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State governors have been embarking on interstate movement in clear violation of a ban to that effect which they agreed on as a measure to mitigate community transmission of COVID-19, Daily Trust investigation has revealed.

The governors, under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) had on Wednesday, April 22, “unanimously” agreed to the implementation of an interstate lockdown in the country to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 from state to state, giving permission to only essential services.

* Governors defy experts’ warning, lift ban on worship centres
* Interstate movement in Nigeria may resume June 21

Daily Trust reports that the Federal Government also banned interstate movement effective Monday, May 4, as part of new measures to fight the dreaded COVID-19. Before the agreement on the interstate travel ban was reached, the 36 governors resorted to weekly COVID-19 teleconference meetings and suspended their monthly gathering at the NGF secretariat that hitherto brought them to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, on a regular basis.

The agreement was sequel to the imposition of a total lockdown in the FCT, Lagos and Ogun states by President Muhammadu Buhari to halt the spread of the virus; a measure which some of the states also took.

Checks by Daily Trust, however, showed that some of the governors have been violating the interstate travel ban with recent trips to Abuja and Lagos undertaken either by flight or road. While some of the trips by the governors could be described as security-related, others were purely political. For instance, on Monday, June 1, Gov. Godwin Obaseki of Edo State visited President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, to formally inform him of his intention to seek re-election for a second term.

The same day, the Chairman of the Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF) and Governor of Kebbi State, Atiku Bagudu, led six of his colleagues to meet with the Comrade Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC on what was believed to be a last-minute effort to save Obaseki’s candidacy ahead of the APC primary election in Edo. Both the National Chairman of the APC, Comrade Oshiomhole, and Gov. Bagudu, however, dismissed the notion that the visit was to discuss the feud between the national chairman and his godson.

Governors sighted by our correspondents at the venue of the Monday meeting were those of Kebbi (Bagudu); Ondo (Rotimi Akeredolu); Lagos (Babajide Sanwo-Olu); Plateau (Simon Lalong); Kano (Umar Abdullahi Ganduje); Kwara (Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq) and Gombe (Muhammed Inuwa). Before the meeting with the NWC, a delegation of the governors met with the APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in Lagos, Gov. Bagudu confirmed while speaking with journalists on Monday.

The governors who were reported to have met Tinubu to deliberate on the internal crisis rocking Edo and Ondo chapters of the party ahead of the governorship elections were Bagudu, Akeredolu, Ganduje, Sanwo-Olu, Abubakar Badaru (Jigawa), Mai Mala Buni (Yobe), Adegboyega Oyetola (Osun), Dapo Abiodun (Ogun) and Godwin Obaseki (Edo). Also, Gov. Babagana Zulum of Borno State alongside Yahaya of Gombe had on Monday, May 18, attended the swearing-in ceremony of Waziri Bulama as the National Secretary of the APC at the party’s secretariat in Abuja.

Professor Ango Abdullahi is a former minister and former Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria. He is now the chairman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF).

In this interview with Daily Trust Saturday, he has, among others, blamed what he called incompetent and selfish appointees/associates for the “failure” of Buhari’s administration.

Excerpt: Nigeria is celebrating 21 years since the return of democracy, what is your take on that?

I did not believe 29th of May is the Democracy Day for Nigeria. Democracy Day is 1st of October, because that is the day that Nigeria became politically independent from colonial masters. If the interpretation of Democracy Day means Nigeria has moved from military to another form of administration, I wouldn’t say that we have moved from military administration to democracy. What we have done was to move from military administration to civilian administration.

There is difference between civilian administration and democratic administration. As far as I am concerned we have not enjoyed democratic administration in the last 21 years, including the current period that we are in now. In fact, we have suffered more in terms of less democracy in the last four to five years than any other time in the last 21 years.

How then do you view the leadership style of the incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari?

Well, it is difficult to give straight answer to this question. From a distance, I would say that he delegates power to other people who probably have no qualification and competence to execute the duties of their offices. They may also have no mandate to execute those powers delegated to them.

The presidential powers that are enshrined in the constitution are entailing the responsibilities of a person who offered himself for election, as Buhari did. Eventually, he emerged as the president and therefore those powers are exclusively his own powers. All he needs to do is to ensure that those powers are executed in the expectation of the people of the country. Yes, he can’t do everything all alone; we concede. He has to find people or assistants, associates and colleagues who would be assigned various roles and responsibilities to carry out those functions that are his own.

I once postulated few months after he emerged as president for second term that we trust his honesty, but unfortunately he has failed to gather the necessary materials with which to execute the duties and functions of the office of the president by the poor quality of people that he gathered around either as ministers or any other role they play.

As a teacher, if you asked to grade the performance of Buhari in comparison to the previous presidents since the return of democracy, what would be your score for him?

I have worked with only one of the presidents. I worked with Obasanjo for three years. Of course, Obasanjo was a better president. I ranked Obasanjo far better president than Buhari. This is because of his ability to take on the duties of president whether sometimes right or wrong. The critical job of the president is to take decision. Some of the decisions may be right, while others may be wrong. The most important thing is that there must be somebody who takes decisions and take responsibility. This is where Obasanjo excelled. He took decision and took responsibility. This is the major difference between Obasanjo’s presidency and that of Buhari.

Aside selection of competent lieutenants, which other area do you think that the Buhari presidency is lagging behind?

I have never personally been close to him, but from afar I would say lack of firmness. Firmness means that he should come out as president to ensure that his decisions are executed to the latter. However, we notice that he did not exhibit that firmness.

For example, when somebody is alleged to have done something wrong and you requested for evidence and ample of them were provided; the president should take decisive action to serve as deterrent. The reverse is however the case. We have instances of people close to him that engaged in one wrong doing or the other, but went scot free after a lot of evidences have been adduced directly and indirectly. These were in terms of both moral and material corruption.

