₦airaland Forum

Turantula:
Go to Iran for holidays, No
Go to Saudi Arabia, No
Where do you want to go to then? Paris, London, Rome, Berlin.
Whats ur name? Mohammed.....
Allahu Akbar

Xander85:
I used to go to their family house on Oguta Road, Onitsha when i was in secondary school...one of the finest mansions in the city! Their family is ‘old money’!

Wiseandtrue:
I know this man is short and portable!!! Can someone please mould him into stone and use him to stone Buhari already

jericco1:
imagine killing someone and putting her in a doggy position... that's cruel

Ejimagifty:
If i were Osibanjo, i will make sure i don't share these money in the south east. Let's see how their petty traders will cope without such loans since they love to hate APC.

Osinbajo is a political G-Pastor if you know what I mean.

The Federal Government, Tuesday, said it was considering 50% increase in Value Added Tax (VAT) to be able to pay the new national minimum wage currently being processed by the National Assembly.

Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, and Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Mr. Babatunde Fowler, disclosed this when they appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance.

In his statement, Fowler said that the proposed payable VAT by Nigerians based on the increment would be between 35 per cent (6.75%) and 50 per cent (7.25%). But government is currently charging five per cent VAT on all products in the country.

Also, the two public officers came with other heads of the Federal Government revenue generating agencies, who were in the Senate to explain details of the 2019-2021 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP).

It was gathered that the documents are to act as a guide as well as the benchmark for the 2019 estimates, which is being worked on for passage by the National Assembly.

Fowler said that the goal of the FIRS was to achieve an N8trn revenue generation target this year, pointing out that the 50 per cent increment would affect the Company Income Tax and the Petroleum Profit Tax.

His words: “by the end of this year, we should be ready for an increase in the VAT. A lot of Nigerians travel to Ghana and other West African countries and they can see that theirs is much higher. They pay when they go for those trips. We should be ready for an increase on VAT.

“I can certainly see an increase in VAT of at least 35 per cent to 50 per cent this year based on our enforcement activities. There certainly will be an increase in Company Income Tax and also on Petroleum Profit Tax.”

He further affirmed that the agency had collated details of 34 million Nigerians that were captured in the BVN network with a view to assessing their compliance to the tax laws.

It was also hinted that FIRS raked in N3.1trn in 2016, N4.03 in 2017 and N5.32tn in 2018, expressing optimism that it would surpass these past records in 2019.

But Fowler noted that the agency had increased VAT collection by 25 per cent in the last three years and, lamented that many of the firms that are collecting VAT were not remitting it.

“Nigerians should be ready for an increase in the VAT with at least by 35 to 50 per cent this year. Nigerians travel to other countries and they pay more on tax”, he said.

n his statement, the Minister of National Planning also told the Committee, headed by Senator John Owan-Enoh, that the Technical Advisory Committee on the minimum wage, would submit its report to President Muhammadu Buhari this week.

“It will be recalled that as a result of agitations from the unions that the President set up a tripartite committee to look at the Minimum Wage. Every five years, it is supposed to be reviewed. It has not been reviewed even though there is no doubt that for both the Federal Government and states; it is a tough time to review wages. But the N18, 000 is really too low and it is difficult for people to live on N18, 000.

“The President supported a revision but it is important that as we are revising (the Minimum Wage), we make sure that it can be funded that is why we set up the Bismark Rewane Technical Committee. We will be coming to you. There may be some changes maybe in VAT and other things. But we will be coming to you in order to make sure that we can fund the Minimum Wage.

“So it is something we are going to work closely with the Finance Committee on how best this Minimum Wage will be addressed, both from the Federal Government and the states to ensure that the whole government apparatus is not just paying salaries and nothing else.

“It is important that we are able to pay the Minimum Wage and still have enough resources to do infrastructure. The Committee has virtually completed its work”, Udoma stated.

