The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Delta State has pointed fingers at former Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, alleging that he was instrumental in getting the suspended Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, involved in the APC presidential primary.

The party believes this move was designed to disrupt President Bola Tinubu’s ambition.

According to Punch, the allegations were disclosed in a letter to the president titled, “Attempts by Senator Ovie Omo-Agege to scuttle presidential ambition of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu through recruitment of Mr Godwin Emefiele, anti-Tinubu campaign stance and anti-party activities.”

Key officials of the State APC, including Secretary Michael Inana and Chairmen Tom Onah, Nelson Ogharama, and Michael Orunefe, signed this letter.

The letter stated, “Omo-Agege had plans to issue a party membership card to the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, and we objected to his plans. We told him it was not morally right for Emefiele to contest and that it would affect your chances to secure the presidential ticket.”

According to the letter, Omo-Agege insisted on his plan, assuring Emefiele that the Party National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, would assist in getting him the ticket.

However, the Delta delegates were instructed by Omo-Agege to vote against Tinubu at the APC Convention, who he claimed stood no chance against their ‘anointed’.

Despite this, the former Lagos State Governor won the primary. The signatories to the letter suggested that Omo-Agege is yet to forgive those who opposed him.

The letter also accused Omo-Agege of sidelining party faithful and critical stakeholders, especially those not in his camp, during the run-up to the 2023 general elections.

They even claimed that Omo-Agege single-handedly nominated all the candidates in Delta State, and members of his staff were made party officials.

The signatories also alleged that Omo-Agege was involved in a series of anti-party activities, as evidenced by tweets, campaign posters, and video clips.

These activities allegedly resulted in many party chieftains leaving the APC to pursue their political ambitions elsewhere.

Finally, the letter called on the president to investigate the claims raised and to liberate the State APC from Omo-Agege’s alleged control.

When approached for comments, representatives of Omo-Agege declined to comment, and Felix Morka dismissed the allegations as baseless.

INEC Still Withholding Vital Documents - Obi Tells Court

Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate in the February 25 general elections, Peter Obi on Monday, accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of refusing to give them the documents they need to prove their joint petition challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu as winner of the said election.

At the resumed hearing of the petition, counsel to the petitioners, Jibrin Okutepa (SAN) informed the court of their inability to get documents they required in their case from the electoral body in spite of the several letters written to that effect.

“This segment is to formally bring to the notice of the court, the excruciating experience we are having from INEC”, Okutepa said and added that the electoral body released only a few documents to the petitioners on Monday afternoon.

“We have done everything humanly possible, including persuasion and letter writing. We decide to seek the help of the court”, he said and further informed that the petitioners received a few copies of I-ReV reports from a few Local Government Areas of Lagos that were certified on May 29 by INEC which refused to make them available to the petitioners.

“We have consistently written letters to INEC, including the one I wrote personally on May 20 detailing all the documents we wanted”, Okutepa said and told the court that INEC refused service of subpoena from the bailiff of the court.

“This proceeding is time-bound. We have paid for the documents and INEC is supposed to give us the documents that we need. We are crying to your Lordship as we have nowhere to run to. It appears that INEC is deliberately frustrating the proceedings,” Okutepa told the court.

Counsel to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) disagreed with the submissions of the counsel to the petitioners, adding that petitioners’ counsel did not discuss any issue with him before the commencement of the Monday proceedings.

He said, there is no reason to deny Labour Party any document, saying, there are procedures for obtaining documents from INEC.

“They didn’t want to follow the procedures. Am taken aback with the submissions of Okutepa. We can’t sit here and be hearing lamentation that is unfounded”, he said and noted that he had replied to the letter written to him by the lead counsel to the petitioners, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN).

Earlier, the petitioners called their 7th witness, Mpeh Clarita Ogar, a cloud engineer and architect, currently working with Amazon Web Services Incorporated.

Led in evidence by Counsel to the petitioners, Patrick Ikwueto (SAN), the witness adopted her witness statement on oath deposed to on June 19 at the registry of the court.

