₦airaland Forum

The Federal Government has declared Friday, June 12, 2020 as public holiday to mark this year’s Democracy Day Celebration.

The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola made the declaration on behalf of the Federal Government in a statement signed by his Permanent Secretary and congratulated Nigerians at home and abroad for the entrenchment of democratic rule in the country.

Aregbesola commended the heroes of democracy for their dogged determination and sacrifice which gave birth to Democratic Governance in Nigeria.

He then appealed to all Nigerians to cherish these selfless efforts and collaborate with the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Administration to ensure the realization of the democratic ideals which these Patriots fought for, with their lives.

The Minister who reassured the Federal Government’s commitment to battling the scourge of COVID-19 with the cooperation of all Nigerians, advised them to take responsibility by stopping the spread of the virus. He also called on them to stay safe by observing physical and social distancing, personal and respiratory hygiene, as well as other regulations issued by relevant authorities.

The All Progressives Congress has made public the certificates of all six governorship aspirants seeking the party’s ticket in Edo State ahead of the primary election.

According to the document placed on the notice board of the party at the National Secretariat in Abuja, Governor Obaseki has three credits and three passes in his 1973 West Africa Examination Council test submitted for screening.

The subjects Obaseki passed include English P7, Literature P7, CRK C6, History A3, Geography C6 and Chemistry P8.

Edo State Governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki
Obaseki thereafter proceeded to the Institute of Continuous Education between 1976-1979 before gaining admission into University of Ibadan, where he studied Classics.

The APC in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Lanre Issa-Onilu, last Friday in Abuja, said that the various submissions will be displayed at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja and in Benin City, the Edo State capital, from Monday to Tuesday, June 8 and 9, 2020 respectively for claims and objections.

President of Customary Court in Taraba State, Justice Donatus Yantau Shidda, has been kidnapped, SaharaReporters can report.

A family member told SaharaReporters that the Shidda was whisked away in the early hours of Monday at his residence in Jalingo, the state capital.

The source said, "He was forcefully removed around 5:00am on Monday, leaving his wife crying."

Spokesperson for the Taraba State Police Command, DSP David Misal, confirmed the incident when contacted by our correspondent.

The kidnappers have yet to contact the family.

National President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Bello Abdullahi Bodejo, has denied saying that Fulani will rule Nigeria forever and was raising 100,000 militiamen to enforce their will on every community in the country.

He said the news report was not true and was aimed at maligning his image.

He therefore called on Nigerians to disregard it.

Abdullahi Bello Bodejo, President of the Miyetti Allah Association, addressing a press conference in Abuja on Thursday.

Bodejo disclosed this in a statement on Sunday while reacting to comments credited to him that no other tribe would be allowed to rule Nigeria except Fulani.

He said, "My attention has been drawn to a news report making rounds in the social media to the effect that as National President of Miyetti Allah I made claims that Nigeria is a Fulbe country and that the Fulbe can enter anywhere without permission. And that the Fulbe are also raising 100,000 militiamen to enforce their will on every community in this country.

"I want to state clearly and unequivocally that this news report is a fabricated lie.

"It is actually the enemies of the Fulbe people that are at it again, as always, concocting such insidious and malicious falsehood against our people for their diabolical agenda against the Nigerian state."

348 new cases of #COVID19;

Lagos-163
FCT-76
Ebonyi-23
Rivers-21
Delta-8
Nasarawa-8
Niger-8
Enugu-6
Bauchi-5
Edo-5
Ekiti-5
Ondo-5
Gombe-5
Benue-4
Ogun-2
Osun-1
Plateau-1
Kogi-1
Anambra-1

Highlights
On the 3rd of June 2020, 348 new confirmed cases and 1 death were recorded in Nigeria

No new state has reported a case in the last 24 hours.

Till date, 11166 cases have been confirmed, 3329 cases have been discharged and 315 deaths have been recorded in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory

The 348 new cases are reported from 19 states- Lagos (163), FCT (76), Ebonyi (23), Rivers (21), Delta ( 8 ), Nasarawa ( 8 ), Niger ( 8 ), Enugu(6), Bauchi (5), Edo(5), Ekiti (5), Ondo (5), Gombe (5), Benue(4), Ogun (2), Osun (1), Plateau (1), Kogi (1), Anambra (1)

June 2 https://www.nairaland.com/5899469/241-new-covid-19-cases-117

Edo Primaries: Obaseki Returns Nomination Form, Warns Oshiomhole To Stay Away

–Says 4 Years Not Enough For Work In Edo

— Says Oshiomhole Was Bankrupt Before Becoming Governor Of Edo

— Couldn’t Have Betrayed Him

Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State has asked Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), to recuse himself of role in the forthcoming governorship primary in Edo State being an interested party.

