Politics
Ohanaeze, Afenifere kick as APC says no decision yet on zoning
The All Progressives Congress, on Friday in Abuja, said it had yet to determine where it would zone its presidential ticket to.
This came days after the party commenced the sale of nomination and expression of interest forms for various electoral offices.
The party’s National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, disclosed this to State House correspondents shortly after he presented the party’s governorship candidate in Ekiti State, Biodun Oyebanji, to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
When asked where the governing party would zone its presidential ticket to, Adamu said such a decision was beyond the National Working Committee and was the prerogative of the entire party, which he acknowledged, was bigger than the chairman.
The PUNCH had reported that the APC, during its National Executive Committee meeting last week Wednesday, gave full powers to the NWC led by Adamu, to take decisions on its behalf for 90 days.
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This empowers the NWC to take critical decisions without approval from the NEC.
However, Adamu said, “I am today privileged to be the chairman of the party. The party is greater than me. The party has not made a decision and I cannot pre-empt what the party’s decision will be.
“We also do know that there are citizens who are qualified to contest, but who are not serious contenders, who will just want to take anything cheap by the roadside and assert what they call their rights and create problems for our party.
“We’re also aware that some parties that have no chance whatsoever to win the presidential election in Nigeria will sponsor people to create problems for us and to divert our attention, whichever party is involved in that.”
Adamu also noted that the APC had no regrets about the high cost of nomination forms for aspirants seeking elective offices.
He noted that the high cost was justified by the party’s need to raise sufficient funds to successfully prosecute the coming elections.
He said, “On the issue of cost. Yeah, I’ve been listening with rapt attention to the hues and cries from our lovers and our adversaries. We have no regrets whatsoever. We did some homework; we know what it takes to go through primaries, go through presidential campaigns and go through elections for the President. We know what it takes.
“Over and above that, yes, we are the ruling party. Yes, we need to set examples in what we do, but I ask you, I don’t know which part of the country you come from if God forbid, your traditional ruler dies today, contestants to that office will give more than N100m. It’s no news.
“When I contested for the Senate, all I paid was just a token; N5m, N10m, including the expression. When my colleague wanted to be the chairman of the party in the days of Adams Oshimhole, it cost him N500,000. Today, for me, just as an example, to contest the national chairman of our party, I had to pay N20m.
“The enormity of work that has to be done will be done with the money. We don’t want to continue begging. So, I want to say that we’re able to mobilise sufficient funds to support our efforts to win the election. Some protests may be well-founded, I have no quarrel with that, but the propensity of this, that people just assume it’s the ruling party.”
Receiving the Ekiti APC governorship flag bearer, Buhari noted that Oyebanji’s governorship would be a continuation of service since he had served in several capacities, including as Chief of Staff, commissioner, and Secretary to the State Government.
He wished the candidate “the best of luck.”
Adamu was accompanied to the Presidential Villa by the Ekiti State Governor and Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Dr. Kayode Fayemi; Kebbi State Governor and Chairman of the Progressive Governors’ Forum, Atiku Bagudu; and the National Secretary of the APC, Senator Iyiola Omisore.
Meanwhile, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndgibo Worldwide, and the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, knocked Adamu for saying the APC was undecided on what zone the presidential ticket of the party would go to.
The spokesman for Ohanaeze, Chief Alex Ogbonnia, said in a telephone conversation with one of our correspondents that the APC was “vacillating and insulating like a pendulum,” because it knew the truth.
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He urged the ruling party to “be wise and do the right thing for equity and fairness to all the regions.”
Ogbonnia stated, “They know the truth, that is why they are moving left, right, and centre like a pendulum. It is not good that this should be the identity of the APC.
“The President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, is the leader of the party today. He should step in and take decisions just like former President Olusegun Obasanjo took the decision in 2006 that a northerner should be the President since he was from the South.
“Because of the power-rotation principle agreed upon by the party, the Presidency had to move to the North. All eyes are on Buhari to do to the South-East what Obasanjo did to the North-West. They have seen the truth and don’t want to accept it.”
The Secretary-General of Afenifere, Dr. Sola Ebiseni, said Adamu’s statement did not come to the group as a surprise.
Noting that the country was bigger than any one particular group, Ebiseni stated, “That the new national chairman of the APC is now wavering on the zoning of its presidential ticket to the South after he has secured his own position based on that understanding did not come to us in the Afenifere as a surprise because we saw it coming and our leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has used every available platform to warn those who may be so deceived. These are all permutations driving towards the ultimate decision on what Nigeria will make of itself.