A copy of resume of the witness, an appointment letter to the witness by Amazon Web Services Incorporated and six volumes reports of the 33 regions where Amazon Web Services hosts their servers.

According to Ikwueto, the report of the health status of the AWS cloud services in the region showed that there was no technical glitches on February 25, 2023.

The court however admitted the documents as exhibits, despite objections to their admissibility by INEC. Tinubu and APC, who are respondents in the petition marked, CA/PEPC/03/2023.

Justice Haruna Tsammani led five-member panel of Justices of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting in Abuja adjourned till Tuesday, June 20 for cross-examination of the 7th petitioners’ witness and continuation of hearing.

The Ogun State governorship election petition tribunal has struck out an allegation of vote buying levelled against Governor Dapo Abiodun and the All Progressives Congress (APC) by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Ladi Adebutu.

Mr Adebutu is challenging the return of Governor Abiodun as the winner of the 18 March governorship election.

But in their response to the petition, the governor’s lawyers, led by Wole Olanipekun (SAN), cited a police report indicting Mr Adebutu and the PDP of vote buying during the elections.

However, in their response, Mr Adebutu and the PDP accused the APC of buying votes in the elections.

But the governor’s lawyers, represented by Taiwo Osipitan (SAN), filed an application asking the tribunal to strike out the petitioner’s reply, saying the petitioner had introduced vote-buying as a new issue and fact while responding to the second respondent’s reply.

According to him, the introduction of new issues/facts in the reply contravenes paragraph 16(1) (a & b) of the Electoral Act and the rules of court pleadings.

Mr Osipitan also argued that some paragraphs in the petitioner’s reply were offensive and prayed the tribunal strike it out for being incompetent.

But the counsel to Mr Adebutu, Goddy Uche (SAN), asked the tribunal to reject the second respondent’s application for lacking in merit, saying it was used as a delay tactic on the petition.

Mr Uche added that Mr Abiodun made the allegation of financial inducement of voters against the petitioner, an issue which he said was not in the petition before the tribunal.

Mr Uche further said the petitioner had merely responded to the opponent’s accusations as contained in reply to the original petition.

He emphasised that the second respondent’s counsel raised the issue out of a ‘blue moon’.

In its unanimous ruling read by its chairman, Hamidu Kunaza, the panel struck out the petitioner’s reply.

The tribunal held that if the petitioner’s reply were allowed would constitute injustice as the second respondent would not have the opportunity to respond to the petitioner’s reply.

“The petitioner’s reply dated May 22, 2023, is hereby struck out,” the tribunal held.

It then adjourned the sitting to Thursday for another ruling.

Speaking to journalists after the ruling, a member of Mr Adebutu’s legal team, Olumuyiwa Obanewa, said the team would study the ruling and decide whether or not to file an appeal.

Mr Obanewa said, “The position of the tribunal is that the reply that we filed to the reply of the second respondent, who is the governor of Ogun State, that the reply raises issues that the second respondent would have no opportunity to respond to, and therefore those issues would not be allowed. The petition is still competent, and the reply filed by respondents is still competent.

“In the reply of the second respondent, they raised the issue of vote-buying, and in our own attempt to respond to those issues, because we believed those issues were new issues that were not contained in our own petition originally, so, if you are now raising the issue of vote-buying and we have the opportunity of also saying that you were also involved in vote-buying, we should be free to bring out those issues.

“But in the ruling, the court didn’t agree with us totally. We will look at the ruling; if there is a need for us to appeal against that ruling, we will do that.”

Also, a lawyer in Mr Abiodun’s legal team, Deji Enisehin, said, “The petitioner tried to bring in some new facts which ordinarily should have been part of the petition while responding to the second respondent’s reply. We objected to that, and the court agreed with us in line with the principle.”

President Bola Tinubu, on Monday, night approved the immediate dissolution of the governing boards of all federal government parastatals, agencies, institutions, and government-owned companies.

A statement signed by the Director, Information of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Willie Bassey, noted that this is in the exercise of its constitutional powers and in the public interest.