The governor who returned his forms to seek second term ticket as Edo State chief executive said the APC National Chairman cannot superintend over the Edo state governorship primary, having declared his preference for certain aspirants as opposed to others.

The Edo state governorship primary has been fixed for June 22, while the election proper is September 19.

The governor who was accompanied to the Secretariat by a handful of supporters said Oshiomhole cannot be a judge in his own case as doing so is contrary to natural justice.

Governor Obaseki was also quick to dismiss claim that he betrayed Oshiomhole, his predecessor in office, declaring that available fact supports the opposite, stating that Oshiomhole was a greater betrayer, having reneged on the promise to uplift Edo state.

Obaseki, said he was instrumental to Oshiomhole’s ascendancy and success as Edo state governor, adding that Oshiomhole benefited much more from him ( Obaseki) than he benefited from the APC national chairman.

“In life everybody get helped, everybody get assisted. The person you talked about, he had no money when he left labour to contest. We knew what we did to make him Governor. I sacrificed eight years of my life pro bono, I collected no Kobo to serve him in Edo.”

“Today we know what we have built because of where we started from. So when you talk of betrayal, the biggest betrayal can be when people betray a cause, when they betray an idea.”

“That is the greatest betrayal of all. It is like betraying God. When you said to God, this is what I stand for and then God gives you power then you turn around and do the exact opposite. There is no greater betrayal than that.”

“So when you talk about betrayal let us be very clear. I want to put it on record that I am grateful, he assisted me just as I assisted him. I know the sacrifices we made to make him National Chairman. So what are we talking about?”

Despite the misgivings, the Governor said he is still open to peaceful, harmonious resolution of issues in Edo state in the interest of the APC, and gave this as reason for his recent visit to APC National leader, Bola Tinubu and President Mohammadu Buhari.”

“The reason why I went to see our National Leader is that I don’t want the party torn apart. I am a man of peace.”

“For me and my colleague governors we cannot see a party we built destroyed, we cannot see a ruling party be so weakened and whatever it will take to secure peace, to secure harmony in the party, we are prepared to, I am prepared to make.”

“That is why I joined my colleagues to go and see the leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to assure him that we are all working for the same course, we are all working to build our party.”

“From 26 States, we are now 20. We don’t want to lose anymore state, there is really no reason to. We should all drop our egos and work for our party and the unity of our country.”

Governor Obaseki says he open to any mode of primaries the party recommends provided that it is in consonance with the constitution of the ruling party and will not jeopardize the effort to flatten the curve of the COVID -19 infections in Edo state.

“The Constitution stipulates what mode of primaries allowed in our party and how decisions to the type of primaries you want to run should be arrived that. It’s clearly stated in our constitution and so for me, I believe that as a lawful party, we will do things according to the Constitution of our party.”

“So, direct, indirect I’m certain I will win the primaries but we have to respect our constitution and follow our constitution of.

“However, I am using this opportunity to call on Comrade Oshiomhole to recuse himself from the Edo nomination process because he is an interested party.”

“It is against natural justice for a man to be a judge in his own case. So I think the honourable thing to do is to recuse himself and lets have a free process and let’s reconcile and build our party”.

Obaseki gave a hint of possible objection to the direct primary pointing rising cases of coronavirus in the state.

He said; “From the Epidomological surveys they tell us that the pandemic will spike in the third week of June in Edo. We seen cases rising rapidly. We want to know who is infected and how to stop the spread.

“For me, the safety of Edo people is my primary concern because if the people are not alive you won’t be there to lead them.”

I just met with His Excellency @MBuhari to intimate him on my intention to seek re-election on the platform of our great party, @OfficialAPCNg

A huge outrage is currently on stage in Minneapolis, USA, where Derek Chauvin, a chauvinist, rammed his knee down a throat and inflicted a large damage to America’s formidable image of a quintessential society resplendent in racial diversity. Chauvin didn’t kneel down in prayer. He, probably, was too profane to pray. He, absolutely, was blind to see that the colourful thread with which God knitted humanity was love.

In his chauvinism, Chauvin was arrogant. With his left hand in his trouser pocket, the hefty 44-year-old white American police officer, for several minutes, knelt on the neck of a 46-year-old black American father and grandfather, George Floyd, crushing his windpipe and sending him to an early grave.

Harmless, handcuffed, submissive, face-down and pinned to the ground like a rattlesnake in broad daylight, Floyd’s dying voice was heard in a viral video, pleading repeatedly: “I can’t breathe, please, please, I can’t breathe.” But Chauvin, along with three other white police officers, appeared irreversibly bent on committing a public execution.

Why was Floyd killed? He was killed for allegedly being in possession of a counterfeit $20 bill, the equivalent of N7,500. The whole of America has been on the boil while Minneapolis has been on fire since life was cruelly snuffed out of Floyd. President Donald Trump, his challenger in the upcoming November presidential election, Joe Biden, and former President Barack Obama, along with millions of Americans have condemned Floyd’s avoidable murder.

