The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has described as unfortunate and misleading claims attributed to the former governor of Anambra State and presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general election, Peter Obi, alleging threats to his life.

Ganduje, in a statement he personally signed on Wednesday, described the claims by Obi as sheer mischief and outright falsehood, which would have been ignored if not for the need to refute such a baseless narrative.

The APC National Chairman expressed displeasure over the claim shared on Mr. Obi’s verified official X (formerly Twitter) account, labelling it as a malicious lie aimed at seeking attention and playing the victim for emotional blackmail.

Ganduje further stated that Obi’s accusations stemmed from a misrepresentation of remarks made by the APC National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, during an interview on AriseNews Channels’ ‘ThisDay Live’ on Saturday, January 4, 2025.

He stated unequivocally that at no point did Morka threaten the former Anambra governor or his family.

“By falsely claiming that Morka threatened his life, Mr. Obi has libeled Morka in the extreme and incited his online supporters to issue death threats against Morka and his family,” Ganduje said.

He emphasised that as a public figure, Obi has a responsibility to provide accurate and truthful information, adding that spreading falsehood undermines public trust.

Ganduje noted that Morka was simply discharging his duties as the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, holding opposition actors accountable for their statements, as is expected in a democratic setting.

“Morka’s comments during the interview were strictly in response to a question referencing ‘prophets of doom’ and ‘voodoo economics.’ Nothing in his statement constituted or suggested a threat to Obi or anyone else,” he clarified.

The APC chairman further underscored the importance of free speech, a right protected by Nigeria’s Constitution, which applies equally to all Nigerians, including members of the ruling party and therefore called on Mr. Obi to refrain from misinformation and to accept criticism as part of the democratic process.

“Does Mr. Obi expect the APC to fold its arms and allow the opposition to propagate falsehoods without any response?” Ganduje queried, stressing that the APC will continue to counter baseless allegations with facts against the Tinubu led government.

He stated that the party stands by the position of the National Publicity Secretary in his effort to defend the federal government and set the records straight against disinformation by desperate politicians.

Ganduje reiterated the APC’s commitment to upholding democratic principles while holding opposition actors accountable when necessary.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Daniel Amah, once celebrated for rejecting a $200,000 bribe nearly three years ago, has converted to Islam in a private ceremony held at the palace of 16th Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II.

The event, which took place on Tuesday, saw Amah formally embracing Islam and adopting ‘Muhammad’ as his new name.

Speaking during the ceremony, Emir Sanusi II urged the newly converted Amah to seek Islamic knowledge and observe the core tenets of the religion, including the five pillars of Islam: belief in Allah, daily five-time prayers, fasting during Ramadan, pilgrimage to Mecca, and Zakat (charitable giving).

Addressing Amah in Hausa language, the Emir prayed for Allah’s guidance for him, expressing hope that he would excel as a devout Muslim. He also advised Amah to maintain his exemplary character and to remain respectful and obedient to his parents, regardless of their religious beliefs.

LEADERSHIP recalls that Amah first gained national recognition in April 2022 as the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Nasarawa Police Division in Kano State. He rejected a $200,000 bribe offered by armed robbery suspects involved in the theft of over N300million. The suspects, led by Ali Zaki, had trailed and robbed a Bureau De Change (BDC) operator who was in possession of $750,000 cash.

In recognition of his integrity, the Police Service Commission (PSC) promoted Amah from Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) to Assistant Commissioner of Police on November 10, 2022. Additionally, he received the prestigious 2022 Public Service Integrity Award from the then President Muhammadu Buhari.

The award followed a recommendation by the then chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, in a letter dated September 13, 2022.

The University of Lagos, Akoka, will graduate two students as the overall best-graduating students with a perfect Cumulative Grade Point Average of 5.0 at its 55th convocation ceremony.

Both students are from the Department of Cell Biology and Genetics, Faculty of Science.

Speaking on Wednesday at a media briefing, Vice-Chancellor Prof. Folasade Ogunsola said that the convocation would start on Friday, January 10, with a Jumaat service and end on Sunday, January 17, 2025, with a thanksgiving service.

“The overall best-graduating student position is shared by two students Damilare Adebakin and Samuel Badekale, from the Faculty of Science, Department of Cell Biology & Genetics with a perfect score of 5.0,” a statement made available to PUNCH Online on Wednesday read.

Ogunsola said, “We will be graduating 16,409 students of these 9,684 students will receive first degrees and diplomas while 6,659 will be awarded postgraduate degrees while 66 will graduate from the UNILAG Business School.”

Ogunsola added that on Monday, January 13, at noon, a convocation lecture titled ‘Universities as Hubs for Development and Wealth Creation,’ would be delivered by CEO of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, Dr Tayo Aduloju, at the J.F. Ade-Ajayi Auditorium.

