PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari resisted the urge to rig the just concluded Anambra governorship election in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed has said.
The minister made this known while speaking with journalists on Tuesday in Abuja.
Thanking Buhari for ensuring a level playing field for all the aspirants, he said Governor Willie Obiano, the re-elected governor of Anambra State, benefitted immensely from the president’s commitment to free, fair and credible election.
He said the president resisted the urge to rig the election when the president ordered the reinstatement of the governor’s security aides who had been withdrawn by the Inspector General of Police (IGP) in the heat of the electioneering.
“The Muhammadu Buhari administration provided a level playing field for all and he showed that from the manner he restored the security aides of Governor Obiano.
“For whatever reason, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) felt that, going by experience, it will not be proper to leave the security aides.
“So, he posted out the Aide-de-Camp (ADC) to the governor and other key security officials.
“But the president felt that it is not enough to be honest, you must also appear honest and whatever the reasons the IGP might have is about perception.
“He said the right thing to do is to restore the governor’s aides and design a manner to ensure that nobody will abuse the constitution.
“This has never happened in the history of Nigeria. I know that the practice before was that a few days before election, commissioners of police will be posted out even, sometimes, INEC officials or DG SSS will be posted out.
“But for Mr. President, the message is clear: let the people make their decisions.”
OPERATIVES of the Department of State Services (DSS) and that of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), today clashed in Abuja.
The fight between the two agencies ensued at Asokoro area of Abuja.
Trouble started when the EFCC stormed the residences of Ayo Oke, sacked director-general of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), and Ita Ekpenyong, the immediate past director-general of the DSS, in a bid to arrest both men.
But the operatives of the DSS guiding the two top security officials resisted the move, resulting in a heated argument, reports Independent Newspaper.
The anti-graft agency had invited Oke for questioning in connection with the $43 million found in an apartment in Ikoyi, Lagos.
Oke’s wife, who has also been summoned, was identified as the owner of the apartment.
HEADLINE understands that the Okes are yet to honour the invitation as at press time.
THE government of Switzerland has agreed to return about $321 million looted from Nigeria by next month.
This is based on the Memoranda of Understanding the two countries had.
Breaking the news, the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Justice Reforms, Mrs Juliet Ibekaku, at Conversation on Anti-corruption Campaign organised by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) in Abuja, said not having an agreement with foreign countries for the return of looted money before now delayed the process of discussion and recovery of looted funds.
“So far, we have recovered part of the Malabu fund held by the UK courts.
“We are also working to finalise the process for the return of $321million and by December, we are going to sign the MoU for the return of the money held in Switzerland.
“I am happy to also note here that some Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working in the area of asset recovery were involved in the negotiation of the MoU and will be involved in monitoring the assets.
“This is to ensure that the returned funds are managed in a transparent manner as other recovery plans continue in countries like UK, Island of Jersey and France,’’ she said.
Mrs Ibekaku added that the Federal Government had also opened up discussions with the U.S. government for the return of the money that left that country for two or three years from 2013.
The presidential aide said an example of such money was Diepreye Alamieyeseigha’s money, adding that various fronts were being opened up for the recovery of the money.
She said the money recovery mission was hinged on the Open Government Partnership Initiative which was committed to four thematic areas: Transparency, Anti-corruption, Access to information, Citizen engagement and Empowerment.
She said the government had set up one asset recovery account which made it easy for anybody that wanted to track recovered money to know where the money was going to.
According to her, this has put to rest Nigerians’ worry over the whereabouts of recovered money.
Mrs Ibekaku said over the years, it was identified that there was a problem with the management of recovered money both domestically and internationally because there was no way to account for it.
She said when this administration came to power, the President set up a Presidential Assets Recovery Committee to monitor recovered assets.
Mrs. Ibekaku said the committee, in turn, set up the Assets Tracing subcommittee, adding that work was ongoing to determine where these moneys went as from 2012.
She said that the administration also created a central account in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) called the Asset Recovery Account.
The presidential aide said the President also directed all the law enforcement agencies to put all recovered money in the central account.
Ibekaku said that the president also directed that asset recovery should now be ploughed into the budget to fund part of it, starting from 2017 “so that is what the money is being used for,” she stressed.
She said all the money being recovered by anti-corruption agencies would go into funding part of the budget.
THE governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in last Saturday’s election in Anambra State, Dr. Tony Nwoye, has said he will not challenge the result in court because he had accepted the pronouncement of INEC as the will of God.
Nwoye who did not claim he won the election described the result declared by INEC as scandalous alleging that they allocated figures.
