APC

Showing posts with label APC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label APC. Show all posts

FACT CHECK: Newly INEC Chair, Prof Joash Amupitan was a member of the legal team of Bola Tinubu & the APC in the presidential election petition of 2023

FACT CHECK: Newly INEC Chair, Prof Joash Amupitan was a member of the legal team of Bola Tinubu & the APC in the presidential election petition of 2023

 FACT CHECK : Was Prof. Joash Amupitan a member of the legal team of Bola Tinubu and the APC in the presidential election petition of 2023?


Yes, Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan, SAN—a distinguished Nigerian legal scholar, professor of law at the University of Jos, and Senior Advocate of Nigeria—was part of the legal team representing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 presidential election petition tribunal. The tribunal, presided over by the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), heard challenges to Tinubu’s victory in the February 2023 general elections, primarily from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party (LP) led by Peter Obi.

Key Details of His Role

 

Amupitan 

• Position on the Team: Amupitan served as lead counsel for the APC and Tinubu during the proceedings. This role involved defending the election’s integrity against allegations of irregularities, non-compliance with electoral laws (e.g., the Electronic Transmission of Results or IReV system), voter suppression, and Tinubu’s eligibility under Section 137 of the 1999 Constitution.

 • Context of the Case: The APC’s defense, coordinated under lead counsel Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, argued that the petitioners failed to substantiate claims of widespread malpractice. Amupitan contributed to this strategy, focusing on legal precedents in electoral law, evidence admissibility, and procedural dismissals. The tribunal ultimately dismissed the petitions on September 6, 2023, upholding Tinubu’s victory in a unanimous 4-0 decision (with one justice recusing).

 • Team Composition: The APC assembled a formidable team of over 50 Senior Advocates, including Olanipekun, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN, now Attorney-General), and others like Gordy Uche (SAN) and Adeniyi Akintola (SAN). Amupitan’s expertise in corporate governance, evidence law, and electoral reforms aligned with the defense’s emphasis on dismissing petitions for lack of merit.

Evidence and Sources

This involvement has been corroborated in multiple reports, particularly amid recent scrutiny following Tinubu’s nomination of Amupitan as INEC Chairman in October 2025. Civil society groups, such as the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations in Nigeria (COCSON), highlighted his prior role as a potential conflict of interest, urging rejection of the nomination to preserve INEC’s neutrality. For instance:

 • COCSON explicitly noted Amupitan’s service as “lead counsel to the APC and President Tinubu during the 2023 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal,” arguing it could erode public trust in electoral impartiality.

Broader Implications

Amupitan’s participation underscores his deep engagement in high-stakes electoral litigation, drawing from his over 30 years of legal practice since being called to the Bar in 1988. However, his 2025 INEC nomination—approved by the Council of State on October 9, 2025, and pending Senate confirmation—has reignited debates on partisanship in public appointments. Tinubu described him as “apolitical and a man of integrity,” but critics point to this history as evidence of alignment with the APC.

This confirmation is based on contemporaneous 2023 reports and recent 2025 analyses of his career trajectory.

 FACT CHECK : Was Prof. Joash Amupitan a member of the legal team of Bola Tinubu and the APC in the presidential election petition of 2023?


Yes, Prof. Joash Ojo Amupitan, SAN—a distinguished Nigerian legal scholar, professor of law at the University of Jos, and Senior Advocate of Nigeria—was part of the legal team representing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 presidential election petition tribunal. The tribunal, presided over by the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), heard challenges to Tinubu’s victory in the February 2023 general elections, primarily from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by Atiku Abubakar and the Labour Party (LP) led by Peter Obi.

Key Details of His Role

 

Amupitan 

• Position on the Team: Amupitan served as lead counsel for the APC and Tinubu during the proceedings. This role involved defending the election’s integrity against allegations of irregularities, non-compliance with electoral laws (e.g., the Electronic Transmission of Results or IReV system), voter suppression, and Tinubu’s eligibility under Section 137 of the 1999 Constitution.

 • Context of the Case: The APC’s defense, coordinated under lead counsel Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, argued that the petitioners failed to substantiate claims of widespread malpractice. Amupitan contributed to this strategy, focusing on legal precedents in electoral law, evidence admissibility, and procedural dismissals. The tribunal ultimately dismissed the petitions on September 6, 2023, upholding Tinubu’s victory in a unanimous 4-0 decision (with one justice recusing).

 • Team Composition: The APC assembled a formidable team of over 50 Senior Advocates, including Olanipekun, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN, now Attorney-General), and others like Gordy Uche (SAN) and Adeniyi Akintola (SAN). Amupitan’s expertise in corporate governance, evidence law, and electoral reforms aligned with the defense’s emphasis on dismissing petitions for lack of merit.

Evidence and Sources

This involvement has been corroborated in multiple reports, particularly amid recent scrutiny following Tinubu’s nomination of Amupitan as INEC Chairman in October 2025. Civil society groups, such as the Coalition of Civil Society Organizations in Nigeria (COCSON), highlighted his prior role as a potential conflict of interest, urging rejection of the nomination to preserve INEC’s neutrality. For instance:

 • COCSON explicitly noted Amupitan’s service as “lead counsel to the APC and President Tinubu during the 2023 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal,” arguing it could erode public trust in electoral impartiality.

Broader Implications

Amupitan’s participation underscores his deep engagement in high-stakes electoral litigation, drawing from his over 30 years of legal practice since being called to the Bar in 1988. However, his 2025 INEC nomination—approved by the Council of State on October 9, 2025, and pending Senate confirmation—has reignited debates on partisanship in public appointments. Tinubu described him as “apolitical and a man of integrity,” but critics point to this history as evidence of alignment with the APC.

This confirmation is based on contemporaneous 2023 reports and recent 2025 analyses of his career trajectory.

Ondo APC group petitions national secretariat over Olubunmi Ojo's alleged grassroot neglect, violent attack on party members

Ondo APC group petitions national secretariat over Olubunmi Ojo's alleged grassroot neglect, violent attack on party members

Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo 

A group named Ondo APC Mandate Group has petitioned the All Progressive Congress national secretariat over what it described as the minister of interior's neglect of the grassroot and violence against party members. 


In a petition dated 17th of Sept, 2025, signed by the convener of the group Alhaji Ariwoola Abdukareem, comrade Gbenga Bojuwomi the secretary and four other exco members, submitted to the party's headquarters in Abuja, the group alleged the Minister of Interior of masterminding violent attack on party members during the last local government election in the state.

  

In the petition titled: "Call for Accountability and Reflection on the Conduct of Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo", addressed to the national chairman of the party, Prof Nentawe Yilwatda, the group called on the leadership of the party to call the minister to order for violent attack, neglect and total disregard for his grassroot supporters who were instrumental to his emergence and rising political profile.


The petition reads in part; "We, the undersigned stakeholders and concerned citizens of Akoko Land in Ondo State, wish to express our deep concern regarding the conduct and political disposition of Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, Minister of Interior and former Member of the House of Representatives.


"Hon. Tunji-Ojo, appears to attribute his political success solely to personal merit, disregarding the collective efforts and sacrifices of many political actors from Akoko Land and Ondo State, the APC mandate group in particular."



The group further alleged that Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo has paid their selfless gesture with attack, arrogance and dismissiveness, as he portray his political rise and victory as a personal triumph rather than a collective achievement.


"Similar trait was displayed during the recent local government elections in Ondo State, when the minister allegedly orchestrated acts of violence against party members solely on the ground that his preferred aspirant did not emerge at the primaries. 


Notably, Hon. Oluwatoye Ajiboye, the APC councillorship candidate in Ward 5 of Akoko northwest, was reportedly assaulted by the men of Nigeria Civil Defense Corps and another party leader detained for days by the Police under the ministers' instruction", the petition read.


The APC group maintained that the minister's actions raise serious questions about his commitment to democratic values and party unity as his behavior suggests a troubling disconnect from the people he claims to represent. 


”We therefore, call on the APC leadership under Prof. Yelwata, the Presidency and the concerned security agencies to take a closer look at the minister’s activities and their implications on security, party’s image and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s second-term aspirations".

Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo 

A group named Ondo APC Mandate Group has petitioned the All Progressive Congress national secretariat over what it described as the minister of interior's neglect of the grassroot and violence against party members. 


In a petition dated 17th of Sept, 2025, signed by the convener of the group Alhaji Ariwoola Abdukareem, comrade Gbenga Bojuwomi the secretary and four other exco members, submitted to the party's headquarters in Abuja, the group alleged the Minister of Interior of masterminding violent attack on party members during the last local government election in the state.

  

In the petition titled: "Call for Accountability and Reflection on the Conduct of Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo", addressed to the national chairman of the party, Prof Nentawe Yilwatda, the group called on the leadership of the party to call the minister to order for violent attack, neglect and total disregard for his grassroot supporters who were instrumental to his emergence and rising political profile.


The petition reads in part; "We, the undersigned stakeholders and concerned citizens of Akoko Land in Ondo State, wish to express our deep concern regarding the conduct and political disposition of Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, Minister of Interior and former Member of the House of Representatives.


"Hon. Tunji-Ojo, appears to attribute his political success solely to personal merit, disregarding the collective efforts and sacrifices of many political actors from Akoko Land and Ondo State, the APC mandate group in particular."



The group further alleged that Hon. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo has paid their selfless gesture with attack, arrogance and dismissiveness, as he portray his political rise and victory as a personal triumph rather than a collective achievement.


"Similar trait was displayed during the recent local government elections in Ondo State, when the minister allegedly orchestrated acts of violence against party members solely on the ground that his preferred aspirant did not emerge at the primaries. 


Notably, Hon. Oluwatoye Ajiboye, the APC councillorship candidate in Ward 5 of Akoko northwest, was reportedly assaulted by the men of Nigeria Civil Defense Corps and another party leader detained for days by the Police under the ministers' instruction", the petition read.


The APC group maintained that the minister's actions raise serious questions about his commitment to democratic values and party unity as his behavior suggests a troubling disconnect from the people he claims to represent. 


”We therefore, call on the APC leadership under Prof. Yelwata, the Presidency and the concerned security agencies to take a closer look at the minister’s activities and their implications on security, party’s image and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s second-term aspirations".

LP Spokesperson — APC In a Fresh Plot to Infiltrate, Hijack Our Congress Structures

LP Spokesperson — APC In a Fresh Plot to Infiltrate, Hijack Our Congress Structures

Tony Akeni 

The Interim Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party in Nigeria, Prince Tony Akeni has confirmed that the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) is currently in a fresh and desperate plots to infiltrate and hijack the party again.


The Labour Party is just coming out of a very long leadership crisis believed to have been politically motivated and sponsored by the ruling party. The  Apapa—Abure leadership imbroglio and later INEC insistence on tenure expiration of the Abure led leadership crippled the party's progress and momentum since 2023 general election.


With 2027 general election already in Sight, the Senator Nenadi Usman-led Labour Party (LP) has cried out over what it described as a desperate plot by the Bola Ahmed led federal government and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to hijack its structures by infiltrating its ranks.


The party's leadership has consistently maintained it's opposition against Tinubu’s  unending love for foreign travels amidst Nigeria’s growing security and economic challenges. 


According to Akeni the information reaching the party’s headquarters from various states of the federation showed that the ruling party was positioning its moles to infiltrate the party structures through the scheduled party congresses at the ward, local government, state, zonal, and ultimately, the national level.


“We have been made aware of the heinous plot by the ruling APC to infiltrate our ranks at all levels to derail our forthcoming congresses."


“If they fail, they plan to get a seat on our party’s table to continue from where they stopped after failing to use former National Chairman, Julius Abure, to distract us from our goal of rebuilding our party.


“Nigerians are also aware of what the current administration has turned our institutions, such as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), into."


“We are all witnesses to what transpired during the by-elections, which were held in 16 out of the 36 states recently, and the manipulation of the ongoing voter registration exercise."


“Our nation cannot afford to have a repeat of the era where the American boxer, Mike Tyson, the late pop star, Michael Jackson, and Lionel Richie appear on our voters’ register.'


“As a party, we will continue to urge Nigerian voters to be vigilant. Eternal vigilance, as they say, is the price we all must pay to protect our democracy."