The dissolution does not, however, affect boards, commissions, and Councils listed in the Third Schedule, Part 1, Section 153 (i) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended.

In view of this development and until such a time new boards are constituted, the chief executive officers of the parastatals, agencies, institutions, and government-owned companies are directed to refer matters requiring the attention of their Boards to the President, through the Permanent Secretaries of their respective supervisory ministries and offices.

Permanent Secretaries are directed, also, to route such correspondences to Mr President through the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

Consequently, all Ministries, Departments and Agencies are to ensure compliance to the provision of this directive which took effect from Friday June 16, 2023.

Permanent Secretaries are particularly directed to inform the chief executive officers of the affected agencies under the supervision of their respective ministries/offices for immediate compliance.

[DailyPost]

President Bola Tinubu has appointed Hadiza Bala Usman, former managing director of the Nigeria Port Authority as the special adviser on policy coordination.

President Tinubu also appointed Hannatu Musa Musawa and Abdullahi Abubakar Gumel, as special adviser, culture and entertainment economy and senior special assistant, national assembly matters (Senate) respectively.

Meanwhile, President Tinubu has sacked the Chief of Defence Staff, all the nation’s Service Chiefs, the Inspector General of Police, IGP Usman Baba Alkali, as well as the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali.

Secretary of the Government of the Federation SGF, Senator George Akume, disclosed this in a statement issued Monday in Abuja.

Akume stated, “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, has approved the immediate retirement of all Service Chiefs and the Inspector-General of Police, Advisers, and Comptroller-General of Customs from Service as well as their replacements with immediate effect.”

Tinubu consequently appointed Mallam Nuhu Ribadu as National Security Adviser; Maj. Gen. C.G Musa, Chief of Defence Staff; Maj. Gen. T. A Lagbaja, Chief of Army Staff; Rear Admirral E. A Ogalla, Chief of Naval Staff; AVM H.B Abubakar, Chief of Air Staff, DIG Kayode Egbetokun, Acting Inspector-General of Police and Maj. Gen. EPA Undiandeye as Chief of Defence Intelligence.

President Tinubu also approved the following appointments: Col. Adebisi Onasanya, Commander, Brigade of Guards; Lt. Col. Moshood Abiodun Yusuf, 7 Guards Battalion, Asokoro, Abuja; Lt. Col. Auwalu Baba Inuwa 177, Guards Battalion, Keffi, Nasarawa State; Lt. Col. Mohammed J. Abdulkarim, 102 Guards Battalion, Suleja, Niger state; and, Lt. Col. Olumide A. Akingbesote, 176 Guards Battalion, Gwagwalada, Abuja.

Similarly, the President has approved the appointments of other Military Officers in the Presidential Villa as follows: Maj. Isa Farouk Audu (N/14695), Commanding Officer, State House Artillery; Capt. Kazeem Olalekan Sunmonu (N/16183), Second-in-Command, State House Artillery; Maj. Kamaru Koyejo Hamzat (N/14656), Commanding Officer, State House Military Intelligence; Maj. TS Adeola (N/12860) Commanding Officer, State House Armament; and, Lt. A. Aminu (N/18578), Second-in- Command, State House Armament.

Details later…

[Vanguard]

On Monday, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, fielded three ad-hoc presiding officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission for cross-examination in its bid to prove that INEC did not comply with electoral guidelines during the February 25 presidential election.

INEC had failed to upload results in real-time on election day.

With the three subpoenaed witnesses that appeared before the Presidential Election Petitions Court sitting in Abuja today, the petitioners have presented 25 witnesses to testify against the election of President Bola Tinubu.

At the resumption of proceedings, PDP counsel, Eyitayo Jegede SAN, introduced Janet T. Turaki, a presiding officer at a polling unit in Gombe State to give evidence and be cross-examined.

Under cross-examination by INEC’s lawyer, A.B. Mahmoud SAN, the witness said although she studied Forestry and Agriculture in school, she was familiar with the use of computer.