He added that the Federal Government would intensify efforts in its assets recovery drive and would also challenge revenue generation agencies like the FIRS and the Nigeria Customs Service to boost their operations.

The Minister added that efforts were being made by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government to ensure that capital projects and other sectors of the economy were adequately funded.

He gave justification for the benchmark recommended by the executive in the MTEF and FSP documents, expressing confidence that necessary strategies were being put in place to make them achievable.

It would be recalled that the Federal Executive Council had in October last year, approved the MTEF/FSP as well as proposed N8.73 trillion for the 2019 budget, which is N400bn lower than N9.12 trillion being the 2018 budget.

The Federal Government in the fiscal document, proposed an oil price benchmark of $60; oil production of 2.3 million barrels per day; exchange rate of N305 per US dollars; and Gross Domestic Product growth rate of 3.01 per cent.

The Minister said that the expenditure component of the 2019 budget proposal in the MTEF/FSP was lower compared to the projection in the actual budget because of the hike in the police salaries that was later accommodated after the document had been submitted.

The Director General of the Budget Office, Ben Akabueze, while reviewing the performance of the 2018 budget, noted that it had achieved appreciable performance.

He, however, said that no specific revenue had been channeled to the Social Intervention Programme apart from the looted funds being recovered especially the popular ‘Abacha loot’.

According to him, provisions have been made in the 2019 budget to allocate adequate funds to the Bank of Industry, with a view to giving out loans to small scale industrialists especially in the agro-allied sector to boost their productivity.

The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Owan-Enoh, stated that details of the Senate version of the MTEF/FSP, based on the interactions with the officials, would soon be made public.

Lalasticlala, Mynd44

Citing security and logistics reasons, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has foreclosed the immediate release of the materials used for the February 23, 2019, presidential election to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, for inspection.

In an apparent reaction to the PDP’s allegation that INEC was frustrating Atiku from accessing and inspecting the poll materials, the commission explained yesterday that the materials in question were not available for Atiku to inspect because they were still at the local government offices nationwide.

The commission further said that it cannot rush to allow Atiku, the PDP and any other political party that requested to inspect the materials because some of them are very sensitive and could be tampered with.

Like Atiku and the PDP, President Muhammadu Buhari and his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have secured the nod of the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal to access and inspect the election materials.

With the dust over the inspection of the poll materials yet to settle, Atiku yesterday went ahead to file his petition challenging Buhari’s victory at the tribunal.

Atiku and his PDP are challenging the victory of Buhari and APC on the grounds of alleged massive riggings, irregularities and non-compliance substantially with the electoral laws.

Before this development, the tribunal granted Buhari and Atiku the permission to inspect the materials after entertaining the ex-parte applications they filed to that effect.

INEC officials told LEADERSHIP yesterday that the commission was not in a position to immediately release the election materials to Atiku and the PDP because the sensitive ones cannot be issued to a political party until certain payments were made to the electoral umpire.

It was learnt that most of the sensitive materials which are still at INEC offices at the local government areas across the country may be transported in trucks to its headquarters in Abuja or photocopied, which will take some time.

It is after these processes have been completed that the inspection can be done by Atiku or any candidate and party that so wish, INEC said.

President Buhari of the APC was on February 27, 2019, declared the winner of the presidential election by INEC haven polled 15,191,847 votes to defeat Atiku who garnered 11,262,978 votes.

Before INEC completed the collation of the results, Atiku and the PDP rejected them and later headed to the tribunal to seek the cancellation of the results in some states of the federation over alleged irregularities.

The tribunal granted some of Atiku’s prayers, among which, was that INEC should allow him and the PDP to inspect the election materials.

And last week, Buhari also stormed the tribunal, sitting at the Appeal Court, Abuja, requesting that he be allowed to inspect the materials, which the court granted.

Before INEC clarified its position yesterday, the PDP had accused the commission of frustrating its efforts to inspect the materials.