He said, “I don’t want to go into the actions of the INEC and security agencies, the election has be lost and won, let everybody judge himself or herself based on the role played. A situation they were cancelling everywhere we won, a situation where in at Engwu Otu where those that voted were no up to 500 but they wrote over 5900, in many places they were allocating figures, so we leave them to their conscience, let INEC search themselves, from the chairman to the last and know actually whether they have done well or not.
“We are going to criticize the government constructively; I don’t think am going to court. The party is there and may decide what it wants to do about it, am a loyal party man but for me I am not going to any court to contest this election, I am leaving it in the hands of God.”
Nwoye who expressed sadness over what he called INEC partiality in the exercise however, said, “I want start by thanking the Almighty God for his love and mercy, I thank God that no life was lost because it would have been painful and disastrous had we lost any life. No life of any Anambrarian is worth losing because of election. I want to thank Anambrarians for the way they came out, our vibrant resilient youths who were harassed, intimidated, wounded and maimed by the agents of APGA assisted by security agencies because of this election. I want to thank Nigerians of various cadre who gave us their trust and supported us in this time in our quest to lead Anambra state.”
He thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for his love and uncommon solidarity and pledged the unalloyed loyalty and support of the party in state to the President in his future political endeavors.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Willie Obiano of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) winner of the election.
With only 98,752 votes, Nwoye came behind Obiano, who polled 234,071 votes to clinch victory.
Oseloka Obaze, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) initially rejected the election results but, yesterday, congratulated Obiano.
FOR Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, decamping from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and joining the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, is like “leaving Jesus Christ for Satan.”
He said this formed the base why he will never decamp from the PDP to the APC.
Fayose was reacting to a report credited to a former Chief Whip of the Senate and chieftain of the APC in the state, Gbenga Aluko, that he was making moves to dump the PDP for APC.
His reaction was contained in a press release issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi.
“The news going viral that Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose is making move to defect to APC, is false. It is a figment of imagination of the APC which manufactured the story.
“Joining APC is like leaving Jesus Christ for Satan. It is like wanting to die by taking Gamalin 20, or planning to commit suicide by jumping down from skye scrapper.
“Fayose will never join the APC, rather, he would welcome APC members to the PDP.
“When PDP was embroiled in leadership crisis, Fayose did not leave the party. Is it now when PDP is positioning itself to win back power in 2019.
Is it APC which merely exist only on pages of newspaper in Ekiti that Fayose will join? Fayose is too big for the APC to accommodate.
“Fayose is preoccupied with plan to transit power from PDP to PDP Ekiti in 2018,” he said.
FORMER President, Goodluck Jonathan has stated that his administration failed to implement the report of 2014 National Conference because it would have raised ethical questions given the time frame which it was submitted to him.
While noting that it would have taken up to one year to complete the processes of implementing the recommendations, he said the report reached him at the eve of his administration as there was no time for for it to be deliberated upon.
He received the report on August 2014 while the general election was slated for March 2015.
The former president’s explanation was contained in a goodwill message he delivered on the occasion of Integration Summit Roundtable in Abuja. He spoke through his Media Adviser, Ikechukwu Eze, who represented him at the event.
“I received the report of the national conference on Thursday, August 21, 2014, after the closing ceremony to mark the end of the five-month long deliberations. I was satisfied with the outcome. It has remained the best national conference so far because of the depth of the deliberations and the fact that all the decisions reached were not based on majority votes, but by consensus.
“I am aware that some people have raised some issues with the fact that I did not implement the recommendations of the confab during my tenure. I would like to state that those making this kind of claim are not being fair to me.
“Such people tend to forget that the report was submitted in August 2014, few months before the last general elections. It was at a time the National Assembly was on break, with many of the members already at different constituencies to prepare their constituents for elections.
“I believe that to have had a tidy procedure of implementation, it would have involved committee deliberations, public hearings and town hall consultations on different segments of the report. There was no doubt that the nation then needed up to one year to complete the processes of implementing the recommendations.
“It was obvious that my administration, given the time the report was submitted, couldn’t have implemented the report, before the 2015 elections without running into ethical questions,” Jonathan said.
He has also urged the present administration to implement some recommendations of the 2014 Confab.
According to him, Nigeria is still having agitations, because “we are still trying to discover the best way to run our Republic so that whatever policies we pursue or projects we implement as a nation will benefit the greatest number of our population.
“I believe the recommendations of the confab contain the answers to most of what we agitate for today. If implemented, they would go a long way in solving most of Nigeria’s identified structural problems and providing the roadmap for sustainable development.
“I am aware that there are many suggestions and solutions being debated. We have different people supporting and giving different definitions to such ideals as true federalism, confederation, restructuring and regionalism. But, we have not been able to achieve much because our conversations seem to be floating in the air. We are yet to establish common grounds and shared values.
