fergie001: The Uganda Communications Commission has directed all mobile operators to immediately block all access to Facebook, WhatsApp, other social media platforms and online messaging applications, until further notice.
The East African nation go to the polls on Thursday, January 14 in an election pitting incumbent Yoweri Museveni against 10 candidates including opposition front-runner Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu (popularly known as Bobi Wine), a singer-turned-lawmaker whose star power has rattled the ruling party, in a way like never before.
The 38-year-old Bobi Wine and his National Unity Platform have rallied the youths in a bid to challenge the 75-year-old Museveni who has been in office since 1986; using the power of the social media in huge campaigns that have left several of his aides, bodyguards and members of his entourage been arrested, jailed and killed.
Big tech giants, Facebook had on Monday, taken down a network in Uganda linked to the country’s Ministry of Information for using fake and duplicate accounts to post ahead of this week’s presidential election., a move that was roundly criticised by the Government.
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President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that election experts said raised legal questions.
Support our journalism. Subscribe today. The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”
Throughout the call, Raffensperger and his office’s general counsel rejected Trump’s assertions, explaining that the president is relying on debunked conspiracy theories and that President-elect Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in Georgia was fair and accurate.
AD President Trump walks to the Oval Office after returning from Florida on Thursday.President Trump walks to the Oval Office after returning from Florida on Thursday. President Trump walks to the Oval Office after returning from Florida on Thursday. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post) Trump dismissed their arguments.
“The people of Georgia are angry, the people in the country are angry,” he said. “And there’s nothing wrong with saying, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated.”
Raffensperger responded: “Well, Mr. President, the challenge that you have is, the data you have is wrong.”
Election results under attack: Here are the facts
At another point, Trump said: “So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
The rambling and at times incoherent conversation offered a remarkable glimpse of how consumed and desperate the president remains about his loss, unwilling or unable to let the matter go and still believing he can reverse the results in enough battleground states to remain in office.
AD “There’s no way I lost Georgia,” Trump said, a phrase he repeated again and again on the call. “There’s no way. We won by hundreds of thousands of votes.”
Several of his allies were on the line as he spoke, including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell, a prominent GOP lawyer whose involvement with Trump’s efforts had not been previously know
I travelled on the 2k5 coach o, both to n fro. I only went to the 5k coach o. The differences are in the seating arrangement, quality of seats. Also there were some amenities available in the 5k coach not in the 2k5 coach
My trip to Ibadan ón the 29th and return trip to Lagos on the 30th was wonderful. The train did not operate at its maximum speed but it was a pleasant experience and enriching Just hope and pray the standard of operations, cleanliness will be sustained. The staff were wonderful. Indeed kudos to the train staff. Work on the Stations need to be hastened. Also the access road from the Moniya-Iseyin road to the Moniya (Ibadan) station needs to be worked on. I encourage all to just take the ride. You will want to take more trips
Air France- KLM says airport transit visa (ATV) is now compulsory for citizens of certain countries, including those from Nigeria, travelling to the UK from January 1, 2021.
An ATV grants access to a traveller to pass through the international zone of an airport without entering the country’s territory.
A statement issued by the airline said the ATV has become necessary for these citizens to pass through France or the Netherlands following Brexit — which means the UK is no longer part of the European Union.
It also said citizens of the affected countries with British visa, long-stay visa or British residence permit must still have ATV to pass through France or the Netherlands.
The affected countries include Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Ghana.
Others include Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Senegal, Syria, Palestinians, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Sri Lanka.
“As of January 1, 2021, citizens of the following countries who are holders of a British visa, long-stay visa or a residence permit issued by the British authorities will need to be in possession of an airport transit visa (ATV) if they transit through France and or the Netherlands,” the statement read.
However, the airline said citizens of the listed countries holding a visa or residence permit from Canada, Japan, the USA or any other European country, in addition to a UK visa/residence permit are allowed to travel through France or the Netherlands without an ATV.
On December 24, the UK clinched a Brexit trade deal with the European Union (EU).
The new deal will almost certainly mean lower tariffs and costs for exporters than they would have faced if the UK had left the EU without an agreement.
The UK ceased to be a full member of the EU in January, following the Brexit vote on June 23, 2016.
Why do countries all over the world have different time zone?