INEC argued yesterday that it has the responsibility to ensure that in all its dealings with aggrieved and other interested parties, the security of the sensitive documents is guaranteed.

The commission denied the allegation that it had refused the PDP access to the election materials.

INEC national commissioner and chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Barr Festus Okoye, declared yesterday that, “I am not aware that the commission has refused to grant any political party access to election materials,”

Okoye said that there are procedures every party must follow when it comes to the inspection of sensitive materials, adding that the political party and its candidate must make some payments while INEC must ensure that it follows due process to prevent the materials from being tampered with.

He said: “There are procedures for harvesting documents in the commission and there are payments to be made before documents are released.

“Moreover, elections are conducted at the polling units and materials are kept in the various local government offices of the commission.

“There are a few documents in the headquarters of the commission. Most of the documents must be trucked from the local governments and or photocopied at the local governments. We will check at the state and ensure compliance with the requests,” Okoye said.

Finally, Atiku Files Petition At Tribunal

About 20 days after INEC declared Buhari the, winner of the presidential election, Atiku and the PDP last night filed their petition before the tribunal, praying that they be declared the winners of the presidential election instead Buhari and the APC.

In the alternative, the two petitioners prayed the tribunal to nullify the poll and ordered for a fresh election that will be conducted in line with provisions of the electoral laws.

The respondents in the suit are the APC, President Buhari, and INEC.

Under section 134 of the Electoral Act, 2010, any candidate that is not satisfied with the outcome of the presidential contest, is mandated to approach the tribunal with a petition, not later than 21 days after the result was announced. The tribunal is also expected to deliver its judgment in writing within 180 days from the date the petition was filed.

At about 8pm last night, Atiku’s team of lawyers led by Mr. Chukwuma Machukwu Ume (SAN), Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), and Mr. Emeka Etiaba (SAN) were perfecting the filing process at the Central Registry of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT).

tribunal will conduct its proceedings at the Court of Appeal headquarters in Abuja. Though Atiku was yet to arrive at the tribunal where he was expected to personally depose to an affidavit, some PDP chieftains, including its spokesman, Mr. Kola Ologbodiyan and Alhaji Buba Galadima, accompanied the lawyers to the tribunal.

Addressing newsmen, PDP national legal adviser, Mr. Emmanuel Enoidem, said that Atiku would seek for two principal reliefs at the tribunal.

He said the first relief was for an order declaring him as the bonafide winner of the 2019 presidential election. In the alternative, Atiku and the PDP want the tribunal to nullify the presidential election on the premise that it was marred by irregularities.



“We asked that our candidate who won the election massively across the country be declared the winner. In the alternative, we also asked that the election be set aside on the ground of irregularities which were apparent across the country.

“We have a pool of 20 SANs who are tested in election petition matters and other senior lawyers who are working with them. We have also lined up more than 400 witnesses that are going to testify in this petition. Nigerians are at home with what happened on February 23, the sham they called an election. We are going to re-present those facts to Nigerians, we are not going to manufacture facts,” he said.

Also speaking, Mike Ozekhome told journalists that the petitioners encountered serious challenges in the hands of INEC which was reluctant to grant them access to the electoral materials.

“Our petition is quite solid, very strong and unassailable. We believe that by the grace of God, the original winner will regain his mandate”, Ozekhome added.

The tribunal had on March 6 ordered INEC to grant Atiku and the PDP access to all the electoral materials that were used for the presidential poll.

The tribunal, however, declined to allow Atiku and PDP to conduct forensic analysis on any of the electoral materials on the premise that such request was outside the scope of the Electoral Act, as amended.

In a counter-move, President Buhari and the APC, on March 14, also approached the tribunal and secured an order for INEC to grant them access to all the electoral materials. The tribunal, in two separate rulings, ordered the electoral body to forthwith, make available to President Buhari and the APC, both used and unused ballot papers it deployed across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), for the purpose of the presidential poll. Among other documents the tribunal granted the applicants leave to inspect included all the voters’ registers. It held that the applicants should also be allowed to obtain Certified True Copies of all the documents that were used at the polling units, wards, local governments, and state levels.