“Former Lagos State Governor, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola will chair the event, which aims to discuss the funding of tertiary education and its role in driving economic and social progress.

“We are looking forward to a very thought-provoking lecture that will add to the discussion on funding of tertiary education and positioning them as drivers of economic and social development.

“We are privileged to have as Chairman, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, CON, SAN, former Governor of Lagos State and former Minister of Works, whose clarity in addressing issues was pivotal to innovative reforms and development of our country,” she stated.

She added that three eminent Nigerians, including the co-founder of Guaranty Trust Bank, Fola Adeola; the Group Managing Director of Sahara Power Group, Engr. Kolawole Adesina, and the director-general of the World Trade Organisation, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, would be conferred with the honorary degree of Doctor of Science.

The convocation week will feature several key events, including the groundbreaking ceremony for the School of Postgraduate Studies building on January 13, a project donated by Chief Tunde Fanimokun in celebration of his 80th birthday.

Award ceremonies for degrees, diplomas, and certificates will take place from January 14 to January 16 across various faculties, with postgraduate degrees and diplomas being conferred on January 16.

The week will also include a convocation play, Langbodo by Wale Ogunyemi, on January 17 and conclude with a thanksgiving service on January 19.

“The ceremonies will formally come to an end on Sunday, January 19, 2025, with a Thanksgiving Service at the Chapel of Christ Our Light, University of Lagos at 10:00 am,” the statement concluded.

The 2023 African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has dismissed the Federal Government’s proposed National Youth Conference as a scheme to reward President Bola Tinubu’s son, Seyi Tinubu, and his associates.

Sowore made this claim on Wednesday during an appearance on Lunchtime Politics, alleging that the initiative would fail to address the pressing challenges facing Nigerian youths.

“The current administration wants to compensate the youths ‘who are in the corner,’ particularly the son of the president and his friends,” Sowore said, describing the move as unproductive and politically motivated.

President Tinubu, during his nationwide broadcast on October 1, announced plans for a 30-day National Youth Conference aimed at creating a platform for youths to discuss and address the challenges they face.

“Considering this, I am pleased to announce the gathering of a National Youth Conference. This conference will be a platform to address the diverse challenges and opportunities confronting our young people, who constitute more than 60 per cent of our population,” Tinubu had stated.

However, Sowore questioned the sincerity of the initiative, arguing that it was unlikely to produce meaningful outcomes.

He said, “The agenda is to compensate some young people who are in their corner. These young people they are calling to a conference are probably Seyi Tinubu’s friends, not Nigerian youths.

“They cannot afford to have the real youths on the table. If I am invited, I will not go because I know in advance that this is a joke, nothing will come out of this.

“They want young people to feel like, ‘Oh, they belong.’ If you come to a national youth conference, they get it livestreamed, they will get them compensated and at the end of the day, nothing will come out of it.”

Sowore argued that youths do not need a national conference if they truly want to take over power.

He added that the young people who are serious about governance would team up in unity to actualise their plans.

Newly-appointed Super Eagles head coach, Eric Chelle will earn a monthly stipend of $50,000, it has been revealed.

According to OwngoalNigeria, his assistants will get $5,000 each as their salary.

Chelle will arrive Abuja this weekend to finalise the details of his contract.

The 47-year-old is expected to sign a two-year contract with the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF.

Local coaches, Daniel Ogunmodede and Fidelis Ilechukwu are expected to be part of the new technical crew.

Chelle’s first assignment will be the 2024 African Nations Championship which will kick-off early next month.

Nigerians continue to grapple with food inflation despite the promise by the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, that food prices would crash in 180 days.

In July 2024, Kyari raised hopes with the assurance that strategic measures would be put in place to address the high food prices nationwide.

According to him, some of the measures include the suspension of duties, tariffs, and taxes on food items such as maize, husked brown rice, wheat, and cowpeas.

Our administration has unveiled a series of strategic measures aimed at addressing the high food prices currently affecting our nation. These measures will be implemented over the next 180 days;

1.150-Day Duty-Free Import Window for Food Commodities
•Suspension of duties,… pic.twitter.com/cdhCGikzjs

— Sen. Abubakar Kyari, CON (@SenatorAKyari) July 10, 2024

He also promised that the Federal Government would import 250,000 metric tonnes of wheat and 250,000 metric tonnes of maize to be supplied to small-scale processors and millers across the country.

To strengthen dry season farming and boost productivity, the minister assured Nigerians that the government would embark on aggressive agricultural mechanisation.

These measures, calculated to calm food inflation in 180 days gave Nigerians a sense of hope that by the first week of January 2024, the prices of essential staples would have crashed.

