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Pence eyes US presidency, slams Trump over Jan 6 Capitol attack
Former United States Vice President Mike Pence has criticized former President Donald Trump for his role in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol.
This has thus further widened the rift between the two men as they prepare to battle over the Republican nomination in next year’s election.
“President Trump was wrong,” Pence said during remarks at the annual white-tie Gridiron Dinner attended by politicians and journalists.
“I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”
Pence’s remarks were the sharpest condemnation yet from the once-loyal lieutenant who has often shied away from confronting his former boss. Trump has already declared his candidacy. Pence has not, but he’s been laying the groundwork to run.
In the days leading up to January 6, 2021, Trump pressured Pence to overturn President Joe Biden’s election victory as he presided over the ceremonial certification of the results.
Pence refused, and when rioters stormed the Capitol, some chanted that they wanted to “hang Mike Pence.”
The House committee that investigated the attack said in its final report that “the President of the United States had riled up a mob that hunted his own Vice President.”
With his remarks, Pence solidified his place in a broader debate within the Republican Party over how to view the attack.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, for example, recently provided Tucker Carlson with an archive of security camera footage from Jan. 6, which the Fox News host had used to downplay the day’s events and promote conspiracy theories.
“Make no mistake about it, what happened that day was a disgrace,” Pence said in his Gridiron Dinner remarks. “And it mocks decency to portray it any other way.”
Trump, meanwhile, has continued to spread lies about his election loss. He’s even spoken in support of the rioters and said he would consider pardoning them if he was reelected.
Speeches at the Gridiron Dinner are usually humorous affairs, where politicians poke fun at each other, and Pence did plenty of that as well.
He joked that Trump’s ego was so fragile, he wanted his vice president to sing “Wind Beneath My Wings” — one of the lines is “did you ever know that you’re my hero?” — during their weekly lunches.
He took another shot at Trump over classified documents, saying, “I read that some of those classified documents they found at Mar-a-Lago were actually stuck in the President’s Bible, which proves he had absolutely no idea they were there.”
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Just in: I’ll resign if Yahaya Bello is not prosecuted – EFCC chairman
Just in: I’ll resign if Yahaya Bello is not prosecuted – EFCC chairman
Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ola Olukoyede, has vowed to follow to a logical conclusion the prosecution of former Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello.
He states this on Tuesday during an interactive session with media executives in Abuja.
The EFCC chairman said he would resign if Bello escaped prosecution.
He said, “I called Yahaya Bello, as a serving governor, to come to my office to clear himself. I shouldn’t have done that.
“But he said because a certain senator has planted over 100 journalists in my office, he would not come.
“I told him that he would be allowed to use my private gate to give him a cover, but he said my men should come to his village to interrogate him.”
Olukoyede said the EFCC did not violate any law while trying to arrest the former governor from his residence.
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“Rather, we have obeyed the law. I inherited the case and I didn’t create it. Why has he not submitted himself to the law?” he asked.
“I have arraigned two past governors who have been granted bail now — Willie Obiano and Abdulfatah Ahmed.”
The EFCC chairman promised that anyone responsible for impeding Bello’s arrest from his home in Abuja would face the full force of the law.
“We would have gone after him since January but we waited for the court order,” Olukoyede said.
“As early as 7am, my men were there, over 50 of them. They mounted surveillance.
“We met over 30 armed policemen there. We would have exchanged fire and there would have been casualties.
“My men were about to move in when the governor of Kogi drove in and they later changed the narrative.”
He vowed that all those who have dipped their hands into the nation’s coffers would be investigated and prosecuted.
Olukoyede said, “If I can do Obiano, Abdulfatah Ahmed and Chief Olu Agunloye, my kinsman, why not Yahaya Bello?”
Just in: I’ll resign if Yahaya Bello is not prosecuted – EFCC chairman
News
Updated: FG to route 20% of palliatives through traditional, religious leaders
FG to route 20% of palliatives through traditional, religious leaders
President Bola Tinubu has directed that 20 per cent of palliative food intervention should go through religious and traditional institutions.
Vice-President Kashim Shettima made this known on Tuesday while delivering a keynote lecture at a High-Level Dialogue of Faith Leaders on Nutrition in Nigeria held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said, “The Imam of Bayero University (BUK) mentioned about the exclusion of the traditional and religious leaders in the distribution of palliatives.
”The President has approved that 20 per cent of the palliative in terms of food intervention be routed through our religious organisations and the traditional institutions.
“The Tsangaya schools, the mission schools will be specially targeted for such intervention.”
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The Vice-President said that government was working out the logistics through the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to ensure smooth implementation of the intervention programme.
“This intervention will be anchored by the office of the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Sen. Abubakar Bagudu, and he is going to anchor the programme.
“We are going to provide the overall supervision towards the implementation of the programme.
“Also 20 per cent of the funds for the School Feeding Programme is going to be channelled through the office of the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning to the religious bodies.”
Shettima said government had commenced the engagement and working out modalities for the intervention to ensure a very transparent disbursement.
He added that the intervention would include Tsangaya and Mission schools.
News
Peter Obi was never a Labour person, LP just special vehicle – Doyin Okupe
Peter Obi was never a Labour person, LP just special vehicle – Doyin Okupe
Former director-general of the Labour Party presidential campaign, Doyin Okupe has said the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, never believed in the ideologies of the party.
Okupe stated this while answering questions in an interview on Arise Television’s flagship programme, The Morning Show.
The Labour Part, according to Okupe was just a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the presidential election.
Okupe who resigned his membership of the Labour Party in January, on the grounds of ideological differences said his membership of the party ended the moment Obi lost the election.
“The LP for us — for Peter Obi and I — and those in the leadership of the movement… the party was a special purpose vehicle (SPV).
“I have never been a labour person, I have never operated on the left before but we needed a platform and this was the only platform readily available to us.
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“We thought that if we won the election… there are no fast and hard rules about ideologies. You can always find a shade between the left and the right. You can always move to the centre.
“We were hoping and praying that if we won we would find a way to come to some consensus with the labour.
“Peter Obi is not a labour person. He is not a leftist person, he is a trader, he is a businessman just like me. I am a liberal democrat, I believe in liberal democracy, I believe in free enterprise.
“I am not a social worker. As far as I’m concerned, my membership of labour expired the moment we lost that election.”
The former presidential aide said it was “unreasonable” for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to present a northerner as its candidate in the buildup to the 2023 election.
Peter Obi was never a Labour person, LP just special vehicle – Doyin Okupe
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