were treating Dino, a serving Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in such high-handed and disdainful man...

Nigeria: 2019: PDP Rejects Nationwide Military ‘Operation Python Dance’

31Dec

By admin1 Comment

News, Nigeria, Press Statement

Nigeria: 2019: PDP Rejects Nationwide Military ‘Operation Python Dance’

…Accuses Buhari of Plotting To Use Military To Rig Poll The PDP Presidential Campaign Organization (PPCO) alerts that President Muhammadu Buhari is plotting to use the planned nationwide military 'Operation Python Dance' to legitimize his administration's ploy of using the military to intimidate voters and rig the 2019 Presidential election, having realized he cannot win in a free and fair poll. This plot is in consonant with the desperation of the Buhari Presidency to foist a siege mentality on the nation ahead of the 2019 general elections, harass voters and create a sense of escalated insecurity, so as to stalemate the electoral process, once it becomes clearer that the All Progressives Congress (APC) was losing. Our investigation shows that part of the plot is to use the mil...

28Dec

By adminNo Comments

Breaking News, Life, News, Nigeria

Breaking News: Shehu Shagari Dies at 93

Nigeria's second republic President Alhaji Shehu Shagari has died at the age of 93. Shagari passed on this morning at the National Hospital Abuja after a brief illness. He became the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria when he took over from the military administration of Olusegun Obasanjo on October 1, 1979. He however only served as president till December 31st, 1983 when he was overthrown in a military coup by the current President Buhari. While announcing the death, Bello Shagari, grandson to the late Shagari said "I regret announcing the death of my grandfather, H.E Alhaji Shehu Shagari, who died right now after brief illness at the National hospital, Abuja."

Nigeria: Wike Snubs Media, Presents N.5 Trillion Budget

26Dec

By Akanimo SampsonNo Comments

Economy, News, Nigeria

Nigeria: Wike Snubs Media, Presents N.5 Trillion Budget

Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State on Christmas eve presented the 2019 Appropriation Bill of around half a trillion naira to the state House of Assembly for necessary legislative action without inviting the press for the presentation ceremony. Wike does not seem to be enjoying getting the press closely involved in the activities of his administration. Neither his Special Assistant on Electronic Media, Simeon Nwakaudu nor Information Commissioner, Emma Okah, enjoys picking calls and responding to text messages from journalists. The cold shoulder the Wike administration has been offering journalists practicing in the state has been a matter of serious concern to the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists. Local sources in Port Harcourt, the state capital, say as...