“We should not forget that ours is a nation with a striking ethnic and religious mix. This diversity should otherwise be our strength. However, it appears to be holding us down because of our failure to consolidate a strategic roadmap for harnessing the advantages that should lift our nation.
“My belief is that we need to redefine our dialogue and move quickly from over theorisation to something tangible. My own way of solving the problem was the 2014 national conference which I convened.
“It was a conclusion I reached in my mind about the best way to productively leverage the diverse tendencies of our different ethnic groups, to allow the centre to firmly hold for the good of our nation.”
WILLIE Obiano, the incumbent governor of Anambra State has won the state governorship election which started on Saturday.
Running on the platform of All Progressive Peoples Alliance, APGA, he won with 199,867 votes from the 21 local government areas, the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Independent National Electoral Commission Dr. Nwachukwu Orji, said.
Obiano won nineteen LGAs to himself, while Nwoye and Obaze shared the remaining two among themselves.
This simply means he has been re-elected for a second tenure.
The candidates of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Tony Nwoye and that of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Oseloka Obaze, came second and third with 100,921 votes and 80,833 votes respectively.
The election contest has set a record of being the governorship election with the highest number of candidates (37) in Nigeria’s electoral history.
It was characterised by low turn out of voters – due to election boycott order from the Indigenous People Of Biafra, IPOB – ; late arrival of materials and personnel in many areas, security issues; ballot snatching cases and issues of over voting.
The election, HEADLINE also gathered was marred by money inducement with some political parties paying about N2500 per vote to ensure their party emerged winner.
Over 2.1 million registered voters, were billed to carry out their franchise.
FORMER President, Goodluck Jonathan, has exonerated himself from allegations that an Ex-President has been receiving N5 billion monthly from the Pension Fund.
A report which was credited to Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, had alleged that the chief legal officer to the federation had told a Senate ad-hoc committee that an “Ex-President was taking N5 billion monthly from the Pension Fund.”
In a statement signed by Media adviser to the former president, Mr. Ikechukwu Eze, Jonathan said, “it is a blatant lie hurriedly cooked up to divert the attention of the general public from the raging ‘Mainagate’ and other embarrassing scandals.
“We believe that the story was concocted as part of the unfolding grand design to always dodge responsibility and blame every evil act taking place in the present dispensation on the past Jonathan administration.”
THE Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has expressed gratitude to its supporters for boycotting the Anambra State governorship election.
Spokesperson of IPOB, Emma Powerful, in a statement attributed the development to their directive.
“IPOB wants to use this opportunity to congratulate Biafrans particularly the people of Anambra State for obeying the order of IPOB and our leader Mazi Nnamdi who has been abducted since 14th September 2017 in today’s election.
“The people of Anambra State have shown the whole world that they are the are the first sons of Biafraland and no doubt about that, there is no election in Anambra State, everywhere is empty both the polling booths and streets are totally deserted.
“We want to tell the whole world that IPOB under the leadership of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu gave the order on Anambra State governorship election to prove to the civilised nations that we are no more interested in the system of government and her political strategies. The international community and other civilised nations should come for rescue of Biafrans in the Nigerian Islamic government,” Powerful said.
Indications from unofficial results of today’s governorship election in Anambra was a straight fight between the ruling All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as early results at the various polling units showed the two parties dominating lead in the results with most of the other 35 parties that entered for the election scoring zero.
PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari yesterday said his administration has started addressing the issues behind the recent calls for restructuring of the country.
He stated this while endorsing autonomy for local government describing it as a tier of government critical to his administration’s anti-corruption crusade.
Mr. Buhari described the recent passage of the Local Government Autonomy Bill by the National Assembly as an indication that his administration had gradually begun the country’s restructuring.
“The good news is that the disposition of the National Assembly in granting autonomy to this very important tier of government is an indication that we have started already to address the question of restructuring which many Nigerians appear to be clamouring for,” Mr Buhari who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ecological Fund, in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Dr Habiba Lawal, said while speaking in Abuja at a national workshop on anti-corruption, organised by the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) and the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE).
If Nigeria Is Not Restructured, There Will Be No Election In 2019, Says Niger Delta Group
THE United Niger Delta Energy Development Security Strategy (UNDEDSS) on Monday said that “if Nigeria is not debated and/or restructured, the Niger Delta region, for one, will definitely oppose elections being held in 2019.”
The group noted that President Muhammadu Buhari’s national broadcast to the nation portrayed him as being very disconnected from the reality of the present state of the nation.