“The body language of INEC as presently constituted gives it away as an institution which is only ready to pander to the whims and caprices of the ruling party."


“We can only pray that whosoever is coming into office after the tenure of the current INEC boss expires in November or December is not going to throw the confidence of Nigerians down the drain", he explained.


In a statement earlier issued by Akeni on behalf of the party, he criticised Tinubu’s seemingly unending love for foreign travels amidst Nigeria’s growing security and economic challenges.


He said the president’s trip this time around indicated that he was increasingly becoming allergic to staying at home to tackle the nation’s problems.


President Tinubu left Nigeria for a 10-day working vacation in France and the United Kingdom as part of his 2025 annual leave on Thursday.


Akeni noted that available records show that 135 million Nigerians fell into poverty within the first 18 months of Tinubu’s administration due to difficult economic policies.


He equally pointed out that galloping inflation, weakening of Nigeria’s currency, the naira, and insecurity have been the hallmark of Tinubu’s rule since he took power in 2023.


Akeni said, “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu departed Nigeria for yet another of his many overseas trips. “This time, the trip is officially explained as a 10-day vacation and part of his 2025 annual leave, which he will spend in France and the United Kingdom.


“As President Tinubu takes to the sky, he leaves behind a country ravaged by economic hardship where 135 million citizens fell into poverty in the first 18 months of his administration, caused by his difficult economic policies.


“Tinubu also leaves behind an insecurity of historic proportions, where 57 Nigerians die every day from various forms of violent death.


“This amounts to seven deaths more than Ukraine’s war casualties, which lose 50 citizens per day in its full-scale war with Russia, according to research by Mediazona and The Book of Memory Group, corroborated by a similar BBC study.


“The Nigerian casualty figures exclude deaths from daily traffic accidents, Nigeria’s frequent boat mishaps, and other civil hazards.


“You will recall that President Tinubu had only sat in office for four months after his swearing in on May 29, 2023, when he flew overseas on his first annual vacation. This was on October 2, 2023.


“This means that under the APC governance manual, four months made up one year for the Nigerian president to go on an annual vacation. This is historic for a post-inaugural president because it doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world.


“Since assuming office on May 29, 2023, President Tinubu has travelled and virtually ‘lived’ outside Nigeria for nearly 160 days. This is almost half of an entire year in only two years of office.


“Tracing this unproductive trend backwards to Buhari’s days, records show that APC produces dinner and toothpick presidents who eat breakfast in Abuja, have lunch in Paris, and belch in London.


“They enjoy costly vacations abroad like children enjoy excursions to amusement parks. From Buhari’s administration to Tinubu’s current rule, that is the only reason why billions of naira they vote every year for the Aso Villa presidential clinic perpetually empty into unknown pockets, and the clinic’s medicine shelves do not have drugs for even cramps.


“From late Buhari to Tinubu, APC has continued to produce nomadic presidents whose medical and social tourism cost our country billions of Naira in taxpayers’ money.”


The Labour Party’s interim spokesman said the party will do things differently should Nigerians vote it into power come 2027.


According to him, it is the government’s responsibility to put in place a standard healthcare system that would cater to...


Tony Akeni 

The Interim Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party in Nigeria, Prince Tony Akeni has confirmed that the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) is currently in a fresh and desperate plots to infiltrate and hijack the party again.


The Labour Party is just coming out of a very long leadership crisis believed to have been politically motivated and sponsored by the ruling party. The  Apapa—Abure leadership imbroglio and later INEC insistence on tenure expiration of the Abure led leadership crippled the party's progress and momentum since 2023 general election.


With 2027 general election already in Sight, the Senator Nenadi Usman-led Labour Party (LP) has cried out over what it described as a desperate plot by the Bola Ahmed led federal government and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to hijack its structures by infiltrating its ranks.


The party's leadership has consistently maintained it's opposition against Tinubu’s  unending love for foreign travels amidst Nigeria’s growing security and economic challenges. 


According to Akeni the information reaching the party’s headquarters from various states of the federation showed that the ruling party was positioning its moles to infiltrate the party structures through the scheduled party congresses at the ward, local government, state, zonal, and ultimately, the national level.


“We have been made aware of the heinous plot by the ruling APC to infiltrate our ranks at all levels to derail our forthcoming congresses."


“If they fail, they plan to get a seat on our party’s table to continue from where they stopped after failing to use former National Chairman, Julius Abure, to distract us from our goal of rebuilding our party.


“Nigerians are also aware of what the current administration has turned our institutions, such as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), into."


“We are all witnesses to what transpired during the by-elections, which were held in 16 out of the 36 states recently, and the manipulation of the ongoing voter registration exercise."


“Our nation cannot afford to have a repeat of the era where the American boxer, Mike Tyson, the late pop star, Michael Jackson, and Lionel Richie appear on our voters’ register.'


“As a party, we will continue to urge Nigerian voters to be vigilant. Eternal vigilance, as they say, is the price we all must pay to protect our democracy."


“The body language of INEC as presently constituted gives it away as an institution which is only ready to pander to the whims and caprices of the ruling party."


“We can only pray that whosoever is coming into office after the tenure of the current INEC boss expires in November or December is not going to throw the confidence of Nigerians down the drain", he explained.


In a statement earlier issued by Akeni on behalf of the party, he criticised Tinubu’s seemingly unending love for foreign travels amidst Nigeria’s growing security and economic challenges.


He said the president’s trip this time around indicated that he was increasingly becoming allergic to staying at home to tackle the nation’s problems.


President Tinubu left Nigeria for a 10-day working vacation in France and the United Kingdom as part of his 2025 annual leave on Thursday.


Akeni noted that available records show that 135 million Nigerians fell into poverty within the first 18 months of Tinubu’s administration due to difficult economic policies.


He equally pointed out that galloping inflation, weakening of Nigeria’s currency, the naira, and insecurity have been the hallmark of Tinubu’s rule since he took power in 2023.


Akeni said, “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu departed Nigeria for yet another of his many overseas trips. “This time, the trip is officially explained as a 10-day vacation and part of his 2025 annual leave, which he will spend in France and the United Kingdom.


“As President Tinubu takes to the sky, he leaves behind a country ravaged by economic hardship where 135 million citizens fell into poverty in the first 18 months of his administration, caused by his difficult economic policies.


“Tinubu also leaves behind an insecurity of historic proportions, where 57 Nigerians die every day from various forms of violent death.


“This amounts to seven deaths more than Ukraine’s war casualties, which lose 50 citizens per day in its full-scale war with Russia, according to research by Mediazona and The Book of Memory Group, corroborated by a similar BBC study.


“The Nigerian casualty figures exclude deaths from daily traffic accidents, Nigeria’s frequent boat mishaps, and other civil hazards.


“You will recall that President Tinubu had only sat in office for four months after his swearing in on May 29, 2023, when he flew overseas on his first annual vacation. This was on October 2, 2023.


“This means that under the APC governance manual, four months made up one year for the Nigerian president to go on an annual vacation. This is historic for a post-inaugural president because it doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world.


“Since assuming office on May 29, 2023, President Tinubu has travelled and virtually ‘lived’ outside Nigeria for nearly 160 days. This is almost half of an entire year in only two years of office.


“Tracing this unproductive trend backwards to Buhari’s days, records show that APC produces dinner and toothpick presidents who eat breakfast in Abuja, have lunch in Paris, and belch in London.


“They enjoy costly vacations abroad like children enjoy excursions to amusement parks. From Buhari’s administration to Tinubu’s current rule, that is the only reason why billions of naira they vote every year for the Aso Villa presidential clinic perpetually empty into unknown pockets, and the clinic’s medicine shelves do not have drugs for even cramps.


“From late Buhari to Tinubu, APC has continued to produce nomadic presidents whose medical and social tourism cost our country billions of Naira in taxpayers’ money.”


The Labour Party’s interim spokesman said the party will do things differently should Nigerians vote it into power come 2027.


According to him, it is the government’s responsibility to put in place a standard healthcare system that would cater to...


PRESS STATEMENT: DON'T TRY IT! LABOUR PARTY WARNING TO RMAFC ON PROPOSED SALARY INCREASE FOR POLITICIANS

PRESS STATEMENT: DON'T TRY IT! LABOUR PARTY WARNING TO RMAFC ON PROPOSED SALARY INCREASE FOR POLITICIANS

Prince Tony

By Prince Tony Akeni, National Publicity Secretary (Interim), Labour Party, Thursday August 21, 2025


This press briefing is to serve the sternest warning to the chairman of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Mr. Mohammed Shehu. 


Every Tinubu minister and head of agency wants to leave government in 2027 richer than Dangote, but not necessarily through hard work and industry. The chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Mr. Mohammed Shehu, for his personal benefits, appears to have joined the list as the latest addition to Nigeria's unfortunate story of the insensitivity of government and its agencies to the hydra-headed plights of Nigeria's citizens. 


On Monday August 18, 2025 Mohammed Shehu woke up on the wrong side of his bed and decided to take his own pound of flesh from the long suffering but pliant Nigerian people by adding his own dimension of nightmares to the treasury bunkering of the ruling APC government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. 


You will recall that in a press conference he held in Abuja on the aforementioned date, the fiscal allocation commission's chairman served Nigerians a menu of fallacies to insult the intelligence of Nigerians by claiming that all Mr. President receives for his office in an entire year is a paltry #18million at a salary of #1.5million per month, while his ministers receive #1million per month or #12million per annum. This mischievous and obnoxious lie of figure juggling was corroborated by the CBN Governor, Mr. Olayemi Michael Cardoso, who, according to unrefuted information in the public domain, enjoys unheard-of Eldorado luxury living which, beside his monumental monthly salary, includes a #1b (one billion naira) annual housing allowance and $15million or #24billion global flight tickets and single-handedly appointed a bevy of lady consultants who receive #35million and #50million per month, (not per year). For avoidance of doubts, two of the bevy who receive these Olympian and outrageous salaries in the office of the Nigerian CBN Governor, according to the unchallenged reports, are Ms. Daphne Dafinone and Ms. Nkiru Balonwu who is facing EFCC investigations for alleged egregious financial conduct. 


The above infantile Disneyland story of the RMAFC's chairman, Mr. Shehu Mohammed, is further starkly contradicted by the fact that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's wife has suddenly, after 2023 swearing-in of Tinubu, found fortune which enables her to donate to events as much as #1billion in a single occasion when her husband receives a miserable paltry sum of #18million per annum as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.


When we say every actor of fortune under the Tinubu-APC maladministration is out to out-Dangote Dangote by the time the Labour Party and the good people of Nigeria boot them out of office in 2027, it is both a moral and institutional duty that we supply background to prove our assertion. I urge all Nigerians to join our party follow the trail of this locust swarm called APC by reading this to the end and rising to act.


We shall forerun our engagement of the chairman of the revenue allocation commission and his campaign for salary increase for politicians with the facts and figures of epic public finance abuses we present below to help Nigerians reflect, evaluate afresh and to stand up against the dangers posed to their lives by the current APC administration. The chronicle of government promoted corruption among heads of agencies which the Labour Party delivers below are for just 2025, and the year is still running.


1. In the 2025 Federal Government budget figure of #54.99trillion signed into law on February 8, 2025, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, needed to buy a nuclear station that produces electricity for the common good of Nigerians. So, he inserted an amount that will cost Nigerians #266million per street light; an unseen type of streetlight that would probably come with a Maikano power plant and a piece of the sun each. The APC rubber-stamp Senate of Mr. Godswill Akpabio approved it. When yam falls into a palm oil bowl, what do you expect? The above budget for mere streetlights was in addition to Minister Bagudu tucking into the 2025 budget what BudgIT, the public finance tracking agency, called "ghost projects" amounting to #6.93 trillion.