On what she observed at her polling unit, she said accreditation of voters was successful but she could not complete the process of uploading of the scanned copy of the polling unit result for the presidential election.

The witness said she entered polling unit scores on the INEC Forms EC8As and party agents signed on it.

“The presidential result couldn’t upload but that of the Senate and House of Assembly uploaded,” the witness said.

When asked by Mahmoud whether INEC trained presiding officers to do offline transfer of Form EC8A, the witness replied “We were trained that when we find ourselves where there is no network, we do offline transmission, but it could not upload,”

But INEC lawyer maintained that she cannot tell if the offline transmission was eventually successful, to which she said, “I don’t know, actually.”

Tinubu’s lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun SAN, told the witness that she was trained by INEC to hand over the hard copy of Form EC8A (polling unit result sheet) to her superior at the Ward level, even if she could not upload electronically using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System BVAS machine.

“We were issued a complaint form and I mentioned the failure to upload results on it,” she said, noting that the conduct of the election at her polling unit was 100 percent successful apart from the failure to upload presidential election results electronically.

During questioning by APC’s lawyer, Charles Uwesoye SAN, she maintained that at her polling unit, only the upload of presidential election results was unsuccessful.

The next witness presented by the PDP was Christopher Bulus, an INEC ad-hoc presiding officer in Bauchi state.

He was asked if he was aware of offline transmission and whether he explored it on election day.

He said when he tried the offline transmission on BVAS, it did not work.

He said he was not satisfied with the electoral process because uploading the Presidential election results at the polling unit was part of the procedure they were taught by INEC.

Tinubu’s lawyer, Olanipekun asked the witness if he thinks his inability to upload scanned copy of presidential results could have affected what he recorded on the Form EC8A.

“I cannot actually say, because as a presider officer, I was asked to submit the result sheet at the Ward collation centre. I don’t know,” the witness told the court.

The witness repeated the same answer during cross-examination by the APC legal team.

After him came Victoria Sani, a presiding officer in Niger state.

She, like others, explained to the court that she accredited voters using the BVAS machine, entered the scores of all political parties on Form EC8A but could not use it to transmit presidential election result, after parties had signed on it.

On the offline method of transmission, she agreed with INEC’s lawyer, Abdullahi Aliyu SAN, that when scanned result are uploaded offline, it may transmit to IREV portal later particularly when there is network.

Under cross examination, by Olanipekun SAN, she said one party agent complained at the polling unit regarding failure to transmit presidential election results election.

“I suggest to you, that till now, no political party or candidate has complained to you that what you recorded on Form EC8A has been altered or tampered with?

“One of them, complained,” the witness replied.

The witnesses were subsequently discharged and the PEPC adjourned to Tuesday for continuation of hearing.

The administration of former Governor of Kano state, Abdullahi Ganduje had spent over N20 billion on 111, 687 indigent students for overseas postgraduate foreign scholarship in 14 countries, five private universities, the Nigerian Law School and other internal universities from June 2015 to March 2023.

This is in response to a recent statement by the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) led government in Kano claiming that the Ganduje regime had abandoned the scholarship programs introduced by former governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso.

Former commissioner for Information and Internal Affairs under the Ganduje administration, Malam Muhammad Garba stated this in a statement against the background of a false claim by the NNPP that Ganduje had not paid foreign scholarship in his eight years two-term administration in the state.

He said the amount covered tuition fees, upkeep, accommodation, and air ticket, among others, was earmarked for students of postgraduate foreign scholarship in India, Malaysia, Egypt, Cyprus, China, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, Togo, Ireland, Gambia, Ukraine as well as internal universities.

Malam Garba said available records indicate that in addition to the above, the former administration also sponsored 50 lecturers from its two universities and other tertiary institutions for their doctorate degrees in French prestigious universities under a programme jointly carried out between the French and Kano state governments.

The commissioner pointed out that over N600 million was also spent on the joint tuition-free postgraduate scholarship between the state government and the French Embassy in Nigeria.