Five years into the eight-year tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari, his administration is yet to deliver on key promises upon which Nigerians overwhelmingly voted him, an analysis by Daily Trust has revealed.

Buhari first defeated a sitting President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, at the March, 2015, presidential poll, after securing 15,424,921 votes against Jonathan’s 12, 853, 62, as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

In the build-up to the poll, Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC), riding on the crest of “change” mantra, unveiled their plans for the country and Nigerians as encapsulated in the party’s manifesto. It was upon these pledges that Nigerian voters threw their weight behind his candidature and that of his running mate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, and ushered them into office.

Then in February, 2019, President Buhari was re-elected after defeating a former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the presidential poll. He garnered 15,191,847 votes against Atiku’s 11,262,978.

However, an analysis of the implementation of the pledges contained in the APC manifesto has revealed that the administration’s key promises have remained largely unfulfilled even with five out of the eight-year tenure of the administration now gone. Tagged: “Our Vision for a New Nigeria”, the manifesto makes critical promises cutting across many spheres of national life. Our reporters reviewed 16 of the promises and the findings indicate that, although some progress has been recorded, no significant change has been achieved.

In the manifesto, the party attributes the abysmal performance of the previous administration to lack of a manifesto to guide and give direction to the government. It said: “When this democratic dispensation commenced in 1999, the Federal Government that emerged did not tell Nigerians what its vision was for the country; because the party that formed the government had none.

“And without a vision, that party at the centre has led Nigeria from one crisis to another, lurching deeper into political anarchy, economic decline and social disillusionment, a decade and a half later, nothing has changed. “That ruling party has neither concrete plans for the security and advancement of Nigerians, nor the wherewithal to do so even if it had one.

Suffice to say that it had thrived on the maxim: ‘promise nothing, do nothing’.” In trying to convince Nigerians of its resolve to make a difference, the party said: “In the past, political manifestos in Nigeria were hardly different from mere platitudes and general statements to which parties could not be held accountable.

The APC manifesto is different. “We have clearly stated what we will deliver to Nigerians when elected into office. Our focus is on six priority areas: national security, good governance, human capital development, economic development, land and natural resources and foreign policy.”

While the opposition politicians, especially in the PDP, believe Buhari has not lived up to expectations in the last five years considering the lofty promises made by the APC-led administration, those in support of the ruling party say they have achieved a lot considering the rot they found on ground when they took over.

All assigned spectrum found to be non-utilized or underutilized will be taken over and sold to operators who are willing to deploy it for the benefit of Nigerians, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said Wednesday. It also suspended the Spectrum Trading Guidelines 2018 for the Nigerian telecommunications industry. This was the decision of the Board of Commissioners of the Commission from its meeting recently, a statement from NCC said on Wednesday.

Daily Trust reports that the board had earlier taken the decision for Spectrum Trading in response to telecommunications global dynamics as well as the efforts to optimally utilize and maximize the benefits of the spectrum scarce resource.

The NCC, in the statement signed by its Director of Public Affairs, Henry Nkemadu, said the current Spectrum Trading Guidelines were developed in 2018 after industry-wide consultations and this instrument allows that the spectrum resource be traded on the Secondary Market through Transfer, Sharing or Leasing upon satisfying stipulated regulatory conditions. He said: “The Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP) 2020 – 2025 launched by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, in Abuja in March 2020 requires that these guidelines be reviewed to ensure that unutilized spectrum is fairly traded and to facilitate rollout by other operators amongst others. “This is to address the need for ubiquitous broadband deployment to accelerate penetration and access in line with the economic agenda of the Federal Government.

“In accordance with the NNBP 2020 – 2025, for optimal use of spectrum, licensees have the obligation of the Use it or Lose It policy because idle high demand spectrum does a disservice to poorly served populations and should be released for effective use as may be required to promote efficient use of assigned spectrum. “The ‘Use it or Lose it’ rule should therefore apply in all instances where assigned spectrum is found to be non-utilized or underutilized and ensures unutilised spectrum is fairly traded to facilitate rollout by other operators.

“In response to the need for the review of these guidelines as highlighted above, and also following paragraph 12 of the Spectrum Trading Guidelines, 2018 which vests the Commission with the right to review/vary and modify these guidelines from time to time as it may deem fit, the Spectrum Trading Guidelines 2018 application in Nigeria is hereby suspended until further notice, as declared by the board.”

AhoadaRivers:
He has no immunity.

zedegit:
It was often rumoured that some Indian women gave Abacha poisoned apple that killed him. How true is this story?

Doubtlessly, the past five years of President Muhammadu Buhari in office have been characterised by sundry micro and macroeconomic policies and funding initiatives aimed at strengthening all the institutional and legislative mechanisms for the purpose of reversing the economy’s recessionary trend and positioning it on the part of sustainable growth.

Apart from the yearly budgets that spell out in clear terms the economic projections of the administration for the economy, including the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), as well as other policy frameworks, others like the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), debt management plans, the Treasury Single Account (TSA), have been churned out by the government as templates for various policies and programmes’ implementation to alleviate poverty, address unemployment, insecurity and other socio-economic problems.

Today, a cursory appraisal of the impact of the various initiatives from the context of micro and macroeconomic perspectives appear to signify that there are more hurdles to cross given the current state of the economy, particularly the inclement state of the environment to businesses, rising poverty and unemployment rates and its unpromising future prospects.

Despite all these worrisome socio-economic indices accentuated by the fiscal challenges associated with the country’s dwindling crude oil export earnings over the past few months, the President Buhari-led administration has not relented in its effort through sustained policy measures geared towards re-positioning the economy on the path of sustainable growth.

Flyingngel:
Where is Efcc when you need them.