2. On June 10, 2025, the APC's FCT sheriff, Minister Nyesom Wike re-commissioned the now re-named Abuja International Conference Centre after a solo renovation cost submission of #39billion. The renovation went through contract award without competitive biddings required by Nigeria's Due Process laws. This is an amount of money that would have built for Nigerians a minimum of nine modern equiped health centres in each state of the federation or approximately three health centres in every senatorial district of Nigeria, including Abuja FCT. To comfort Nigerians for their pains and complaints, Nyesom Wike has been singing the lullaby to the public against critics' umbrage that the conference centre, which is actually a ghosts' haven 90% of the year, is now churning mountainous revenues into the coffers of the government after its renovation, and that it is fully booked up to 2027. Of course, it is fully booked by ghosts for ghost activities. 


Meanwhile, in contrast to Minister Wike's #39billion windfall for a conference hall renovation, only #10billion was budgeted for Nigeria's entire land border security covering 4,047 kilometers, a whopping #150billion was set on fire to purchase a used presidential jet for President Tinubu and another #5billion for an idle presidential yacht. 


3. On June 11, 2025, the Minister of Agriculture, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, approved a portion of the ministry's 2025 budget of #636billion for a fasting and prayer programme for all its staff to boost agriculture and vanquish hunger in Nigeria. The circular to all staff on this epic event summoned staff to come to work fasting for "a solemn session for God's guidance and success in supporting the (Tinubu) government's efforts to achieve food security." Nigerians, where on earth except APC's Nigeria is modern mechanized farming and food security attained through budget financed prayers and fasting? Is this also the model for governance of nations which China, Japan, Singapore, The Netherlands, Israel, even war-torn Ukraine and other successful Agric pillared economies used to achieve food security?


4. On August 5, 2025, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamo, dutifully molested Nigerians' ear drums with the news of renovating Lagos Airport at a cost of #712billion or $447million. Again, this airport could be renovated fit and proper to world standard with a much smaller fraction of that cost with ample room to build a maternity annex in the peri-urban communities of every of Nigeria's 774 local government council areas.   


5. On August 14, 2025, the APC Works Minister, Engr. David Umahi, ruthlessly shocked Nigerians by announcing that his ministry needed #3.6trillion to demolish and build, brand new from scratch, the 3rd Mainland Bridge in Lagos or, ironically, a higher amount of #3.8trillion to repair the existing one. What Minister David Umahi is audaciously asking to renovate the Lagos 3rd Mainland Bridge is 1.97% or nearly 2% of Nigeria's entire 2025 federal government budget. Let us take stock.


i. The Lagos 3rd Mainland Bridge is 11.8km long, and has insignificant physical obstacles by marine engineering standards, which involve mere water depths ranging from two to ten meters, the deepest point, it is said, being at the entrance of the Commodore Channel. 


ii. The longest bridge in the world, the Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge (DKG Bridge) is 168.8km. Considerable engineering obstacles to its construction involved about 150 river channels. Additionally, it had to be designed with ferro-concrete bastions to support the famous Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway which intercepts it.


iii. The cost of constructing the DKG Bridge of 168.8km was $8.5b or #13trillion. This brought the average cost of one kilometer to #79billion. Nigeria's Minister David Umahi's cost of $2.35b for mere 11.8km brings the average cost of one kilometer of his 3rd Mainland Bridge to $198.8m or #305b. This is 3.8 times or nearly 400% higher than China's DKG Bridge. It is ok to aspire to be as rich or to out-rich Dangote, but Labour Party insists that it should not be at the death of Nigerians through phantom budgets and corruption facilitated mass burials.


6. Before the above, Nigeria's PDP and APC governments from 1999 to 2023 had burnt $18b in refurbishing and rehabilitation claims of the country's three refineries in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna. In less than 15 months of being sworn into office, Tinubu and his APC cabinet set another $2.8 on fire on a failed wild goose rehabilitation scheme which was sold to the Nigerian public in barefaced deceit and ended in a catastrophic flop. Shockingly, without formal admission of failure and expenditure audit, the Tinubu Administration is quietly out to put the decorated skeletons of the refineries for sale to cronies. In a recent fatalistic undertaker's verdict by Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the private owner of Nigeria's only working and largest refinery in Africa, the Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna refinery ghosts of Nigeria can never work again. 


7. Also before now, rewind to May 26, 2023, three days to late President Muhammadu Buhari's hand-over of power to the Tinubu Administration. Nigerians will recall that Buhari and his then Aviation Minister, Mr. Hadi Sirika, chartered an Ethiopian Boeing 737 commercial jet in Addis Ababa, painted it into a sham Nigeria Air courier colours and logo and flew it into Nigeria. On the said May 26, 2025, the static plane was decorated in ribbons at the Nnamdi Azikiwe airport in Abuja and displayed to the press as a ceremony commissioning the new Nigeria Air courier, with other jets to follow soon after. After the unveiling it was flown back to Ethiopia, the Nigerian colours and logo washed away and its Ethiopian colours restored. It immediately resumed operations with the Ethiopian fleet after its one-day scam ceremony by the APC government in Nigeria. In Buhari's eight years of annual budgets for the aviation sector and the phantom "Nigeria Air" swindle, his APC administration swindled from the Nigeria treasury #85.42billion. No trial to conviction has been recorded till date on this massive, flagrant, in-your-face public fraud.


8. In the light of the above, the Labour Party hereby emphatically declares that the unsolicited, self appointed campaign by the chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Mr. Mohammed Shehu, for salary increase for politicians, who are already clearly over-indulged in the eyes of civilize democracies of the world, is suspect. We are compelled to agree with millions of Nigerians that Mr. Mohammed Shehu has hidden unpatriotic motives in flying this audacious, unconscionable and insensitive scheme, especially at this time when countless Nigerians are passing through untold economic hardship and its accompanying privations, vagaries and indignities. 


9. Our party's advice to the chairman of the RMAFC and his unseen collaborators, in and outside the commission, who are behind this misadventure is that they should immediately retrace their steps in their best interest. This is so that the commission will not confirm the suspicion and incur the wrath of outraged Nigerians across the country and beyond who believe that given the unscrupulous, unprosecuted and regime pampered corruption of APC administrations in general, officials of the are aiming their hands for the jar of the Tinubu Administration's unchecked APC corruption orgy at the expense of suffering Nigerians, expected to come through picking kudos commission from thousands of grateful Nigeria politicians nationwide who he may be in conspiracy with them to pay commission's chairman and his team financial homage for a job well-done, as well as other goodwill exchange within the corridors of power.


Furthermore, it will be callous remiss for the revenue allocation commission not to realize that rewarding politicians with more public funds from Nigeria's public treasury, which is already bleeding profusely from corruption, will keep Tinubu in his present mode of marathon borrowings and future short-changing foreign debts.


If anything, the campaign RMAFC should consider urgent, pressing and patriotic to join is to increase Nigeria's workers minimum wage from its present miserable paltry sum of #70,000 per month. In case the RMAFC's chairman is not aware, the United States of America just empathically issued a statement from across the Atlantic to appraise and advocate for improvement of Nigeria's pathetic miniuwage. If a foreign nation could should demonstrate such empathy towards our suffering citizens, the RMAFC's chairman and his administrative directors have no valid excuse not to do more.


Given the above corrosive corruption, grinding penury and retarded development potentials of Nigeria, it is painfully curious, an excruciating irony, that in her recent visit to Nigeria and the Presidency, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Nweala, the Nigerian born Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), should compliment the non-accounting administration of Bola Tinubu as doing well. Labour Party joins Nigeria in asking: will the WTO Director-General find the same benchmarks of corruption, pandemic official fraud, non-compliance with due process laws, flagrant inflation of infrastructure funds and sweeping insecurity plaguing Nigeria under the APC administration of Tinubu in any European, American, Asian countries or other regions of the world and honestly acclaim that they were doing well? Certainly not.


*Conclusion*


Fellow Nigerians, those who burn down a country and those who watch them do so in silence, complacency from privileged insulation and inaction are equal culprits.


The fight to dismantle the structure, superstructure and architecture of corruption is not Peter Obi's fight alone. It is not Labour Party's fight alone. It is the fight of all of us 200million Nigerians. It is a fight for our children, their own children and generations unborn.


APC is burning down our country with never before seen monstrosity of corruption in virtually every sector of our economy, national life and the daily petrifying insecurity of lives and properties that now hold our country's citizens hostage, wether in the cities or rural countrysides and farms where majority of our food and sustenance come from.


It takes a village to tie down a mad relative to give him medicine or put him in stocks for the safety of others. In 2027, let us rise together in communal unison as one people, irrespective of tribe, religion and region to see out of our land the wolf packs ravaging our flock, values and destiny as a great country.


SIGNED:


Prince Tony Akeni

National Publicity Secretary, Labour Party (Interim)

Prince Tony

By Prince Tony Akeni, National Publicity Secretary (Interim), Labour Party, Thursday August 21, 2025


This press briefing is to serve the sternest warning to the chairman of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Mr. Mohammed Shehu. 


Every Tinubu minister and head of agency wants to leave government in 2027 richer than Dangote, but not necessarily through hard work and industry. The chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Mr. Mohammed Shehu, for his personal benefits, appears to have joined the list as the latest addition to Nigeria's unfortunate story of the insensitivity of government and its agencies to the hydra-headed plights of Nigeria's citizens. 


On Monday August 18, 2025 Mohammed Shehu woke up on the wrong side of his bed and decided to take his own pound of flesh from the long suffering but pliant Nigerian people by adding his own dimension of nightmares to the treasury bunkering of the ruling APC government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. 


You will recall that in a press conference he held in Abuja on the aforementioned date, the fiscal allocation commission's chairman served Nigerians a menu of fallacies to insult the intelligence of Nigerians by claiming that all Mr. President receives for his office in an entire year is a paltry #18million at a salary of #1.5million per month, while his ministers receive #1million per month or #12million per annum. This mischievous and obnoxious lie of figure juggling was corroborated by the CBN Governor, Mr. Olayemi Michael Cardoso, who, according to unrefuted information in the public domain, enjoys unheard-of Eldorado luxury living which, beside his monumental monthly salary, includes a #1b (one billion naira) annual housing allowance and $15million or #24billion global flight tickets and single-handedly appointed a bevy of lady consultants who receive #35million and #50million per month, (not per year). For avoidance of doubts, two of the bevy who receive these Olympian and outrageous salaries in the office of the Nigerian CBN Governor, according to the unchallenged reports, are Ms. Daphne Dafinone and Ms. Nkiru Balonwu who is facing EFCC investigations for alleged egregious financial conduct. 


The above infantile Disneyland story of the RMAFC's chairman, Mr. Shehu Mohammed, is further starkly contradicted by the fact that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's wife has suddenly, after 2023 swearing-in of Tinubu, found fortune which enables her to donate to events as much as #1billion in a single occasion when her husband receives a miserable paltry sum of #18million per annum as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.


When we say every actor of fortune under the Tinubu-APC maladministration is out to out-Dangote Dangote by the time the Labour Party and the good people of Nigeria boot them out of office in 2027, it is both a moral and institutional duty that we supply background to prove our assertion. I urge all Nigerians to join our party follow the trail of this locust swarm called APC by reading this to the end and rising to act.


We shall forerun our engagement of the chairman of the revenue allocation commission and his campaign for salary increase for politicians with the facts and figures of epic public finance abuses we present below to help Nigerians reflect, evaluate afresh and to stand up against the dangers posed to their lives by the current APC administration. The chronicle of government promoted corruption among heads of agencies which the Labour Party delivers below are for just 2025, and the year is still running.


1. In the 2025 Federal Government budget figure of #54.99trillion signed into law on February 8, 2025, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Sen. Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, needed to buy a nuclear station that produces electricity for the common good of Nigerians. So, he inserted an amount that will cost Nigerians #266million per street light; an unseen type of streetlight that would probably come with a Maikano power plant and a piece of the sun each. The APC rubber-stamp Senate of Mr. Godswill Akpabio approved it. When yam falls into a palm oil bowl, what do you expect? The above budget for mere streetlights was in addition to Minister Bagudu tucking into the 2025 budget what BudgIT, the public finance tracking agency, called "ghost projects" amounting to #6.93 trillion.