If the City of Minneapolis can go up in flames and the whole of the US quakes in racial shame for the killing of one soul, Nigerian leadership should be ashamed and account for the numerous number of lives lost daily due to government’s dereliction of duty in the areas of security, healthcare, transport, unemployment etc.

Lethargy incubates poverty, the breeder of death, diseases, sicknesses and lack in Nigeria, a country whose unwritten public service mantra is “Chop-I-Chop.” Were it not so, the flood of corruption allegations against the Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, Alhaji Mudashiru Obasa, should be a source of concern to the President and leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), his deputy, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, the National Chairman of the APC, Mr Adams Oshiomhole, and particularly, the APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, on whose mandate Obasa stands.

The dog of the king is the king of dogs, so they say. In Lagos, Tinubu is the king, whose unbelievable wealth and phenomenal power keep political lackeys baying at his table, day and night, in expectation of freebies. Lagos State has no anthem. But Tinubu does. Some call it Tinubu’s praise-worship. It’s entitled, “On Your Mandate We Shall Stand, Bola.” It is sung at public functions by elected APC members in Lagos. It’s the song of allegiance. To sing it, you must clear your throat, put your right hand on your heart, look towards heaven, lift your eyes in supplication, and your voice in worship.

I’m in nonstop fascination with the nature of man and birds. I love the bat – a nocturnal mammal that protects its fledglings from the distraught mother hen who tries to retrieve her day-old chick from the bloody beaks of bat-pups.

In a pretentious democracy, when you regularly hear subsequent Lagos governors, their cabinet members and the 40-member House of Assembly chorus, “On your mandate we shall stand, Bola…,” – 13 solid years after he left office as governor, you should know Tinubu has Lagos State delicately in the palm of his left hands. Unmoved by the tintinnabulation of politics, Tinubu’s gaze is perpetually fixed on political power as a means of personal reinvention on the road to social change.

I love Tinubu. But I hate his politics. I prefer the politics of Obafemi Awolowo that shuns hero-worshipping and movement of money in bullion vans on Election Eve.

Agba kii wa loja, ki ori omo tuntun wo. This Yoruba proverb extols the corrective role of the elderly in society. Tinubu, the Governor Emeritus, shouldn’t be seen as speaking up only when his interests are threatened. I remember vividly that the political wizard took a former Accountant General of Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode, from nowhere and installed him governor the same way he installed Ambode’s predecessor, Babatunde Fashola, as governor twice. When it was time for Ambode to be shoved aside for the incumbent Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Tinubu spoke publicly. He said the party would decide who would be its candidate in the 2019 governorship election. And the party independently picked Sanwo-Olu without interference from the Jagaban Borgu!

The Architect of Modern Lagos, Tinubu, had deployed his wealth of experience, on numerous occasions, to settle rifts in the House of Assembly from 1999 till date. Particularly, he was instrumental to the emergence of Obasa as Speaker of the House. This is why the ominous silence of the APC and the EFCC over the allegations against Obasa is dangerous. It’s my bet Obasa’s corruption allegations will be some of the big talking points if Tinubu finally contests the 2023 presidential election.

The allegations against Obasa, who’s the Chairman, Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria, are frightening. They shouldn’t worry Tinubu, alone. They should also worry Buhari, whose regime has turned deaf ears despite giving Nigerians the whistle to blow on corruption. Since 2018, Nigerians have been blowing the whistle on Obasa’s alleged malfeasance, but the EFCC falcon refused to hear the falconers.

Some of the Obasa allegations involve operating 64 bank accounts, approval of N47.5m for quarterly media promotion, approval of N258m to print phantom invitation cards two months after the event took place, receiving N17m monthly allowance for maintenance of personal residence and guest house, receiving alongside 17 other lawmakers N80m as estacode for attending a five-day event, collection of N45m for a Christmas party that never held, among other sordid allegations.

In countries where corruption isn’t on the rampage, Obasa, who is a fifth-term legislator, would have stepped aside and made himself available for investigation. It’s shocking that the EFCC never invited Obasa for questioning since 2018 when some of the allegations boiled over.

I reckon that the EFCC won’t want to investigate Obasa for a number of reasons – one of which is the suspicion that the weight of evidence in the allegations are not in the Speaker’s favour. The EFCC seems to be shielding Obasa because he’s a member of the ruling APC. Also, a public prosecution of Obasa would likely open bigger cans of worms that may tarnish the image of the APC in Lagos. It goes to say that the rumoured presidential ambition of Tinubu is going to suffer a setback if the Speaker of his state and his political grandson is convicted for corruption. Similarly, the trial and conviction of Obasa will put a question mark on the safety of public funds and the practicability of the financial autonomy recently granted to state legislatures by Buhari.