“While it may sound predictive that having swapped the party positions between the North and the South, the positions in government such as the President, Vice-President, Senate President, and Speaker of the House of Representatives will equally be so exchanged by the party; the prized seat of the President and the Leviathan powers at its command are too tempting to be allowed to pass by those who believe Nigeria is their exclusive estate. This is the reason behind the deliberate resistance to restructuring.”
Ebiseni further stated that for the country to survive as a corporate entity, true federalism must be enthroned, and “all regions must have equal opportunities for all the ethnic nationalities and citizens.”
Also speaking, the spokesman for the Pan Niger Delta Forum, Mr. Ken Robinson, noted that the indecision by the ruling APC was “unnecessary, insensitive and completely out of place.”
Robinson told Saturday PUNCH, “The APC saying they are undecided on the issue of zoning is unnecessary. In 2014, it was the same APC that zoned its presidency to the North, producing Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). The national chairmanship position was zoned to the South, where Pa Akande emerged as the interim national chairman before a former governor of Edo State and then later, Adams Oshiomole. Today, they have reversed those positions earlier occupied by southern Nigerians and given them to the North.
“It is, therefore, expected that the presidency will go to southern Nigeria. If the national chairman of the party is now saying they are undecided, that is unacceptable. It is completely out of place. It is inconsistent and is against protocols that have been established since 1979 and zoning since independence.”
He stressed that if the APC eventually threw the race open, it would be a “call for more disaffection, dissension, and crisis that have already engulfed our country.”
APC did not promise South presidency – Northern groups
However, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, the spokesman for the Coalition of Northern Groups, a conglomerate of over 40 pro-North bodies, said the APC did not promise any region the presidency.
He noted that the best move for all political parties was to throw the ticket open so that candidates could emerge on merit.
He stated, “As far as the CNG is concerned, that is the proper thing to do. We have never had faith in that zoning arrangement that does not actually look at the merit of candidates but their region, religion, or tribe.
“We have all along been of the view that until that day when we are able to elect a leader we can all trust and rely on as a Nigerian President, then we have not reached true nationhood.
“In any case, there is no evidence that the APC had in the first place bound itself to any arrangement on zoning or rotation of power on a regional basis.
“That arrangement had all along been most pronounced in the PDP and even they could not get it right. The agreement was respected only in the first four years of Obasanjo and it became shaky towards the end of his second term with the notorious third term agenda, which was aborted.”
Politics
Damagun writes INEC to conduct by-election for 27 vacant Rivers assembly seats
Damagun writes INEC to conduct by-election for 27 vacant Rivers assembly seats
Few days after governors on the platform of the Peoples Democracy Party (PDP) handed down an ultimatum for things to change in the party, the Acting National Chairman of the party, Umar Damagun has moved against the FCT Minister and his loyal lawmakers, the 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
Damagun in a letter addressed to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) dated 13th November 2024 and released on Sunday by the spokesperson of the Opposition Lawmakers Coalition, Ikenga Ugochinyere urged the electoral umpire to conduct a bye-election to fill up the 27 seats, they vacated to join the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Wike has been accused of being behind the crisis in the PDP over his disagreement with the Rivers State governor, Sim Fubara, his successor.
The crisis which started over control of resources divided the party in the state with 27 lawmakers in the state assembly siding Wike and defected to the APC following Wike’s acceptance to serve in the government of the APC.
He has also been accused of working in cahoots with Damagun to damage the PDP by not organising the National Executive Committee which would lead to the acting Chairman’s ouster.
After a series of agitation, the latest being from the PDP Governors’ Forum over the weekend, Damagun has demanded that INEC conduct elections as soon as possible, apparently moving against the FCT minister.
He argued in letter titled, ‘DEMAND FOR IMMEDIATE CONDUCT OF FRESH ELECTION IN 27 STATE CONSTITUENCIES OF RIVERS STATE WHICH HAVE BECOME VACANT PURSUANT TO SECTION 109(1)(g) OF THE CONSTITUTION’ that it’s “unlawful” for the 27 members to defect.
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The members defected to the APC on December 11, 2023.
Damagun said, going by provisions of the Constitution, the lawmakers are no longer members of the Assembly.
The PDP acting chairman therefore urged the Commission to perform its constitutional duties and begin the process of conducting fresh elections to fill the vacancies created in the 27 state constituencies by the unlawful act of the former Assembly members.