2. On June 10, 2025, the APC's FCT sheriff, Minister Nyesom Wike re-commissioned the now re-named Abuja International Conference Centre after a solo renovation cost submission of #39billion. The renovation went through contract award without competitive biddings required by Nigeria's Due Process laws. This is an amount of money that would have built for Nigerians a minimum of nine modern equiped health centres in each state of the federation or approximately three health centres in every senatorial district of Nigeria, including Abuja FCT. To comfort Nigerians for their pains and complaints, Nyesom Wike has been singing the lullaby to the public against critics' umbrage that the conference centre, which is actually a ghosts' haven 90% of the year, is now churning mountainous revenues into the coffers of the government after its renovation, and that it is fully booked up to 2027. Of course, it is fully booked by ghosts for ghost activities. 


Meanwhile, in contrast to Minister Wike's #39billion windfall for a conference hall renovation, only #10billion was budgeted for Nigeria's entire land border security covering 4,047 kilometers, a whopping #150billion was set on fire to purchase a used presidential jet for President Tinubu and another #5billion for an idle presidential yacht. 


3. On June 11, 2025, the Minister of Agriculture, Sen. Abubakar Kyari, approved a portion of the ministry's 2025 budget of #636billion for a fasting and prayer programme for all its staff to boost agriculture and vanquish hunger in Nigeria. The circular to all staff on this epic event summoned staff to come to work fasting for "a solemn session for God's guidance and success in supporting the (Tinubu) government's efforts to achieve food security." Nigerians, where on earth except APC's Nigeria is modern mechanized farming and food security attained through budget financed prayers and fasting? Is this also the model for governance of nations which China, Japan, Singapore, The Netherlands, Israel, even war-torn Ukraine and other successful Agric pillared economies used to achieve food security?


4. On August 5, 2025, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Mr. Festus Keyamo, dutifully molested Nigerians' ear drums with the news of renovating Lagos Airport at a cost of #712billion or $447million. Again, this airport could be renovated fit and proper to world standard with a much smaller fraction of that cost with ample room to build a maternity annex in the peri-urban communities of every of Nigeria's 774 local government council areas.   


5. On August 14, 2025, the APC Works Minister, Engr. David Umahi, ruthlessly shocked Nigerians by announcing that his ministry needed #3.6trillion to demolish and build, brand new from scratch, the 3rd Mainland Bridge in Lagos or, ironically, a higher amount of #3.8trillion to repair the existing one. What Minister David Umahi is audaciously asking to renovate the Lagos 3rd Mainland Bridge is 1.97% or nearly 2% of Nigeria's entire 2025 federal government budget. Let us take stock.


i. The Lagos 3rd Mainland Bridge is 11.8km long, and has insignificant physical obstacles by marine engineering standards, which involve mere water depths ranging from two to ten meters, the deepest point, it is said, being at the entrance of the Commodore Channel. 


ii. The longest bridge in the world, the Danyang-Kunshan Grand Bridge (DKG Bridge) is 168.8km. Considerable engineering obstacles to its construction involved about 150 river channels. Additionally, it had to be designed with ferro-concrete bastions to support the famous Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway which intercepts it.


iii. The cost of constructing the DKG Bridge of 168.8km was $8.5b or #13trillion. This brought the average cost of one kilometer to #79billion. Nigeria's Minister David Umahi's cost of $2.35b for mere 11.8km brings the average cost of one kilometer of his 3rd Mainland Bridge to $198.8m or #305b. This is 3.8 times or nearly 400% higher than China's DKG Bridge. It is ok to aspire to be as rich or to out-rich Dangote, but Labour Party insists that it should not be at the death of Nigerians through phantom budgets and corruption facilitated mass burials.


6. Before the above, Nigeria's PDP and APC governments from 1999 to 2023 had burnt $18b in refurbishing and rehabilitation claims of the country's three refineries in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna. In less than 15 months of being sworn into office, Tinubu and his APC cabinet set another $2.8 on fire on a failed wild goose rehabilitation scheme which was sold to the Nigerian public in barefaced deceit and ended in a catastrophic flop. Shockingly, without formal admission of failure and expenditure audit, the Tinubu Administration is quietly out to put the decorated skeletons of the refineries for sale to cronies. In a recent fatalistic undertaker's verdict by Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the private owner of Nigeria's only working and largest refinery in Africa, the Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna refinery ghosts of Nigeria can never work again. 


7. Also before now, rewind to May 26, 2023, three days to late President Muhammadu Buhari's hand-over of power to the Tinubu Administration. Nigerians will recall that Buhari and his then Aviation Minister, Mr. Hadi Sirika, chartered an Ethiopian Boeing 737 commercial jet in Addis Ababa, painted it into a sham Nigeria Air courier colours and logo and flew it into Nigeria. On the said May 26, 2025, the static plane was decorated in ribbons at the Nnamdi Azikiwe airport in Abuja and displayed to the press as a ceremony commissioning the new Nigeria Air courier, with other jets to follow soon after. After the unveiling it was flown back to Ethiopia, the Nigerian colours and logo washed away and its Ethiopian colours restored. It immediately resumed operations with the Ethiopian fleet after its one-day scam ceremony by the APC government in Nigeria. In Buhari's eight years of annual budgets for the aviation sector and the phantom "Nigeria Air" swindle, his APC administration swindled from the Nigeria treasury #85.42billion. No trial to conviction has been recorded till date on this massive, flagrant, in-your-face public fraud.


8. In the light of the above, the Labour Party hereby emphatically declares that the unsolicited, self appointed campaign by the chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Mr. Mohammed Shehu, for salary increase for politicians, who are already clearly over-indulged in the eyes of civilize democracies of the world, is suspect. We are compelled to agree with millions of Nigerians that Mr. Mohammed Shehu has hidden unpatriotic motives in flying this audacious, unconscionable and insensitive scheme, especially at this time when countless Nigerians are passing through untold economic hardship and its accompanying privations, vagaries and indignities. 


9. Our party's advice to the chairman of the RMAFC and his unseen collaborators, in and outside the commission, who are behind this misadventure is that they should immediately retrace their steps in their best interest. This is so that the commission will not confirm the suspicion and incur the wrath of outraged Nigerians across the country and beyond who believe that given the unscrupulous, unprosecuted and regime pampered corruption of APC administrations in general, officials of the are aiming their hands for the jar of the Tinubu Administration's unchecked APC corruption orgy at the expense of suffering Nigerians, expected to come through picking kudos commission from thousands of grateful Nigeria politicians nationwide who he may be in conspiracy with them to pay commission's chairman and his team financial homage for a job well-done, as well as other goodwill exchange within the corridors of power.


Furthermore, it will be callous remiss for the revenue allocation commission not to realize that rewarding politicians with more public funds from Nigeria's public treasury, which is already bleeding profusely from corruption, will keep Tinubu in his present mode of marathon borrowings and future short-changing foreign debts.


If anything, the campaign RMAFC should consider urgent, pressing and patriotic to join is to increase Nigeria's workers minimum wage from its present miserable paltry sum of #70,000 per month. In case the RMAFC's chairman is not aware, the United States of America just empathically issued a statement from across the Atlantic to appraise and advocate for improvement of Nigeria's pathetic miniuwage. If a foreign nation could should demonstrate such empathy towards our suffering citizens, the RMAFC's chairman and his administrative directors have no valid excuse not to do more.


Given the above corrosive corruption, grinding penury and retarded development potentials of Nigeria, it is painfully curious, an excruciating irony, that in her recent visit to Nigeria and the Presidency, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Nweala, the Nigerian born Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), should compliment the non-accounting administration of Bola Tinubu as doing well. Labour Party joins Nigeria in asking: will the WTO Director-General find the same benchmarks of corruption, pandemic official fraud, non-compliance with due process laws, flagrant inflation of infrastructure funds and sweeping insecurity plaguing Nigeria under the APC administration of Tinubu in any European, American, Asian countries or other regions of the world and honestly acclaim that they were doing well? Certainly not.


*Conclusion*


Fellow Nigerians, those who burn down a country and those who watch them do so in silence, complacency from privileged insulation and inaction are equal culprits.


The fight to dismantle the structure, superstructure and architecture of corruption is not Peter Obi's fight alone. It is not Labour Party's fight alone. It is the fight of all of us 200million Nigerians. It is a fight for our children, their own children and generations unborn.


APC is burning down our country with never before seen monstrosity of corruption in virtually every sector of our economy, national life and the daily petrifying insecurity of lives and properties that now hold our country's citizens hostage, wether in the cities or rural countrysides and farms where majority of our food and sustenance come from.


It takes a village to tie down a mad relative to give him medicine or put him in stocks for the safety of others. In 2027, let us rise together in communal unison as one people, irrespective of tribe, religion and region to see out of our land the wolf packs ravaging our flock, values and destiny as a great country.


SIGNED:


Prince Tony Akeni

National Publicity Secretary, Labour Party (Interim)

Ganduje’s Timely Challenge to Leaders: Nigeria can no longer afford leadership defined by medical tourism — Peter Obi

Ganduje’s Timely Challenge to Leaders: Nigeria can no longer afford leadership defined by medical tourism — Peter Obi

Abdullahi Umar Ganduje 

The Symbol of the Obidient Movement in Nigeria H. E Peter Obi has reacted to the resignation from his chairmanship position of the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressive Congress APC Alhaj Abdullahi Umar Ganduje stating his health concerns.

Peter Obi who commended Dr. Ganduje for prioritising his health above all else said by his exemplary action, Dr. Ganduje has thrown a challenge to other leaders who, due to health-related issues, are no longer able to deliver optimally should take a cue from him.

According to Obi, the challenges confronting our nation today require leaders who are not only competent but also physically and mentally fit, leaders with the capacity and agility to respond decisively and promptly to pressing issues.

He said at this critical point and difficult time, Nigeria can no longer afford leadership defined by medical tourism, long holidays, or absenteeism caused by age-related ailments. These things are taking a serious toll on our development.



With his health reportedly in decline, it is both wise and honourable to step aside, knowing that he may no longer be able to render the level of service required by the party, the people, and the nation. I have just read a news report that the National Chairman of the ruling party, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has resigned from his position with immediate effect, citing health challenges as the reason. I must commend Dr. Ganduje for prioritising his health above all else. With his health reportedly in decline, it is both wise and honourable to step aside, knowing that he may no longer be able to render the level of service required by the party, the people, and the nation. By this exemplary action, Dr. Ganduje has thrown a challenge to other leaders who, due to health-related issues, are no longer able to deliver optimally. I sincerely hope they take a cue from him. The challenges confronting our nation today require leaders who are not only competent but also physically and mentally fit, leaders with the capacity and agility to respond decisively and promptly to pressing issues. At this critical point and difficult time, we can no longer afford leadership defined by medical tourism, long holidays, or absenteeism caused by age-related ailments. These things are taking a serious toll on our development. May God Almighty grant Dr. Ganduje a peaceful and fulfilling retirement. Indeed, a new Nigeria is POssible. -PO
Abdullahi Umar Ganduje 

The Symbol of the Obidient Movement in Nigeria H. E Peter Obi has reacted to the resignation from his chairmanship position of the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressive Congress APC Alhaj Abdullahi Umar Ganduje stating his health concerns.

Peter Obi who commended Dr. Ganduje for prioritising his health above all else said by his exemplary action, Dr. Ganduje has thrown a challenge to other leaders who, due to health-related issues, are no longer able to deliver optimally should take a cue from him.

According to Obi, the challenges confronting our nation today require leaders who are not only competent but also physically and mentally fit, leaders with the capacity and agility to respond decisively and promptly to pressing issues.

He said at this critical point and difficult time, Nigeria can no longer afford leadership defined by medical tourism, long holidays, or absenteeism caused by age-related ailments. These things are taking a serious toll on our development.