Buhari, his EFCC, Tinubu and the APC all need to grind out a convincing response to the Obasa cruncher. Otherwise, the party would totally become a laughing stock as it has become in Edo where Adams Oshiomhole went back to his putrid vomit of four years, and lapped it all up, smiling and smacking his lips.

Oshiomhole’s endorsement of Osagie Ize-Iyamu as the Edo State factional APC candidate is the worst form of political recant coming second only to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s backtrack on former Vice-President Abubakar Atiku.

If I publicly swore in God’s name and called someone a fat-headed thief, my family would offer to take me for a psychiatry test when I return home from the show of shame where I unsaid what I had said. Men with integrity have personal pride, they don’t prostrate to cows in order to eat meat.

#COVID19KN Update as at 11:33pm 31st May 2020.
*️⃣ A total of 4,735 samples of #COVID19Kano were tested.
*️⃣ 3 new cases of #COVID19Kano confirmed.
*️⃣ 40 additional #COVID19Kano patients were discharged.
*️⃣ 2 #COVID19Kano deaths were recorded today.
#MaskUpKano #PrayForKano https:///p5uYDSJ3SO

The Borno State Government says it has discharged 135 COVID-19 patients.

The Deputy Governor, Alhaji Usman Kadafur, who disclosed this to newsmen on Friday, said that the patients were discharged after testing negative to the virus twice.

Kadafur, who is also the Chairman, Committee on Response and Prevention of COVID-19, described the development as a huge success in the fight against COVID-19 in the state.

He attributed the successes recorded so far, to the efforts of the taskforce committee and health workers, who put in their best within the past weeks in containing the pandemic.

He reiterated the commitment of the government toward improving the welfare of the frontline workers who remained in the forefront in preventing the spread of the virus.

“The tremendous achievement made the state to record few cases in the past weeks.

“For those still at the Isolation centre, we promise to improve on their welfare and support them to recover fully,” he said.

Kadafur urge the people to adhere strictly to the COVID-19 preventive protocols to mitigate and completely eradicate the virus in the state.

Also speaking, Prof. Ali Kwajafa, the Chairman, Borno Chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association, said that a total of 40 health workers tested positive for having contact with the first index case in the state. The have all successfully recovered, he said.

Kwajafa said that most of them developed mild and moderate symptoms of the virus while in the mandatory 21 days Isolation at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital.

He said that one Nurse died of the virus, while three other health personnel that were isolated in their homes were still being treated.

“The major challenge is stigmatsation in the communities and the belief that the disease did not exist in the state.

“This is why when you go round the city, you will see a lot of people not wearing face masks,” he said.

Borno state reported 258 cases of COVID-19 as at May 28.

The state also recorded 24 deaths.

A Federal High Court in Abuja has affirmed the powers of the Independent National Electoral Commission to deregister political parties, which failed to comply with the provisions of the law particularly Section 225 A of the 1999 constitution as amended.

Delivering the judgment on Thursday, Justice Taiwo Taiwo affirmed that the constitutional powers of the electoral commission and reasons given by the commission for the deregistration of parties are valid and in conformity with the law.

The court therefore held that the deregistration of National Unity Party as a political party in Nigeria was lawfully done in exercise of vested constitutional powers of the INEC.

NUP is one of the 74 parties deregistered by the INEC in February.

The state also recorded 11 new cases of the virus on Wednesday.

Commissioner for Health, Prof Abdullahi Isa, gave the confirmation during a briefing with journalists in Yola, the state capital.

He said, "11 new cases have been recorded in Adamawa State and sadly, we have also recorded three fatalities."

The commissioner also confirmed that 20 patients have been discharged so far, after they tested negative for the infectious virus.

Adamawa State now has 18 active cases of COVID-19.

Dear FCT residents,

I am delighted to announce the discharge of 12 #COVID19 patients who have been successfully treated at our isolation and treatment centre in the FCT.

The total number of discharged patients in the FCT is now 145 as at May 25th, 2020. https:///AETF5S4hTf

ABUJA: In the wake of lifestyle changes occasioned by the Covid-19 Pandemic, the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC has said it would be adopting more technological tools in discharging its mandate, disclosing of its resolve to pioneer electronic voting in the country by 2021.

This was as the electoral umpire decried the rising cost of elections in the country, saying it would be liaising with the National Assembly to see how political parties can nominate replacements for dead representatives in line with a Supreme Court judgment that votes belong to the parties and not individuals.

INEC disclosed this in a document released Monday in Abuja which was tagged, “Policy on Conducting Elections in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic”, and signed by its Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.

The commission also added that voters without face masks would be disallowed from voting in the forthcoming governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states.