PMB Meets Bauchi, Plateau Govs Ahead Of Reruns

Meanwhile, President Buhari met yesterday separately with Bauchi State governor, Mohammad Abubakar and his Plateau State counterpart, Simon Lalong at the presidential villa ahead of the supplementary elections holding on Saturday.

The visit was the second by Governor Abubakar to the State House in a week since INEC resolved to continue the collation and conclusion of the governorship election which it earlier declared inconclusive.

INEC had declared the governorship elections in Adamawa, Bauchi, Plateau, Sokoto, Benue, and Kano States inconclusive and kept mum on Rivers State where the entire exercise was suspended.

But after receiving the reports of its fact-finding team to Bauchi and Rivers States, INEC announced that it would complete the collation of the results from the outstanding Tafewa Balewa local government area in Bauchi State today and resume the suspended Rivers exercise.

Since INEC took the decision, the ruling APC and Governor Abubakar had kicked against it. Last week, Abubakar and the Adamawa State governor, Jibrilla Bindow, stormed Aso Rock to seek the president’s intervention in the matter. The two governors were unable to meet the president but conferred with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

However, on Sunday, the presidency said that Buhari would not wade into the rerun because it would be an abuse of the constitution. Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, said that Buhari, unlike past presidents, would not interfere in the rerun because he is a different leader.

Speaking with State House correspondents after the meeting with Buhari yesterday, Governor Abubakar said that he came to brief the president about the situation in his state.

Abubakar also dismissed insinuations that he came to ask the president to intervene in the election, stating that he was at the State House to brief the president on “what is happening” and the actions he had taken.

The governor expressed the confidence that he would emerge victorious in the supplementary election on Saturday.

Abubakar said: “I briefed him on the issues surrounding the inconclusive election, the returning officer for Bauchi State at the end of collation, rejected the result of Tafawa Balewa local government area and then 36 other units spread across 15 local government areas of Bauchi State and ordered a rerun.

“Surprisingly, we woke up one morning and INEC came up with a procedure that is not known to law. Because, where a returning officer has declared the result, only an election petition tribunal can reverse the result. But INEC is attempting to reverse itself in the case of Bauchi.

“And when one juxtaposes that of Bauchi and other states with inconclusive elections, one wonders why that is happening only in Bauchi State.

“So, for that reason, there is a need for me to come and brief Mr. President because it has the potential of touching on the security of the state,” he said.

The governor also faulted the decision of the returning officer to reverse himself on the cancelled votes.

“Of course it is definitely extra illegal. It is a straight forward matter. The returning officer is the final arbiter even with respect to scores and declaration of result. And once he makes a declaration, no power can reverse that declaration except a duly constituted court of the land,” he stated.

On how prepared is he for the rerun election,, he said “If they are going to do it now, we are ready. I don’t know who is afraid of anyone in Tafawa Balewa.

On his part, Lalong said that he also came to brief the president on the rerun election and the security situation in Plateau State.

Lalong said: “My meeting with the president is the usual briefing; I call it usual because of my passion for peace in the state. It is not about the election, it is about peace, how to ensure we have very peaceful elections. So far so good, we have had very good peaceful elections.

“We are going back for a supplementary election, I will like INEC to conduct a peaceful election and we want the security apparatus to be on ground in the state. That was my briefing to Mr. President.”

When asked if he was panicky about the supplementary elections, Lalong replied: “How can I when all the votes that were cancelled were my votes? These were areas that I won. There was no need for any cancellation but then as a lawyer, I still want to comply with the rules. I don’t want to be talking about infringing on the rules when the election result is very clear.”