For instance, the difference between Nigeria and UK time is just like 2 hours.
Nigerian and Canada time is like 6 to 7 hours differences. So the question is what is the rationale behind this time perspective?
There is no time difference between Nigeria and UK hour between the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October each year. That is called the British Summer Time . All other times of the year the UK time is one hour behind that of Nigeria.
Why the time difference. Basically the earth is not flat, it is spherical and it rotates everyday on its axis, meaning that sunlight does not reach each place on earth the same time and in the same intensity. So when it is day in some places, at the same time in other places it is night.
Muzil: The Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island erupted late Sunday, authorities said, warning of a possible “significant emission” of volcanic ash into the atmosphere.
“An eruption has commenced within Kilauea’s summit caldera,” shortly after 9:30 pm local time (0730 GMT), said the United States Geological Survey (USGS).
“The situation is rapidly evolving and HVO (Hawaiian Volcano Observatory) will issue another statement when more information is available.”
Images posted by the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park showed billows of red smoke rising into the night sky.
The USGS warned of a “significant emission of volcanic ash into the atmosphere” and upgraded its aviation colour code to red, advising pilots to avoid the area around Kilauea.
The National Weather Service reported prevailing winds could push the ashfall towards communities on the southwest of Big Island and said people with respiratory problems should take “extra precaution”.
The USGS reported a shallow, 4.4-magnitude earthquake near the volcano shortly after the eruption.
Kilauea, a popular tourist attraction, is one of the world’s most active volcanoes and has been erupting regularly since the 1950s.
In 2014 Big Island declared a state of emergency after red-hot lava from Kilauea ignited a house and threatened the entire town of Pahoa on the eastern tip of the island.
Hawaii Island, or the Big Island, is the largest of the eight main islands which make up the Pacific US state — an archipelago that includes hundreds of smaller volcanic islands.
MANofMEN: Twice the Messiah: How Osinbajo Has Consistently Saved His Party, By Raheem Akingbolu
Perhaps by now, the leadership of the All Peoples Congress (APC) would have started putting heads together to assemble a team of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) for a legal firework to extricate the party from a self-contrived mire if the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, hadn’t intervened and saved the party’s leadership from committing an eggregious political faux pas yesterday.
As part of the resolutions reached by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party, it was initially agreed that all States, Zonal and National Party Structures be collapsed. Of course, the news had quickly spread like harmattan fire, with members of the opposition party celebrating the flaw committed by the ruling party. Some promoters of the purported dissolution were already celebrating when a little drama aptly played out.
The Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, who was nodding his head and taking notes while the meeting was going on signified to talk. The Law teacher was given the floor and by time he finished speaking, the tone of the song changed and changed for good.
Knowing the controversy, confusion and the constitutional error the party would have committed if its entire structures were dissolved, Osinbajo had quickly cautioned the body, pointing out the legal consequences of such action.
He was said to have advised that the dissolution was unconstitutional given that the organs had prescribed tenures and that a legal challenge to it might succeed.
Osinbajo’s intervention was said to have led to the face-saving decision to dissolve the organs and constitute them into caretaker committees in an acting capacity.
Meanwhile, the undercurrent was that some governors actually came into the meeting with prepared resolutions and had successfully sold to their unsuspecting colleagues with the caveat that they (the other set of governors) would be the ones to nominate new caretaker members. Besides, they have succeeded in selling to President Buhari, the dummy to confer the power of NEC on Buni-led caretaker committee. This is where they got it all wrong but Osinbajo right the wrong. Unfortunately, the moment the governors, who had met and concluded before the meeting, got the green light that their idea would fly, they started spinning the news with short sms to their trusted friends in the media that APC had collapsed its structure.
Perhaps this is how the opposition Peoples Democratic Power (PDP) got the hint and acted swiftly by asking the Independent National Electoral Commission to declare all legislative seats occupied by members of the All Progressives Congress vacant.
The opposition party in a statement issued by its spokesperson, Kola Ologbodiyan, titled, ‘PDP Congratulates Nigerians as APC, Their Tormentor, Finally Fizzles’ equally sought INEC to deregister APC.