Food prices

Unfortunately, 180 days after the minister’s lofty promises and assurance, implementation of the measures is yet to be seen as food prices continue to soar.
As things stand, a 50kg bag of rice sold for N85,000 when Kyari unveiled the measures now sells for over N100,000.

Besides the agriculture minister’s yet-to-be fulfilled promises, the government had earlier highlighted other factors that hinder its efforts to control food inflation.

In his last Monetary Policy Committee meeting, Yemi Cardoso, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, identified “the rising cost of transporting farm produce; infrastructure-related constraints within the distribution network; security challenges in some food-producing areas; and the impact of exchange rate fluctuations on the prices of imported food items” as some of the factors that the efforts to control food inflation.

Meanwhile, as food inflation surged to 39.93% with Nigerians looking up to the government for immediate solutions, the Ministry of Agriculture has not offered any explanation as to why the measures it promised have not been implemented yet.

Why govt failed – CSOs, farmers

Speaking with Vanguard on Tuesday, January 7, 2025, they pointed out that the government failed to put a whole lot of issues into consideration including insecurity, high prices of farm inputs, the exchange rates, high interest rates, flood impacts, holistic planning, and others.

The Chairman, All Farmers Association of Nigeria, AFAN, Federal Capital Territory, FCT Chapter, Nkechi Okafor, asserted that the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security had a very good intention to crash food prices but that lack of appropriate actions slowed the process.

Okafor said: “I can clearly say that the Honourable Minister’s promise was made with the mindset of a better Nigeria. But unfortunately, a promise can’t be achieved if there are no effective actions in place.

“Food prices cannot just go down overnight especially with the multiple taxation faced on Nigeria highways by transporters, which is just one out of numerous challenges faced by agricultural value chain actors in Nigeria.

In his view, the Managing Director, EA Daniels Farm, Engr Daniel Ijeh, explained that one of the major causes of failure to meet the 180 days declaration by the Federal Government was due to lack of importation of food and other measures that were not implemented.

Ijeh said: “If they want to import to crash the price of food, what the minister is saying is the cost of importation is way lower than the cost of purchasing from the local market. And if you check the price of grain from that time till December, there was no any sign that there was importation at all because there was steady increase.

“That is why I doubt whether there was importation at all. Then the exchange rate was too high because I remember very well that around August, I bought some Dollars with N1,600. Now, I think around November Dollar was selling for N1,700. So foreign exchange rate will never favour importation because the price will be too high, and, you know, the people who want to do that, they will still be thinking of how are they going to make profit?”

‘All careless talks’

Rafsanjani said: “We just want to advise that public officials should be mindful of saying things that they have no control over, especially when his (Kyari) principal says that he does not believe in price control.

“So, it is not good to raise the expectation of citizens, and the government is not there to intervene. This is the very reason why some people don’t want to believe in the government’s statement. Whenever the government says something, people don’t believe in it because they don’t rarely see any sincerity about it.”

Corroborating Rafsanjani’s sentiment, the Executive Director, Global Rights Nigeria, Abiodun Baiyewu said Kyari’s comments were careless and only further erodes trust in the government.

According to him, it was a poor attempt at rallying support for the Tinubu administration by giving false hope, adding that the minister ought to apologise to Nigerians for his ‘careless remarks.’

“It should have been clear to him that the reduction in import taxes were not sufficient to deal with the short fall. The exchange rate was still inordinately too high for private importers, and the time it takes in clearing them from the ports only further exacerbates their ordeal and raises their fares.

“With the rise in the cost of fuel, the cost of transportation and preservation also rose exponentially.
“If he is committed to ensuring food security, there is a lot the administration can do and he should work on implementing these,” Baiyewu submitted.

Felix Morka, the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has clarified his controversial statement and alleged death threat insinuation against Peter Obi and his family.

The Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 general election recently alleged that Morka’s reaction to his New Year message has led to threats against his life and family.

It would be recalled that following Obi’s New Year message, the APC chieftain during an interview on Arise TV said “Obi has crossed the line so many times” adding that “whatever he has coming to him, he should manage it.”

According to Obi, since Morka made the statement on TV, he has been receiving all sorts of messages including threats to his life and that of those around him.

However, Morka while appearing on Arise TV’s The Morning Show on Wednesday, January 8, 2025, explained that his statement did not suggest any threat to Obi’s life.

He clarified that the comment was a direct response to the question about Obi being labeled a voodoo economist and prophet of doom.

Morka said his comment on Obi getting whatever comes to him is predicated on his belief that the ex-governor of Anambra State has crossed several lines of truth, adding that he deserved whatever names he’s called because he speaks “a lot of falsehood.”

The APC chieftain said, “If Peter Obi was called a prophet of doom or was called a voodoo economist, he has it coming to him because he has crossed several lines of truth, end of story. There’s nothing else to suggest (threats) in those words that I said in the moment of the interview. Peter Obi is speaking a lot of falsehood.”