Parts of the letter read, “The Leadership of our great party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) wishes to draw the attention of the Commission to the gross violation of Section 109 (1)(g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) by 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly following their unlawful defection from our Party, the PDP who sponsored their elections to the All Progressive Congress (APC) on Monday, December 11, 2023.
“The Commission may recall that our Party, the PDP nominated all our 32 State House of Assembly candidates in Rivers State for the 2023 General Election on the 7th of July 2022 via your electronic candidate election nomination portal (See attached acknowledgement).
“The Commission may also recall that following the nomination, the Commission conducted election into the Rivers State House of Assembly on the 18th of March, 2023 and our Party won 32 seats in the state Assembly. The elected State House of Assembly members were inaugurated and sworn-in on June, 2023.
“However, on Monday, 11 December, 2023 a period of just six (6) months after inauguration, 27 out of the 32 members publicly announced their defection from our Party to the All Progressive Congress (APC). This defection is a gross violation of Section 109(1)(g) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (As amended).
“The only two grounds of division and merger provided for in the Constitution that permit such defection are completely non-existent in our political Party. It therefore means that the defections of the 27 members are without lawful excuse and these members have vacated their seats in the Rivers State House of Assembly by the operations of Section 109(1)(g) of the 1999 Constitution.
“In view of the foregoing, we hereby demand that the Commission performs its constitutional duties and begin the process of conducting a Fresh Election to fill the vacancies created in the 27 State Constituencies by the unlawful act of the Assembly members. Find attached the list of the 27 State Assembly Members and their Constituencies.
“While thanking the Commission for its commitment to deepening democracy in our country, please accept the assurances of our highest regards.”
Damagun writes INEC to conduct by-election for 27 vacant Rivers assembly seats
Politics
Nigeria would have been better under Peter Obi, too much nepotism under Tinubu – Senator Abaribe
Nigeria would have been better under Peter Obi, too much nepotism under Tinubu – Senator Abaribe
Nigeria would have been better than what it is currently if Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party (LP), had won the 2023 elections, the senator representing Abia South, Enyinnaya Abaribe, has said.
Abaribe, who spoke on ‘Politics Today,’ a Channels Television programme, on Monday, said Obi would not have been as nepotistic as the administration of President Bola Tinubu.
“Number one, he would not be as nepotistic as this government; he won’t; it’s not in him. That is just who we are; we feel for the other people.”
The lawmaker called attention to Tinubu’s appointment of four ministers from Ogun alone, noting that many other states have just one.
“I say it, and I don’t think so. We are seeing it everyday. I just gave you one example. How can Ogun state have four ministers? Why does he favour Ogun state? Oyo state has only one minister,” Abaribe said.
”The nepotism of Buhari, which nobody followed, has now deepened under President Tinubu because Buhari did it, and nobody said much. I was the only person shouting.”
He said that rather than waiting for presidents to be fair to the people of the south-east, it is high time people of the zone went back to revamp it, make it more livable, better, and more cohesive.
“It’s obvious that if we continue to look at whoever becomes president, they will look at us and do us right. Apart from Obasanjo and maybe Jonathan, I do not think that we have seen that same type of fairness,” he said.
Politics
Lagos 2027: Seyi Tinubu campaign team releases his life documentary
Lagos 2027: Seyi Tinubu campaign team releases his life documentary
Seyi Tinubu, son of President Bola Tinubu, has been tipped for the seat of Lagos governor in the 2027 governorship election.
This was according to a video making the rounds on various social media platforms, which Peoples Gazette saw on Sunday.
The video highlights the president’s son’s biography, focusing on his education, career, and humanitarian activities as a Nigerian. It also documents his involvement in youth development in the country.
This biopic comes on the heels of some groups’ endorsements of Mr Tinubu’s son as a potential successor to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu in 2027.
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On Tuesday, the Coalition of Nigerian Youth Leaders issued an endorsement in Owerri, Imo, suggesting that the younger Tinubu would be welcomed to contest the governorship seat in Osun or Imo.
He was also endorsed by Friends of Seyi, a group emphasising his vision and intellectual wherewithal to govern the country’s commercial nerve.
APC chieftain Joe Igbokwe, however, described the gale of endorsements as a ploy to undermine the president in a Facebook post.
“Who are these faceless people pushing Seyi Tinubu for Lagos governor? This is a needless distraction,” said Mr Igbokwe. “To pull PBAT down is their target. Ruling Lagos is not the job of boys.”
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