With his health reportedly in decline, it is both wise and honourable to step aside, knowing that he may no longer be able to render the level of service required by the party, the people, and the nation. I have just read a news report that the National Chairman of the ruling party, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has resigned from his position with immediate effect, citing health challenges as the reason. I must commend Dr. Ganduje for prioritising his health above all else. With his health reportedly in decline, it is both wise and honourable to step aside, knowing that he may no longer be able to render the level of service required by the party, the people, and the nation. By this exemplary action, Dr. Ganduje has thrown a challenge to other leaders who, due to health-related issues, are no longer able to deliver optimally. I sincerely hope they take a cue from him. The challenges confronting our nation today require leaders who are not only competent but also physically and mentally fit, leaders with the capacity and agility to respond decisively and promptly to pressing issues. At this critical point and difficult time, we can no longer afford leadership defined by medical tourism, long holidays, or absenteeism caused by age-related ailments. These things are taking a serious toll on our development. May God Almighty grant Dr. Ganduje a peaceful and fulfilling retirement. Indeed, a new Nigeria is POssible. -PO

VIDEO: APC North-East meeting ends in chaos over Tinubu-Shettima endorsement

VIDEO: APC North-East meeting ends in chaos over Tinubu-Shettima endorsement



Since 2015 till date, APC Government in Nigeria has only successfully compounded the Nigerians' problems in all fronts, turning the country into the world poverty capital.



Since 2015 till date, APC Government in Nigeria has only successfully compounded the Nigerians' problems in all fronts, turning the country into the world poverty capital.

RENEWED HOPELESSNESS: Federal Ministry of Agriculture made a U-turn, suspending its planned prayer & fasting sessions aimed at seeking divine intervention to end hunger in Nigeria

RENEWED HOPELESSNESS: Federal Ministry of Agriculture made a U-turn, suspending its planned prayer & fasting sessions aimed at seeking divine intervention to end hunger in Nigeria


The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has made a U-turn by suspending its planned prayer and fasting sessions aimed at seeking divine intervention to end hunger in the country.


This comes just days after a leaked internal circular, dated June 11, 2025, directed all staff—including directors, deputy directors, assistant directors, and value chain desk officers—to gather for weekly spiritual sessions at the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja.


Signed by the Director of Human Resource Management, Mrs. Adedayo Modupe O., the circular urged staff to fast and participate in a prayer initiative tagged “Divine Intervention for Protection and National Development,” slated for June 16, 23, and 30.


However, in a follow-up memo, the same director announced a postponement of the exercise “until further notice,” without providing any reasons.


Tinubu led APC government policies are all renewed pain for the majority of the citizens . The rouges government has no single solution to any of the challenges facing the country in if the sectors.


Having no solution to hunger in the land , they resulted to prayers and fasting for divine intervention. The Tinubu led APC failures only imposed themselves on the good people of the country. No tangible government directives in terms of policy to address hunger in the country..


This is the government that removed subsidies, increase VAT , devalued Naira and reduced the purchasing power of the citizens, yet cant massively invest in Agriculture but thought prayer is the key to food security..


The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has made a U-turn by suspending its planned prayer and fasting sessions aimed at seeking divine intervention to end hunger in the country.


This comes just days after a leaked internal circular, dated June 11, 2025, directed all staff—including directors, deputy directors, assistant directors, and value chain desk officers—to gather for weekly spiritual sessions at the ministry’s headquarters in Abuja.


Signed by the Director of Human Resource Management, Mrs. Adedayo Modupe O., the circular urged staff to fast and participate in a prayer initiative tagged “Divine Intervention for Protection and National Development,” slated for June 16, 23, and 30.


However, in a follow-up memo, the same director announced a postponement of the exercise “until further notice,” without providing any reasons.


Tinubu led APC government policies are all renewed pain for the majority of the citizens . The rouges government has no single solution to any of the challenges facing the country in if the sectors.


Having no solution to hunger in the land , they resulted to prayers and fasting for divine intervention. The Tinubu led APC failures only imposed themselves on the good people of the country. No tangible government directives in terms of policy to address hunger in the country..


This is the government that removed subsidies, increase VAT , devalued Naira and reduced the purchasing power of the citizens, yet cant massively invest in Agriculture but thought prayer is the key to food security..

Spoke's person of Terrorists And Bandits in Nigeria Sheikh Gumi Barred from performing Hajj, deports him back to Nigeria by Saudi Authorities

Spoke's person of Terrorists And Bandits in Nigeria Sheikh Gumi Barred from performing Hajj, deports him back to Nigeria by Saudi Authorities

Authorities in Saudi Arabia have stopped Nigerian Sheikh Gumi from performing Hajj, deports him back to Nigeria


Gumi 

Saudi Arabia has stopped Kaduna-based Islamic Scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi from performing the 2025 Hajj and deported him back to Nigeria.


Sheikh Gumi confirmed this in a post made on Monday, May 26, 2025, via his Facebook page.


He said the Saudi government had granted him a visa to enter the country for Hajj, but he was not allowed to enter Medina to begin his religious duties.


According to him, “Due to some reasons related to my views on world politics, the authorities in Saudi Arabia do not want me to be present at Hajj even though they have granted me a visa,” Sheikh Gumi said in a post on his Facebook page.


He added, “I am grateful to the authorities in Nigeria who have pledged to engage with the Saudi authorities on this matter.”

 

Sheikh Gumi is part of a delegation of scholars sponsored by the Nigerian Hajj Commission (NAHCON) to travel to Saudi Arabia for religious services.


Gumi arrived in Medina with other clerics last Saturday at around 10:30pm on an Umza Air flight, but upon arrival at the city’s airport, Saudi immigration officials prevented the cleric from entering the country.


Reports revealed that Sheikh Gumi has now returned to Nigeria to continue his daily activities, especially teaching.


It is note worthy to state that the Islamic Scholar has be the mouth piece of the terrorists, Bandits and kidnappers who have caused a lot of havock to the people of Southern Kaduna and beyond.


The APC led Federal government of Nigeria usually give him police security to move around as the spokeman of the bandits. The government through the Nigerian Army rehabilitates terrorists while they abandon their victims. 


There were claims of terrorists been absorbed into the Nigerian Army. Many of the Nigerian youths especially of the southern origins are jettisoning joining the army currently.


No serious country will tolerate terrorists and their sympathizers but under the APC governed Nigeria since 2015 till date, like fiction, the level of insecurities have been aggravated and compounded, lives of the law abiding citizens have become miserable and short due to reasons of insecurities.


Order countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE have arrested Nigerian terrorists and sponsors of terrorism in their country who worked freely here.

Authorities in Saudi Arabia have stopped Nigerian Sheikh Gumi from performing Hajj, deports him back to Nigeria


Gumi 

Saudi Arabia has stopped Kaduna-based Islamic Scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi from performing the 2025 Hajj and deported him back to Nigeria.


Sheikh Gumi confirmed this in a post made on Monday, May 26, 2025, via his Facebook page.


He said the Saudi government had granted him a visa to enter the country for Hajj, but he was not allowed to enter Medina to begin his religious duties.


According to him, “Due to some reasons related to my views on world politics, the authorities in Saudi Arabia do not want me to be present at Hajj even though they have granted me a visa,” Sheikh Gumi said in a post on his Facebook page.


He added, “I am grateful to the authorities in Nigeria who have pledged to engage with the Saudi authorities on this matter.”

 

Sheikh Gumi is part of a delegation of scholars sponsored by the Nigerian Hajj Commission (NAHCON) to travel to Saudi Arabia for religious services.


Gumi arrived in Medina with other clerics last Saturday at around 10:30pm on an Umza Air flight, but upon arrival at the city’s airport, Saudi immigration officials prevented the cleric from entering the country.


Reports revealed that Sheikh Gumi has now returned to Nigeria to continue his daily activities, especially teaching.


It is note worthy to state that the Islamic Scholar has be the mouth piece of the terrorists, Bandits and kidnappers who have caused a lot of havock to the people of Southern Kaduna and beyond.


The APC led Federal government of Nigeria usually give him police security to move around as the spokeman of the bandits. The government through the Nigerian Army rehabilitates terrorists while they abandon their victims. 


There were claims of terrorists been absorbed into the Nigerian Army. Many of the Nigerian youths especially of the southern origins are jettisoning joining the army currently.


No serious country will tolerate terrorists and their sympathizers but under the APC governed Nigeria since 2015 till date, like fiction, the level of insecurities have been aggravated and compounded, lives of the law abiding citizens have become miserable and short due to reasons of insecurities.


Order countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE have arrested Nigerian terrorists and sponsors of terrorism in their country who worked freely here.

Tinubu's INEC: The prospects and challenges of a free, fair and credible elections in 2027

Tinubu's INEC: The prospects and challenges of a free, fair and credible elections in 2027

 Bola Tinubu and
His INEC Chairman 

Elections are a central feature of representatives democracies. For elections to express the will of the electorate, they must be ‘free, fair’ and 'credible'.


Free, fair and credible elections are largely determined by the electoral body. Nigeria's independent National Electoral Commission INEC under Professor Mahmood Yakub or anyone as may be later appointed and their subordinates are the major bane and barriers to credible and acceptable elections in Nigeria. While the INEC neutrality is questionable, judiciary has long seized to be the last hope of anybody but a place of judicial trades for the very few with highest influence and highest bidders. The Nigeria's Judicial Service Commission has sanctioned in the past judges handling Election Petition Tribunals but not now any longer with the level of unhindered immunities in the temples of justice. So an unbiased electoral system and body for a free, fair and credible elections are non negotiable.

‘Free’ means that all those entitled to vote have the right to be registered and to vote and must be free to make their choice. According to our constitution, every citizen over the age of 18 is entitled to vote.

Also an election will be considered ‘free’ if you are allowed to decide whether or not to vote and vote freely for the candidate or party of your choice without fear or intimidation and or harassment. A ‘free’ election can also be regarded as where you are confident that who you vote for remains your secret.

By ‘Fair’, it means that all registered political parties have an equal right to contest the elections on the same level ground, campaign for voters support and hold meetings and rallies. This gives them a fair chance to convince voters to vote for them.

A fair election also denote an election in which all voters have an equal opportunity to register, where all votes are counted, and where the final results reflect the actual vote totals.

"Credible" implies an open and transparent process especially by the electoral umpire which will make the actual outcome capable of being believed by the more than simple majority of the citizens.

By credible, it also means the outcome of the the whole process is worthy of the citizens' confidence. The results are reliable and not manipulated. The level of genuine neutrality of the electoral commission dictates the credibility of any election.

Therefore, It's one thing for the election to be free and fair on the filed on election day across polling units, it's another thing entirely for the electoral umpire to admit and allow votes of the people to actually be the final outcome or results. The credibility of an election will make it even more acceptable to the losers and runner up without unnecessary litigations that usually accompany every election in Nigeria.


With the exception of the 1959 and the annulled June 12 1993 general elections, elections in Nigeria have always been marred by irregularities and lack of transparency from electoral body, collusion with either ruling or opposition party for manipulation of the election's outcome, implementing an electoral process with procedures that encourages violence and anarchy . The 1964/65 Western Regional and National elections, the 1979 and 1983 federal election, the 2003 and 2007 presidential and governorship elections were elections that encouraged anarchy as they were generally adjudged far below free, fair and lacked in any measure for credibility test, basically because of INEC collisions with either any of the contending major parties leading to endless litigations in each cases.


Meanwhile, aside the 2015 general elections which can simply be categorised and termed as a mob elections, the 2019 and 2023 general elections overtly revealed that those who voted had done nothing but those who counted and determined the votes are the ones that occupied the Central Processing Unit of the electoral and democratic system as it were very glaring for all to see in those elections.

Despite improved electoral laws and introductions of e-voting machine , B-Vas, there were overt indications of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) been bias, non transparent most especially with uses of even B-Vas, alterations of the election results both on B-Vas and on form EC8, inconclusive elections as a result of materials not timely taken to the polling units on election day.
Collusions with rejected APC national leader Tinubu to upturned the people's will, as Tinubu who paid their pipers dictated their tune in a supposedly general election meant for majority of the citizens to decide on who governs us for a period of four years. Remarks by incumbent president himself that he bought his way to the presidency also confirmed all these.

Coming to term with the individuals occupying various positions within the electoral umpire such as INEC chairman, INEC commissioner among others, the appointments to these positions are political appointments. This is exactly where and reason the credibility of the electoral outcomes are been compromised and sacrificed in Nigeria. Funny enough is that all those that have been appointed and served as INEC chairman are all university professors who have pleasures in subverting the will of the majority for their personal aggrandizements.