While dismissing Obi’s death threat claim, Morka asked the Labour Party chieftain to produce evidence of the alleged threats against his life and his family members.

“He who alleges must prove. If Peter Obi says anyone threatened him, he must beyond just saying I’ve been threatened. For a man in his standing, I think he should supply some evidence of those who threatened him because if anyone threatened Peter Obi, we should not be having a conversation in your studio. The law enforcement system should be looking for those who threatened Obi’s life,” Morka said.

The APC Publicity Secretary maintained that he did not threaten Obi, insisting that his comment was about him being deservedly labeled a voodoo economist because he “crosses several lines of truth.”

The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, says that telecom tariffs will soon increase but assures Nigerians that it will not be the 100 per cent that telecom operators are pushing for at the moment.

The Minister disclosed this at a stakeholders’ meeting with Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) on Wednesday in Abuja. He said consultations and engagements were ongoing to arrive at an acceptable rate, assuring that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), would soon approve the new tariffs and make it public to Nigerians.

“You have seen over the past weeks that there has been agitation from some of these companies to increase tariff. They are requesting for 100 per cent tariff increase.

“But it will not be by 100 per cent. We are still looking at that study and NCC will come up with a clear directive on how we will go about it.

“We want to strike the balance as a government to protect our people, but also protect and ensure that these companies can continue to invest significantly.

“We need to ensure that as a sector, we get our acts together, ensure that from the regulation side, we put the right regulations in place that can ensure the growth of this sector.”

The Minister also noted that the Federal Government would no longer leave investments on infrastructure in the sector to private companies alone.

“As a country, over time, we have left this investments in the hands of the private sector. They typically invest where they can see returns in the short to medium term.

“We will not want this conversation to just be about tariff increase. I think what the world is talking about today is meaningful connectivity.

“You want to have access to very good quality service.

“A part of it that the consumers may not be aware of is the investment that needs to go into the infrastructure that is used to deliver these services,” he said.

The Executive Vice-Chairman (EVC), of the NCC Dr Aminu Maida said that the meeting with stakeholders was about the sustainability of the industry.

“We have looked at all of these factors, and that is why, like the Minister said, it is not likely that we are going to approve 100 per cent tariff increase.

“I know that Nigerians are agitated to hear the exact percentage approved. There is still some stakeholder engagements that we are going through, but you will hear from us within a week or two.”

He said that the NCC had put a number of tools and instruments into place by revising its quality of service regulations for compliance service quality.

He said that the MNOs must comply simplified templates to show Nigerians charges per minute for voice calls, SMS and a megabyte of data.

“We are moving away from the regime where you will have a main rate, then you will now have a bonus which is at a different rate.

“It makes it often complicated and difficult for Nigerians to actually understand what they are being charged for.

“This is one of the things when we took a lot of time over the past year looking at data there is this agitation that the MNOs are stealing our data,” he said.

The CEO of Airtel Nigeria, Dinesh Balsingh, represented by Femi Adeniran, Airtel media spokes person, noted that for the telecoms commitment to delivering superior connectivity and fostering digital inclusion, there is need for tariff increments.

“The economic realities of rising operational and capital costs, necessitated the proposed tariff adjustments.

This is aimed to ensure the long-term sustainability of the sector while unlocking significant benefits for Nigerian consumers,” he said.

Bashir Ahmad, former Special Assistant on Digital Communications to former President, Muhammadu Buhari, has argued that Almajiri children should not be regarded as out-of-school kids. 

Ahmad shared this in a tweet on Wednesday, January 8, 2025, affirming the sentiment of the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Saidu on the matter. 

Almajiri is an Hausa word which means a group of people or children who leave their homes in search of Quranic knowledge. However, the term has been colloquially expanded to refer to any young person who begs on the streets and does not attend secular school.

In his submission, Bashir called for the integration of the Almajiri education system into the national educational framework.

The ex-presidential aide argued that the Federal Government’s recognition of the Almajiri set up as a system of education could make the north become the region with the least number of out-of-school children in the country.

“The Minister of State for Education, Prof. Suwaiba Saidu, is absolutely correct that Almajiri children should not be classified as out-of-school children, as the Almajiri is a system of Islamic education. However, I believe the best way to address this is by integrating the Almajiri education system into our national educational framework or ensuring it is officially recognized by the system.

“Once this is achieved, the northern states could become those with the lowest numbers of out-of-school children, as it is rare to find a child in the north who does not attend either formal or Islamic school,” he said.

He added that Almajiri children are visible on the streets primarily because the current system does not adequately provide for their needs. 

“If Almajiri schools were given treatment in terms of support and structure similar to that of boarding schools, the narrative would change entirely,” he said.