He said it was unfortunate that the present government in the state was laying claims to the success of the foreign and local scholarship, while it left a burden of about $28 million and over N6 billion respectively, which the Ganduje administration had settled more than 80 per cent of it.

Malam Garba stated further that the postgraduate students were sent in three batches to top-ranking universities in France and some European countries, mostly to study science-related courses.

The commissioner further stated that the Ganduje administration re-introduced the payment of scholarship allowances to indigenous students attending Nigerian universities and other tertiary institutions, which was completely abandoned by the Kwankwaso administration between 2011 and 2015.

He added under the scheme, the sum of N865.4 million was disbursed as scholarship allowances and provision of logistics for the payment exercise to indigenous students in the five Emirates across the 44 local governments of the state.

Garba said the former administration also reviewed upward by 50 per cent scholarship allowances to the students of the state.

Nigerian business tycoon, Aliko Dangote and Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates have congratulated President Bola Tinubu on the removal of fuel subsidy and other recent strides achieved by the new administration.

Dangote made this known in a chat with State House correspondents after the duo met with the President in his office on Monday.

According to businessman, the expectation is that the removal of fuel subsidy will open up better financial capabilities for the country to invest in other areas such as education as well as advance development among the citizenry.

The business tycoon further stated that the courtesy visit was congratulatory and an opportunity to brief the President on the activities of the Bill Gates and Aliko Dangote Foundations, as they seek more commitments from the President, particularly towards advancing the nation’s health sector.

He also noted that “Nigerians have been getting a lot and should expect more. All is great, things are going well”.

On his part, the President pledged to prioritise the health and safety of Nigerians, underscoring that the health of citizens, particularly the workforce is critical for any country to develop.

The President said his administration would do all that is required to make their work in Nigeria and Africa successful, particularly in the area of eradicating polio, measles, malaria and other diseases from the continent.

According to the President, Gates “has all it takes to help developing nations more”.

Following his inauguration, Tinubu has continued to host prominent guests in Aso Rock.

He had earlier today met with Chairman of Bhanti Artel Worldwide, Sunil Mittal; who came in company of Chief Executive Officer Airtel Nigeria, Segun Ogunsanya, and other members of the company’s board.

Tinubu also held a meeting with the United States Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Energy Resources, Geoffrey Praytt, as well as the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mele Kyari.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has asked President Bola Tinubu to change the newly assented Students Loans Act to grant for indigent students.

“This would have been better if we are giving it to those set of students who are very poor, it should be called a grant, not a loan,” ASUU National President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke said on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme today.

“It should be called a grant since it is coming from the Federation Account and not that (after) these people have access it and when they are graduating, they have heavy loads behind them and within two years, if they don’t pay, they go to jail. That’s why we’re talking about collective bargaining, you have views from all the sides.”

On Monday, Tinubu signed into law the Students Loans Bill in fulfilment of a promise he made during his campaign. The bill was sponsored by the Speaker of the 9th House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, who is now the President’s Chief of Staff. Now an Act, the law provides for interest-free loans to poor Nigerian students.

However, the ASUU President said the loan is impracticable. He said the loan is “not sustainable”.

Osodeke said, “The idea of student loan came in 1972 and it was in a bank established. People who took loans never paid, you can go and investigate. In 1994, 1993, the military enacted Decree 50 also set up a Students’ Loan Board. The National Assembly domesticated it in 2004 and within a year, it went off. The money disappeared. We want to see how this one will be different.”

According to him, there are more than one million students in Nigerian public universities and the loan cannot adequately cater for students’ tuition.

The ASUU President said the conditions for the loan are “not practicable”, adding that more than 90% of students won’t meet the “stringent requirements” to access and repay the loan.

“We, as a union also did research of countries all over the world, of people who have benefited from this loan, they were committing suicide. Recently, (President Joe) Biden is trying to pay back the bank loans of some who borrowed in the US,” he said.

“It is better to look for alternative means of funding education than to encumbering students whose parents earn N30,000 a month with a loan.”