In a statement signed by its Executive Secretary Mr. Tony Uranta in Lagos, UNDEDSS said that Buhari’s over-emphasis on the jaded mantra of Nigeria’s unity being non-negotiable made them wonder if Nigerians would have real value added to their lives by the President’s being back.
“His speech was devoid of empathy with the sad state in which Nigerians have been battered through hunger, terror attacks and a bombardment by mendacious propaganda.
“Whilst one is sincerely happy that Mr. President is back to Nigeria after that lengthy sojourn in London, one is tempted to believe that he may not be fully aware of the realities of the country he left behind for over three months!
“It pains one to see that Buhari is determined to stand on the wrong side of history as regards the inevitability of Nigeria being RESTRUCTURED before 2019.
“It is evident from his broadcast that the single most important issue President Muhammadu Buhari recognises is the issue of our unity being “non-negotiable”; which is laughable because this country’s unity must be debated and a consensus reached by the leaders of the various political, economic, religious and cultural persuasions.
“A country where inequity and injustice walk the land freely is an unstable country and cannot stand the test of ethnic tensions.
“Well, we have news for him. If Nigeria is not debated and/or restructured, the Niger Delta region, for one, will definitely oppose elections being held in 2019. A word sufficeth the wise.” the group concluded.
PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to deal with anyone threatening the continued existence of Nigeria as one country.
Buhari said this in an early morning address to Nigerians on Monday to mark his return to the country after 103 days medical vacation in the United Kingdom.
The President returned to the country on Saturday.
In the broadcast on Monday, Buhari said even the late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu agreed with him on the need for the country to continue existing as one.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu, then as a Lieutenant Colonel, led the agitation for the creation of Biafra Republic.
This led to a three-year Civil War between 1967 and 1970 in which several Nigerians were killed.
But Buhari in his speech on Monday said Odumegwu-Ojukwu at a meeting over two days and which lasted late into the night in his hometown, Daura in Katsina State, agreed that there was the need to keep Nigeria one.
The President thus advised those fanning the embers of disunity to purge themselves of the tendency or face the wrath of the law.
In 2003 after I joined partisan politics, the late Chief Emeka Ojukwu came and stayed as my guest in my hometown Daura. Over two days we discussed in great depth till late into the night and analyzed the problems of Nigeria. We both came to the conclusion that the country must remain one and united.
Nigeria’s unity is settled and not negotiable. We shall not allow irresponsible elements to start trouble and when things get bad they run away and saddle others with the responsibility of bringing back order, if necessary with their blood.
PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has said the federal government would not tolerate separatist movements and inflammatory statements that threaten Nigeria unity and stability.
“Nigeria’s unity is settled and not negotiable,” Mr. Buhari said in a nationwide broadcast to the nation Monday morning, two days after returning to the country from the United Kingdom.
The President had been in London for 103 days to treat undisclosed ailment, before returning to Nigeria on Saturday.
In his broadcast, he said his government would not “allow irresponsible elements” to threaten Nigeria’s unity and stability.
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PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has alighted from the Presidential Jet in Nigeria’s federal capital, Abuja.
The President’s Jet, Eagle One touched down at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport at about 4:36PM on Saturday.
The presidential jet had left the United Kingdom at 10:27 AM.
On hand to receive the President are the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, members of the Federal Executive Council, governors and the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno.
THE video which the APC United Kingdom tweeted when it wished President Muhammadu Buhari a safe trip to the country is from 2014 when former President Goodluck Jonathan was in power.
Shortly after Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president on media and publicity, announced that his principal would return “later today”, @APCUKingdom tweeted a video of the Nigerian presidential jet leaving an airport.
The tweet had the words: ‘Safe journey Mr President’.
The video which was published by several news medium has Sahara Reporters, an online news medium, later revealing that the exact video was uploaded to YouTube on August 7, 2014. It currently has 2,061 views.
Adesina did not specify the time that his principal would return to the country.
Buhari has been receiving treatment in the UK since May 7.
See below the 2014 video and that which APC tweeted on Saturday.
PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari is returning to the country today, after receiving medical attention in London.
The President had left the country on May 7, this year, after handing over power to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who has functioned as Acting President since then.
President Buhari is expected to speak to Nigerians in a broadcast by 7 a.m on Monday, August 21, 2017, according to Femi Adesina, the President’s media adviser.
Adesina said Buhari thanked all Nigerians who have prayed ceaselessly for his recovery and well-being since the beginning of the health challenge in January this year.
Politics › Re: How Buhari Resisted Urge To Rig Anambra Election – Lai Mohammed by deantimes(op): 8:52am On Nov 22, 2017*. Modified: 9:46am On Nov 22, 2017