The appointment of the incumbent INEC chairman Prof Mahmood Yakubu was said to have been influenced back the in 2018 by Bola Ahmed Tinubu and as a result, against all odds INEC chairman decided the outcome of 2019 presidential election in favour of Major General Muhammadu Buhari who had lost all credibilities to win the Said election considering the level of hungers, compounding existing Boko Haram with bandit and Fulani herdsmen menace amidst human rights violations, lack of respect for rule of law, etc. To simply put it, 'the CIA agent Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been in charged, remotiing and controlling INEC before ever becoming the President and Commander in Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.


The prospects of any free, fair and credible elections under him as the sitting president looks very invincible.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu ensured Buhari was re-elected through his puppet INEC chairman Mahmood Yakub in a grand calculation for his 2023 presidential ambition which saw him and his gangs unleashing all forms of deceits, manipulations and impersonation at the highest order including impersonating the clergymen.

The prospects and chances of having a free, fair and credible elections comes 2027 under the Tinubu led APC anti- people government and an INEC that takes orders directly from him will be absolutely impossible.


On the state of the political parties in Nigeria currently, just like the late military Totalitarian dictator General Sani Abacha was to emerged the sole presidential candidate of the all political parties formedy perior his sudden death in 1998, Tinubu and his Mafia camp have been earnestly working to undermine and subvert the democratic processes, moving the country towards a one party system.

The Tinubu and his Mafias who are in APC and in his government are also directly and indirectly dictating the fates of other political parties as PDP is in their hands too, while the same INEC has been the weapon of distabilisation in Tinubu's hands holding Labour Party (LP) down ineffectively immediately after the 2023 general elections just as was the case with Omoyele Sowore led African Action AAC after 2019 general elections. For the LP, INEC that refused to accept the kangaroo National Convention that returned Barrister Julius Abure as the National Chairman has also refused to upload the names of the Senator Nenadi Esther Usman led National Caretaker Committee of the party even after a Supreme Court judgement sacked else while Chairman Abure. For months now, INEC is still studying the court judgement.


Suffix to this is the fact that this same INEC has made the registration of new party nearly impossible. Even the Social Democratic Party SDP that some aggrieved politicians and citizens seemly running to can't be adjudged clear of Tinubu's influence. He was to contest the 2023 presidential election in the SDP platform if APC had denied him the presidential ticket.


Off season elections conducted so far in Edo, Ondo are another testaments of systemic disruption of oppositions in favour of the ruling party. These are the litmus tests if what to expect in 2027.


Removing the bias, unfair and non neutral Professor Mahmood Yakub by Mr President, to nominate another of his stoogees for the National Assembly to rubber stamped again may not help going forward to 2027 as the entire citizens of voting ages are on the verge of been manipulated and shortchanged again.

An electoral reform by the National Assembly that ensure that the sitting president does not nominate top INEC officers may go a long way to reduce underground and unconstitutional interference in the activities of the umpire.

Conclusively, as our forefathers at independence opted for a democratic and egalitarian society, it's the duties of all of us to mobilize, sensitize citizens on the needs for a credible, free and fair elections. We must continue to speak and stand against Intimidations and brazen harassment of voters as openly seen in 2023 presidential and national assembly elections and most especially the governorship elections in some states and Lagos, Rivers, Kogi in particular.

The essential of governance is to serve the people. Maximum pleasure for greater numbers of people but in the case of Nigeria and her citizens, it has been maximum pains for an absolute majority while the very few and less than minority including the incumbent President are living large in frivolous and lavish spending as seen in their budgetary allocations to themselves. Students loans already cornered. Hunger ruling without mercy, no end in sight to criminalities, terrorism , banditary, Fulani herdsmen menace and kidnapping for ransoms

Nigerians should know that they want to contend and contest not only against brutal Tinubu led APC that believed in antidemocratic highjacking and run with it principles but also against the Tinubu's INEC that will be ready to hand him a certificate of return even if he failed to contest in the forth coming 2027 general elections.


Infact, as far as 2027 is approaching, factor that can ensure free, fair and credible elections will be an unwavering determinations by Nigerians to enforce it at the polling units level against the ruling party, INEC and institutions and agencies of state or the readiness to go the Malian way or Burkina way in another hand if the need be for a democratic reset.

Nigerians should rather win the 2027 elections at the polling units or loss it forever.




Sir Dele Abiola
oluabiola81@gmail.com
 Bola Tinubu and
His INEC Chairman 

Elections are a central feature of representatives democracies. For elections to express the will of the electorate, they must be ‘free, fair’ and 'credible'.


Free, fair and credible elections are largely determined by the electoral body. Nigeria's independent National Electoral Commission INEC under Professor Mahmood Yakub or anyone as may be later appointed and their subordinates are the major bane and barriers to credible and acceptable elections in Nigeria. While the INEC neutrality is questionable, judiciary has long seized to be the last hope of anybody but a place of judicial trades for the very few with highest influence and highest bidders. The Nigeria's Judicial Service Commission has sanctioned in the past judges handling Election Petition Tribunals but not now any longer with the level of unhindered immunities in the temples of justice. So an unbiased electoral system and body for a free, fair and credible elections are non negotiable.

‘Free’ means that all those entitled to vote have the right to be registered and to vote and must be free to make their choice. According to our constitution, every citizen over the age of 18 is entitled to vote.

Also an election will be considered ‘free’ if you are allowed to decide whether or not to vote and vote freely for the candidate or party of your choice without fear or intimidation and or harassment. A ‘free’ election can also be regarded as where you are confident that who you vote for remains your secret.

By ‘Fair’, it means that all registered political parties have an equal right to contest the elections on the same level ground, campaign for voters support and hold meetings and rallies. This gives them a fair chance to convince voters to vote for them.

A fair election also denote an election in which all voters have an equal opportunity to register, where all votes are counted, and where the final results reflect the actual vote totals.

"Credible" implies an open and transparent process especially by the electoral umpire which will make the actual outcome capable of being believed by the more than simple majority of the citizens.

By credible, it also means the outcome of the the whole process is worthy of the citizens' confidence. The results are reliable and not manipulated. The level of genuine neutrality of the electoral commission dictates the credibility of any election.

Therefore, It's one thing for the election to be free and fair on the filed on election day across polling units, it's another thing entirely for the electoral umpire to admit and allow votes of the people to actually be the final outcome or results. The credibility of an election will make it even more acceptable to the losers and runner up without unnecessary litigations that usually accompany every election in Nigeria.


With the exception of the 1959 and the annulled June 12 1993 general elections, elections in Nigeria have always been marred by irregularities and lack of transparency from electoral body, collusion with either ruling or opposition party for manipulation of the election's outcome, implementing an electoral process with procedures that encourages violence and anarchy . The 1964/65 Western Regional and National elections, the 1979 and 1983 federal election, the 2003 and 2007 presidential and governorship elections were elections that encouraged anarchy as they were generally adjudged far below free, fair and lacked in any measure for credibility test, basically because of INEC collisions with either any of the contending major parties leading to endless litigations in each cases.


Meanwhile, aside the 2015 general elections which can simply be categorised and termed as a mob elections, the 2019 and 2023 general elections overtly revealed that those who voted had done nothing but those who counted and determined the votes are the ones that occupied the Central Processing Unit of the electoral and democratic system as it were very glaring for all to see in those elections.

Despite improved electoral laws and introductions of e-voting machine , B-Vas, there were overt indications of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) been bias, non transparent most especially with uses of even B-Vas, alterations of the election results both on B-Vas and on form EC8, inconclusive elections as a result of materials not timely taken to the polling units on election day.
Collusions with rejected APC national leader Tinubu to upturned the people's will, as Tinubu who paid their pipers dictated their tune in a supposedly general election meant for majority of the citizens to decide on who governs us for a period of four years. Remarks by incumbent president himself that he bought his way to the presidency also confirmed all these.

Coming to term with the individuals occupying various positions within the electoral umpire such as INEC chairman, INEC commissioner among others, the appointments to these positions are political appointments. This is exactly where and reason the credibility of the electoral outcomes are been compromised and sacrificed in Nigeria. Funny enough is that all those that have been appointed and served as INEC chairman are all university professors who have pleasures in subverting the will of the majority for their personal aggrandizements.


The appointment of the incumbent INEC chairman Prof Mahmood Yakubu was said to have been influenced back the in 2018 by Bola Ahmed Tinubu and as a result, against all odds INEC chairman decided the outcome of 2019 presidential election in favour of Major General Muhammadu Buhari who had lost all credibilities to win the Said election considering the level of hungers, compounding existing Boko Haram with bandit and Fulani herdsmen menace amidst human rights violations, lack of respect for rule of law, etc. To simply put it, 'the CIA agent Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been in charged, remotiing and controlling INEC before ever becoming the President and Commander in Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.


The prospects of any free, fair and credible elections under him as the sitting president looks very invincible.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu ensured Buhari was re-elected through his puppet INEC chairman Mahmood Yakub in a grand calculation for his 2023 presidential ambition which saw him and his gangs unleashing all forms of deceits, manipulations and impersonation at the highest order including impersonating the clergymen.

The prospects and chances of having a free, fair and credible elections comes 2027 under the Tinubu led APC anti- people government and an INEC that takes orders directly from him will be absolutely impossible.


On the state of the political parties in Nigeria currently, just like the late military Totalitarian dictator General Sani Abacha was to emerged the sole presidential candidate of the all political parties formedy perior his sudden death in 1998, Tinubu and his Mafia camp have been earnestly working to undermine and subvert the democratic processes, moving the country towards a one party system.

The Tinubu and his Mafias who are in APC and in his government are also directly and indirectly dictating the fates of other political parties as PDP is in their hands too, while the same INEC has been the weapon of distabilisation in Tinubu's hands holding Labour Party (LP) down ineffectively immediately after the 2023 general elections just as was the case with Omoyele Sowore led African Action AAC after 2019 general elections. For the LP, INEC that refused to accept the kangaroo National Convention that returned Barrister Julius Abure as the National Chairman has also refused to upload the names of the Senator Nenadi Esther Usman led National Caretaker Committee of the party even after a Supreme Court judgement sacked else while Chairman Abure. For months now, INEC is still studying the court judgement.


Suffix to this is the fact that this same INEC has made the registration of new party nearly impossible. Even the Social Democratic Party SDP that some aggrieved politicians and citizens seemly running to can't be adjudged clear of Tinubu's influence. He was to contest the 2023 presidential election in the SDP platform if APC had denied him the presidential ticket.


Off season elections conducted so far in Edo, Ondo are another testaments of systemic disruption of oppositions in favour of the ruling party. These are the litmus tests if what to expect in 2027.


Removing the bias, unfair and non neutral Professor Mahmood Yakub by Mr President, to nominate another of his stoogees for the National Assembly to rubber stamped again may not help going forward to 2027 as the entire citizens of voting ages are on the verge of been manipulated and shortchanged again.

An electoral reform by the National Assembly that ensure that the sitting president does not nominate top INEC officers may go a long way to reduce underground and unconstitutional interference in the activities of the umpire.

Conclusively, as our forefathers at independence opted for a democratic and egalitarian society, it's the duties of all of us to mobilize, sensitize citizens on the needs for a credible, free and fair elections. We must continue to speak and stand against Intimidations and brazen harassment of voters as openly seen in 2023 presidential and national assembly elections and most especially the governorship elections in some states and Lagos, Rivers, Kogi in particular.

The essential of governance is to serve the people. Maximum pleasure for greater numbers of people but in the case of Nigeria and her citizens, it has been maximum pains for an absolute majority while the very few and less than minority including the incumbent President are living large in frivolous and lavish spending as seen in their budgetary allocations to themselves. Students loans already cornered. Hunger ruling without mercy, no end in sight to criminalities, terrorism , banditary, Fulani herdsmen menace and kidnapping for ransoms

Nigerians should know that they want to contend and contest not only against brutal Tinubu led APC that believed in antidemocratic highjacking and run with it principles but also against the Tinubu's INEC that will be ready to hand him a certificate of return even if he failed to contest in the forth coming 2027 general elections.


Infact, as far as 2027 is approaching, factor that can ensure free, fair and credible elections will be an unwavering determinations by Nigerians to enforce it at the polling units level against the ruling party, INEC and institutions and agencies of state or the readiness to go the Malian way or Burkina way in another hand if the need be for a democratic reset.