In the statement, the opposition party congratulated Nigerians across the country, stating that their tormentor for five years, the APC, has finally dissolved out of Nigeria’s political firmament. It categorically stated that the APC had forcefully exited itself from the nation’s political firmament by dissolving all its national, zonal and state structures.
Analyzing the issue in a telephone interview with the AbujaCityJournal, Lagos based Human Right Lawyer, Gabriel Uduafi, who commended the eagle-eye of the Vice President for quickly spotting the anomaly, said were it to be the other way round; APC would have been on auto pilot with no leadership.
Uduafi's words: “What happened during the APC NEC meeting yesterday before the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo brought his Law prowess to bear would have resorted into constitutional aberration. It’s a simple legal interpretation; dissolving the party structure across board would have simply pointed to the fact that the party is not in existence.
"Those who wanted to make such resolution perhaps were not aware that there shouldn’t be a vacuum in the system. The constitution of Nigeria recognises all those officers but if the NEC now says they are not in existence, then their products and all that they stand for are also null and void. If the structure is collapsed, who then conducts elections into those offices?”, Uduafi stated
Warning the ruling party to always look before it leaps, Uduafi, noted that even the dissolution of the Adams Oshiomhole-led executive was also a constitutional aberration.
“APC has always committed avoidable mistakes and it’s sad. Even the NEC meeting that was held at the Presidential Villa, where Adams Oshiomole led executive was disbanded was also a constitutional aberration. The party has to be careful in the way it conducts itself, otherwise, it will run itself out of existence. Nigerians are watching and it will be suicidal if the party falls for its own antics,” he further added.
For Osinbajo, this is not the first time he would serve as a messiah to his dear party. It would be recalled that a similar intervention played out during the tenure of Chief John Odigie-Oyegun as party chairman.
At the twilight of Odigie-Oyegun-led National Working Committee (NWC), a kangaroo move had been hatched to extend the tenure of the NWC before Oshinbajo quickly called the attention of President Buhari and other stakeholders to the legal implication.
As a result of his advice, President Muhammadu Buhari had declared as unconstitutional the decision by NEC of the APC to make the move. The president’s position took the NWC and the 36 state chairmen of the party, who would have been beneficiaries of the controversial decision, by surprise at the start of the NEC meeting, which was then held at the national secretariat of the party in Abuja.
Chieftains of the party who felt shortchanged due to the tenure elongation had taken the Odigie-Oyegun-led NWC to court, seeking the quashing of the decision. President Buhari said notwithstanding the fact that the decision to extend the tenure got the endorsement of the NEC at its meeting, it could not stand since it was against the provisions of Article 17 (1) (2) of the APC constitution as well as section 223 of the 1999 Constitution as amended. He argued that allowing such an illegality to stand would not only deepen the crises plaguing the party, it could provide an enabling environment for members of the opposition to wrestle power from APC in the 2019 general elections. Buhari, who reiterated the need to ensure internal democracy in the APC, enjoined the NEC to duly elect executive members of the party at national and state levels in accordance with the timetable of the party. The president disclosed that his position was based on wise counsel of persons knowledgeable in law among the ranks of the party, including Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN). With the new development and the bashes that the party and its leaders have so far received, is it not high time that APC started consulting wide before taking decisions? Until the party learns to do things right, those who have consistently argued that the party is divided against itself will always be vindicated.
And for Buhari and Osinbajo, observers believe their silence at this crucial moment is not golden, hence they need to be more active as party men and politicians than adopting a ‘sitdown-look’ posture.
The Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami has said that the National assembly of Nigeria has no consitutional powers to summon the President, Muhammadu Buhari.
In a shocking statement issued on Wednesday, Malami stated that the president cannot be summoned to give account of operational use of the armed forces.
In his words; "National Assembly has no constitutional power to envisage or contemplate a situation where the president would be summoned by the national assembly on operational use of the armed forces”.
The AGF's comments are coming amidst the President's scheduled appearance before the House of Assembly to give account of the nation's efforts towards combating the rising spate of Insecurity and economic challenges.
POLITICS NIGERIA earlier reported that the President had cancelled the appearance amidst fears that he may not be able to give a proper account or field questions from enraged lawmakers.
Foreign Affairs › Re: Uganda Orders All Social Media Platforms Shut Until Further Notice by tunene66: 2:29pm On Jan 12, 2021