According to him, “they (INEC) said that registered voters were 49,000 but the votes were not up to 20,000, but the people were still saying we need 49,000 and I was already on top with 45,000 votes. So we are going to get the 49,000.

“How can you imagine that a sitting governor cannot get 3,000 votes out of 49,000 in an area that I have well dominated for a long time? So for me, the election is as good as concluded in Plateau State. I see it as an opportunity for the people whose votes were cancelled for them to vote,” he said.

PDP Faults INEC’s Claim On Election Materials

Also yesterday, the PDP faulted claims by INEC that it didn’t meet the condition required to inspect materials used for the presidential election materials as ordered by the tribunal.

PDP national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, told LEADERSHIP that the electoral commission did everything possible to frustrate them.

While accusing the commission of working for the ruling APC, he alleged that INEC was hiding under due process to deny the PDP access to the documents.

He said: “We applied for the inspection on Monday. We cannot pay the money until they accept the application. They have not accepted, so who do we pay the money to? And if they are talking about due process, they should define what they mean by it in clear terms. We wrote them the letter on Monday. We didn’t write them the letter on Friday. So they should tell us in definite terms what they mean by due process.”

Soldiers Should Steer Clear of Reruns

To ensure hitch-free rerun in the affected states, the PDP said that soldiers should be kept out of the exercise.

The party, however, alleged that President Buhari’s posture that he would not interfere in the March 23 governorship supplementary elections amounted to a direct confession that the presidency used its overbearing influence to rig the February 23 presidential election.

The opposition party claimed that it was also a fresh subterfuge to divert public attention from the APC’s rigging plots ahead of the supplementary elections.

Ologbondiyan said that the presidency’s confession that APC members were mounting pressure on Buhari to help them to rig the supplementary elections had confirmed the Buhari presidency’s manipulative and rigging capacity, including the militarisation of the electoral process, instigating of violence and alteration of results, as were freely used by the APC in the presidential election.

In a statement he issued in Abuja, Ologbondiyan said that “Nigerians, especially those in states where the supplementary elections have been scheduled to hold,should be wary of the antics of the Buhari presidency, as it has never been committed to free, fair and credible elections.

“Nigerians can recall that ahead of the presidential and National Assembly elections, President Buhari had promised to allow for a free, fair, transparent and credible process, only for his presidency and party, the APC, to engage in downright manipulations at INEC, deployment of military and thugs to intimidate and suppress voters, as well as outright alteration of results delivered from the polling units.

“President Buhari cannot exonerate himself of the harm inflicted on our polity by the deployment of soldiers in the 2019 general elections as nobody deploys the military except the president and commander-in-chief.

“Now that President Buhari, in his official capacity, has come out to state that he will not intervene in the March 23 supplementary election; we ask, is Mr. President assuring Nigerians that any ‘soldier’ seen directly involving in the rerun election is fake and should be treated as such?

“The PDP charges the military to note the import of the statement by the presidency and steer clear of the supplementary elections.

“The PDP also cautions INEC officials to note that Nigerians are very eager about the outcome of the governorship supplementary elections, given that the PDP is already leading in these states. Nigerians are not ready to accept any results that do not reflect the reality of our victory, which is already known to all,” he said.

Gazzy88:
The whole 4 English teams qualified...

ChuksEpells:
YNWA
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YNWAYNWAYNWA
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YNWAYNWA

izzou:
Of course

I can't even open my trunk without being there. They can never be trusted

izzou:
You can rarely see where a policeman will tell you to open your trunk and let you sit in your car while he opens it. It is almost impossible, if not totally impossible

I drive a lot. Both night, day and even on highways. When they stop you, they'll ask what's in your trunk and ask you to open it by either waiting for you beside your door or at the back.

I almost got attacked by them sometime while trying to tell the officer to open it since nothing was inside

That guy is lying to me. You can ask people who drive on highways, or at night to confirm

izzou:


Thanks for the advice though

But this story is a fat lie