Nigerians should rather win the 2027 elections at the polling units or loss it forever.




Sir Dele Abiola
oluabiola81@gmail.com

NIGERIA'S POLITICS: Tinubu's Silent and Strategic Manoeuvering For 2027

NIGERIA'S POLITICS: Tinubu's Silent and Strategic Manoeuvering For 2027

 TINUBU vs FUBARA LONDON SECRETS, PDP POLITICAL DEFECTIONS & BETRAYAL: HOW TINUBU’S SILENT EARTHQUAKE IN RIVERS STATE IS REDRAWING NIGERIA’S 2027 MAP 

 


  BEHIND THE SMOKE OF RIVERS, A POLITICAL FIRE IS BURNING


 


While Nigerians were distracted by surface noise, the real political tremor was taking place behind closed doors—in hotel suites in London, in secret calls to Supreme Court chambers, and in the quietly defecting hearts of PDP governors.


 Rivers State is now the pilot scheme of Tinubu’s 2027 game plan, and the betrayal of Wike and El-Rufai is no coincidence—it’s a blueprint.

 

 “This is Clement’s prophetic Intelligence Seal Broken. As it was written, so it is decoded — Nigeria’s destiny is being rewritten in shadows.”


BREAKING INTEL SNAPSHOT:


 _✓ President Bola Tinubu reportedly held a closed-door meeting with suspended Rivers State Governor, Sir Siminalayi Fubara, in London during his working visit.


 The meeting appears to have placed pressure on Fubara, who may now soften his stance and consider key concessions—sparking speculation of an impending political compromise aimed at de-escalating the ongoing crisis in Rivers State.


 _✓ Delta State Governor Oborevwori and his predecessor Ifeanyi Okowa have officially defected from the PDP to the APC, signaling a major political shift in the South-South region._ 


 _✓ Dele Momodu cautions political leaders against the ongoing wave of defections, warning that Nigeria risks sliding into a dictatorship if democratic opposition is silenced or dismantled._ 


 

 LONDON DEAL: FUBARA'S TRANSFORMATION FROM PAWN TO PRESIDENTIAL PROJECT


Governor Fubara’s London rendezvous with President Tinubu wasn’t a handshake—it was a baptism of fire and reprogramming of purpose. He entered that room a political orphan, bruised from legislative ambushes and executive sabotage. But he walked out reborn—not as Wike’s rebel—but as Tinubu’s prototype.


London wasn’t a peace talk. It was a software installation. Tinubu didn’t fly Fubara out for tea and sympathy. He flew him out for firmware updates—to rewrite the South-South operating system and install a federalist version of Lagos-style command governance in the oil heartland.


 “When the monkey refuses to dance for the owner, the drummer must find a new performer.”


Wike was the old performer. Tinubu is auditioning a new dance.


 Let’s be clear: Tinubu deliberately excluded Wike from the London table—not because he forgot, but because he had outgrown his usefulness. 


 The “Lion of Port Harcourt” was no longer roaring—he was growling at the wrong end of the food chain.


 Tinubu simply cut out the noise and adopted the underdog.


Fubara is now the test-run for Nigeria’s newest political software update:


 “Subnational Loyalty 3.0.” No more godfathers. No more regional emperors. Just governors with direct presidential plug-ins, coded to run Abuja’s agenda from local desktops.

 

 Strategic Fallout:


Soft Capture:


 Tinubu is building an APC-compliant Rivers without flying party flags or raising electoral dust. It's not a campaign—it’s a quiet colonization.


Silent Purge:


 Over time, Tinubu will replace PDP-encoded loyalists with federal-aligned technocrats—clean, sharp, loyal to Abuja’s firmware. They may still wave PDP banners, but their hearts will beat APC frequencies.


 “A snake that sheds its skin is not dead—it’s upgrading.”


 And that’s what Fubara has become: an upgraded vessel for a federal command.

 

 Clement Final Inside decode:


 “What do you call a man who defeats his master, but never lifts a sword?”


 Answer : _A governor with a presidential SIM card.

 

 Fubara has become the political equivalent of an electric car—looks quiet, moves silently, but packed with shockwave voltage. He now runs not on Wike’s diesel, but on Tinubu’s invisible battery.


 In a few months, Rivers will wear PDP clothes, but speak APC grammar. Contracts, budgets, appointments—coded in the dialect of the Villa.


 What happened in London was not alignment—it was conversion.


 “The hunter who sees two elephants fighting does not shoot until he knows which one the king sent.”


 Fubara now wears the king’s signal.

  

  BETRAYAL AS A POLITICAL TOOL: TINUBU DUMPS WIKE LIKE EL-RUFAI 


This is not politics. This is chess with human souls.


Wike is only the latest victim of a very ancient presidential doctrine—one that begins with— "use," passes through "praise," and ends in "purge."


The moment you stop being useful, the music stops. Ask El-Rufai, the original warning sign.


 "When the lion builds his palace, he lets the hyenas clear the bush—but he never invites them to the throne room."


Wike, like El-Rufai, was instrumental in cracking 2023’s complex electoral code. But once the door was open, they were both too loud, too proud, and too strategic for comfort. Tinubu’s model is not built for co-kings—it runs on “solitary supremacy.”


The louder you are near Tinubu, the closer you are to the exit. That’s not advice—it’s prophecy.

 

 Strategic Analysis:


Tinubu's Silent Doctrine:


Loyalty must be silent, strategic, and sacrificial. Once it becomes vocal, visionary, or viral, it gets downgraded.


Wike and El-Rufai forgot the rule:


 “Power doesn’t like witnesses. It prefers blind loyalty or permanent silence.”


Pre-2027 Purge Protocol:


Tinubu is activating his pre-election firewall. Independent thinkers are threats, not allies. If you're dreaming beyond your assigned lane, you will be neutralized with or without noise.


Wike’s “ control freak tendencies” made him an open tab in Tinubu’s security system.


 El-Rufai’s intellectual swagger was a bug in the matrix. Both had to go.

 

 Clement decode:


Wike thought Abuja politics was like Port Harcourt wrestling—just shout louder and win.


 But Tinubu’s Abuja is a soundproof chamber—you shout, but no one hears you. You protest, but your SIM card is already blocked.


 “He who builds his relevance on volume will lose it in silence.”

 

 Clement insider decode of the Day:


 “What do you call a man who opens the gate for a king, then is locked outside the palace?”


 Answer: An ex-kingmaker who didn't read the fine print.

 

 Implication:


 Wike has now joined the El-Rufai Club of Decommissioned Allies—former firebrands turned political orphans.


 And there are more names in Tinubu’s political execution queue. Loyalty is not a shield. It’s a leash.


 If you tug too hard, you disappear.


“In the kingdom of Tinubu, survival is not about merit—it’s about muteness.”



 DEFECTING GOVERNORS: THE DOMINOES FALL WHILE PDP WATCHES.


Okowa and Sheriff are no longer whispering—they’ve crossed the Rubicon.


This isn’t rumor. This is realignment warfare. And like all power shifts in Nigeria, it wears agbada in the daytime but holds a dagger at night. What we are witnessing is not politics— *it is controlled bleeding of the opposition. One by one. Calmly. Efficiently. Like a butcher slicing meat for soup.


 “When the elephant begins to dance, the grass must prepare to die quietly.” 

 

 Strategic Analysis:

 

*Presidency’s Long Game:* 


Tinubu doesn’t need to win elections in opposition strongholds. He only needs to neutralize resistance by absorption, not aggression. Why fight PDP in oil states when you can slowly buy out their captains?

Offer them: 


 ✓ Safety from EFCC.


 ✓ Federal cash flow for states._ 


 ✓ Political future inside the “next national equation.”


“You don’t destroy the house by fire—you remove the nails one by one.”


The Niger Delta Squeeze:


 Okowa was Atiku’s running mate, now flipping to APC silently.

Oborevwori is following. This is a tactical power shift of the oil belt—designed to choke PDP’s funding arteries before 2027.


Tinubu is cutting off the oil but smiling while doing it.

 

 Clement Sarcasm Mode:


PDP is watching its governors leave like a husband watching his wife pack bags for another man—and still asking if she’s just going to the market.


They’re not defecting.

They’re defecting with their eyes wide open and a resignation letter in their hearts.


 “A man who sees thunderclouds and still spreads his clothes outside is not praying—he’s pretending.”

 

 Implication:

By Q3 2025, expect the following:


Bayelsa,  and even Akwa Ibom to lean closer to federal structure.


PDP will remain a name without territory, a lion without teeth—just old symbols and empty stadiums.


Tinubu will own the oil map, not through ballots—but through defection diplomacy.


“When your generals dine in the enemy’s camp, your fortress is already conquered.”

 

 Clement insider decode:


 “What do you call a party that still calls itself an opposition but has no territory, no treasury, and no team?”


 Answer: A memory with a logo._ 

 


 CONCLUSION: THE GAME IS NO LONGER STATE VS STATE – IT'S SYSTEM VS SYSTEM.


 This is no longer about Rivers alone. Tinubu is reprogramming Nigeria’s power logic. Through a mix of betrayal, legal trickery, economic control, and strategic silence, he’s building a nationwide pro-presidency network outside formal APC channels._* 


 If successful, this model will crack PDP’s structure, weaken Atiku’s 2027 chances, and replace political alliances with personal pacts.

 


Written by: 

PASTOR CLEMENT CAJETAN OKEREKE


Political Scientist, Strategic Analyst & Research Fellow

 Institute of Political Science and Strategic Studies (IPSS)


 _Founder of Clement Institute of Political Intelligence Network (CIPIN) – Think Tank Academy



Source: SM

 TINUBU vs FUBARA LONDON SECRETS, PDP POLITICAL DEFECTIONS & BETRAYAL: HOW TINUBU’S SILENT EARTHQUAKE IN RIVERS STATE IS REDRAWING NIGERIA’S 2027 MAP 

 


  BEHIND THE SMOKE OF RIVERS, A POLITICAL FIRE IS BURNING


 


While Nigerians were distracted by surface noise, the real political tremor was taking place behind closed doors—in hotel suites in London, in secret calls to Supreme Court chambers, and in the quietly defecting hearts of PDP governors.


 Rivers State is now the pilot scheme of Tinubu’s 2027 game plan, and the betrayal of Wike and El-Rufai is no coincidence—it’s a blueprint.

 

 “This is Clement’s prophetic Intelligence Seal Broken. As it was written, so it is decoded — Nigeria’s destiny is being rewritten in shadows.”


BREAKING INTEL SNAPSHOT:


 _✓ President Bola Tinubu reportedly held a closed-door meeting with suspended Rivers State Governor, Sir Siminalayi Fubara, in London during his working visit.


 The meeting appears to have placed pressure on Fubara, who may now soften his stance and consider key concessions—sparking speculation of an impending political compromise aimed at de-escalating the ongoing crisis in Rivers State.


 _✓ Delta State Governor Oborevwori and his predecessor Ifeanyi Okowa have officially defected from the PDP to the APC, signaling a major political shift in the South-South region._ 


 _✓ Dele Momodu cautions political leaders against the ongoing wave of defections, warning that Nigeria risks sliding into a dictatorship if democratic opposition is silenced or dismantled._ 


 

 LONDON DEAL: FUBARA'S TRANSFORMATION FROM PAWN TO PRESIDENTIAL PROJECT


Governor Fubara’s London rendezvous with President Tinubu wasn’t a handshake—it was a baptism of fire and reprogramming of purpose. He entered that room a political orphan, bruised from legislative ambushes and executive sabotage. But he walked out reborn—not as Wike’s rebel—but as Tinubu’s prototype.


London wasn’t a peace talk. It was a software installation. Tinubu didn’t fly Fubara out for tea and sympathy. He flew him out for firmware updates—to rewrite the South-South operating system and install a federalist version of Lagos-style command governance in the oil heartland.


 “When the monkey refuses to dance for the owner, the drummer must find a new performer.”


Wike was the old performer. Tinubu is auditioning a new dance.


 Let’s be clear: Tinubu deliberately excluded Wike from the London table—not because he forgot, but because he had outgrown his usefulness. 


 The “Lion of Port Harcourt” was no longer roaring—he was growling at the wrong end of the food chain.


 Tinubu simply cut out the noise and adopted the underdog.


Fubara is now the test-run for Nigeria’s newest political software update:


 “Subnational Loyalty 3.0.” No more godfathers. No more regional emperors. Just governors with direct presidential plug-ins, coded to run Abuja’s agenda from local desktops.

 

 Strategic Fallout:


Soft Capture:


 Tinubu is building an APC-compliant Rivers without flying party flags or raising electoral dust. It's not a campaign—it’s a quiet colonization.


Silent Purge:


 Over time, Tinubu will replace PDP-encoded loyalists with federal-aligned technocrats—clean, sharp, loyal to Abuja’s firmware. They may still wave PDP banners, but their hearts will beat APC frequencies.


 “A snake that sheds its skin is not dead—it’s upgrading.”


 And that’s what Fubara has become: an upgraded vessel for a federal command.

 

 Clement Final Inside decode:


 “What do you call a man who defeats his master, but never lifts a sword?”


 Answer : _A governor with a presidential SIM card.

 

 Fubara has become the political equivalent of an electric car—looks quiet, moves silently, but packed with shockwave voltage. He now runs not on Wike’s diesel, but on Tinubu’s invisible battery.


 In a few months, Rivers will wear PDP clothes, but speak APC grammar. Contracts, budgets, appointments—coded in the dialect of the Villa.


 What happened in London was not alignment—it was conversion.


 “The hunter who sees two elephants fighting does not shoot until he knows which one the king sent.”


 Fubara now wears the king’s signal.

  

  BETRAYAL AS A POLITICAL TOOL: TINUBU DUMPS WIKE LIKE EL-RUFAI 


This is not politics. This is chess with human souls.


Wike is only the latest victim of a very ancient presidential doctrine—one that begins with— "use," passes through "praise," and ends in "purge."


The moment you stop being useful, the music stops. Ask El-Rufai, the original warning sign.


 "When the lion builds his palace, he lets the hyenas clear the bush—but he never invites them to the throne room."


Wike, like El-Rufai, was instrumental in cracking 2023’s complex electoral code. But once the door was open, they were both too loud, too proud, and too strategic for comfort. Tinubu’s model is not built for co-kings—it runs on “solitary supremacy.”


The louder you are near Tinubu, the closer you are to the exit. That’s not advice—it’s prophecy.

 

 Strategic Analysis:


Tinubu's Silent Doctrine:


Loyalty must be silent, strategic, and sacrificial. Once it becomes vocal, visionary, or viral, it gets downgraded.


Wike and El-Rufai forgot the rule:


 “Power doesn’t like witnesses. It prefers blind loyalty or permanent silence.”


Pre-2027 Purge Protocol:


Tinubu is activating his pre-election firewall. Independent thinkers are threats, not allies. If you're dreaming beyond your assigned lane, you will be neutralized with or without noise.


Wike’s “ control freak tendencies” made him an open tab in Tinubu’s security system.


 El-Rufai’s intellectual swagger was a bug in the matrix. Both had to go.

 

 Clement decode:


Wike thought Abuja politics was like Port Harcourt wrestling—just shout louder and win.


 But Tinubu’s Abuja is a soundproof chamber—you shout, but no one hears you. You protest, but your SIM card is already blocked.


 “He who builds his relevance on volume will lose it in silence.”

 

 Clement insider decode of the Day:


 “What do you call a man who opens the gate for a king, then is locked outside the palace?”


 Answer: An ex-kingmaker who didn't read the fine print.

 

 Implication:


 Wike has now joined the El-Rufai Club of Decommissioned Allies—former firebrands turned political orphans.


 And there are more names in Tinubu’s political execution queue. Loyalty is not a shield. It’s a leash.


 If you tug too hard, you disappear.


“In the kingdom of Tinubu, survival is not about merit—it’s about muteness.”



 DEFECTING GOVERNORS: THE DOMINOES FALL WHILE PDP WATCHES.


Okowa and Sheriff are no longer whispering—they’ve crossed the Rubicon.


This isn’t rumor. This is realignment warfare. And like all power shifts in Nigeria, it wears agbada in the daytime but holds a dagger at night. What we are witnessing is not politics— *it is controlled bleeding of the opposition. One by one. Calmly. Efficiently. Like a butcher slicing meat for soup.


 “When the elephant begins to dance, the grass must prepare to die quietly.” 

 

 Strategic Analysis:

 

*Presidency’s Long Game:* 


Tinubu doesn’t need to win elections in opposition strongholds. He only needs to neutralize resistance by absorption, not aggression. Why fight PDP in oil states when you can slowly buy out their captains?

Offer them: 


 ✓ Safety from EFCC.


 ✓ Federal cash flow for states._ 


 ✓ Political future inside the “next national equation.”


“You don’t destroy the house by fire—you remove the nails one by one.”


The Niger Delta Squeeze:


 Okowa was Atiku’s running mate, now flipping to APC silently.

Oborevwori is following. This is a tactical power shift of the oil belt—designed to choke PDP’s funding arteries before 2027.


Tinubu is cutting off the oil but smiling while doing it.

 

 Clement Sarcasm Mode:


PDP is watching its governors leave like a husband watching his wife pack bags for another man—and still asking if she’s just going to the market.


They’re not defecting.

They’re defecting with their eyes wide open and a resignation letter in their hearts.


 “A man who sees thunderclouds and still spreads his clothes outside is not praying—he’s pretending.”

 

 Implication:

By Q3 2025, expect the following:


Bayelsa,  and even Akwa Ibom to lean closer to federal structure.


PDP will remain a name without territory, a lion without teeth—just old symbols and empty stadiums.


Tinubu will own the oil map, not through ballots—but through defection diplomacy.


“When your generals dine in the enemy’s camp, your fortress is already conquered.”

 

 Clement insider decode:


 “What do you call a party that still calls itself an opposition but has no territory, no treasury, and no team?”


 Answer: A memory with a logo._ 

 


 CONCLUSION: THE GAME IS NO LONGER STATE VS STATE – IT'S SYSTEM VS SYSTEM.


 This is no longer about Rivers alone. Tinubu is reprogramming Nigeria’s power logic. Through a mix of betrayal, legal trickery, economic control, and strategic silence, he’s building a nationwide pro-presidency network outside formal APC channels._* 


 If successful, this model will crack PDP’s structure, weaken Atiku’s 2027 chances, and replace political alliances with personal pacts.

 


Written by: 

PASTOR CLEMENT CAJETAN OKEREKE


Political Scientist, Strategic Analyst & Research Fellow

 Institute of Political Science and Strategic Studies (IPSS)


 _Founder of Clement Institute of Political Intelligence Network (CIPIN) – Think Tank Academy



Source: SM

2027: Timi Frank warns Northern, Southern leaders not to fall for Tinubu’s tricks

2027: Timi Frank warns Northern, Southern leaders not to fall for Tinubu’s tricks


A Former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Timi Frank has on Wednesday warned Nigerians not to be fooled by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s tricks to again “grab power and run with it” in 2027. 


Frank who made this call in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday, specifically urged Northern and Southern leaders including opposition parties to resist Tinubu’s desperate 2027 presidential bid.


He revealed that while Tinubu is on one hand blackmailing Southerners, especially opposition Governors on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP) and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) by playing the ethnic card to gain support, he is on the other hand threatening to deal with them if they fail to support him by declaring a state of emergency in their States over spurious charges of violence and corruption. 


"He has increased the intensity now by blackmailing, intimidating and putting at least five PDP Governors from the South under duress to defect along with their Members in the National Assembly to the APC. 


"To Tinubu, the 2027 election is about him versus the North and that is why he is trying desperately to enlist the support of the South through manipulation and subterfuge. 

He has forgotten so soon that the North helped him to get to power in 2023,” he said.


According to the Bayelsa-born political activist, 2027 should not be about North or South but who would  fix the myriads of challenges confronting the country, including the incessant killings, kidnappings and banditry as well as the harsh economic conditions foisted on the masses by Tinubu through fuel subsidy removal, increased electricity tariff and high cost of food and other essential services. 


He said: “Nigerians are in need of a President who will help Nigeria become better, not 'Northern candidate or Southern candidate' or 'Northern President or Southern President'.


“The country is overcharged already with divisions along ethnic lines. We therefore can't afford to have a President who is setting one region against another for the sake of his own personal ambition.


"For me, Timi Frank, as a Southerner, I don't believe in a tribalistic and divisive President. I believe in a leader that will come and unite rather than divide Nigeria. 


“I advise every Northerner still supporting Tinubu to have a rethink. They should know that the North that apparently ‘assisted’ Tinubu to gain power in 2023 is suffering the most today.


"It is a fact that the North has been grossly sidelined in appointments and other infrastructure development programmes by Tinubu who has prioritised his personal and tribal life-interests over everything else. 


"This is why the North should wake up. They should know this route Tinubu is going in terms of 2027 politics, is not the best for Nigeria. They should rise and speak with one voice in 2027.


"I want the Northern leaders to know that should Tinubu find his way back to power in 2027, the North will suffer untold neglect as Tinubu and the APC don’t have their genuine interest at heart.


"As we speak, at least five opposition Governors are set to defect to APC not because they like Tinubu but due to intense political pressure, intimidation and blackmail, while those who will remain have been made to sign undertakings to deliver their States to Tinubu, otherwise they will be made to lose their second term elections.


"Tinubu does not believe in the power of the people. Tinubu is working to steal the election results, to grab it (power) and run away with it like he did in 2023.


"If the North can't see the omen of imminent regional stagnation and destruction, they will regret it if they do nothing to stop Tinubu in 2027.


“Tinubu does not believe in democracy and that is why he has succeeded in ensuring that PDP, Labour Party and any other opposition parties are enmeshed in intractable internal crisis in order to deny capable and qualified aspirants platforms to challenge him in 2027. 


“His singular aim is to retain power in 2027 by hook or crook. He is doing all he can at the detriment of Nigerians, a complete negation of the oath of office he swore to on assumption of office as President.”


Timi Frank lamented that at the moment, Nigeria is on auto-pilot under Tinubu's watch, yet he (Tinubu) wants to force himself on Nigerians again in 2027. 


Timi Frank added: “Nigerians must on their part, prepare to reject Tinubu. It is the only patriotic thing to do as citizens. As citizens, we have a duty to reject a bad, clueless and rudderless leader and do all that is legally necessary to prevent him from returning to power.”


He urged the opposition leaders in the country to ensure that their coalition succeeds in defeating Tinubu in 2027.


"The coalition is in the best interest of Nigeria and Nigerians. I therefore appeal to the leaders of the coalition to put Nigeria and Nigerians first as their decision would help reshape the country and its future going forward,” he said.



Comrade Timi Frank is currently the ULMWP Ambassador to East Africa and Middle East


A Former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Timi Frank has on Wednesday warned Nigerians not to be fooled by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s tricks to again “grab power and run with it” in 2027. 


Frank who made this call in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday, specifically urged Northern and Southern leaders including opposition parties to resist Tinubu’s desperate 2027 presidential bid.


He revealed that while Tinubu is on one hand blackmailing Southerners, especially opposition Governors on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP) and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) by playing the ethnic card to gain support, he is on the other hand threatening to deal with them if they fail to support him by declaring a state of emergency in their States over spurious charges of violence and corruption. 


"He has increased the intensity now by blackmailing, intimidating and putting at least five PDP Governors from the South under duress to defect along with their Members in the National Assembly to the APC. 


"To Tinubu, the 2027 election is about him versus the North and that is why he is trying desperately to enlist the support of the South through manipulation and subterfuge. 

He has forgotten so soon that the North helped him to get to power in 2023,” he said.


According to the Bayelsa-born political activist, 2027 should not be about North or South but who would  fix the myriads of challenges confronting the country, including the incessant killings, kidnappings and banditry as well as the harsh economic conditions foisted on the masses by Tinubu through fuel subsidy removal, increased electricity tariff and high cost of food and other essential services. 


He said: “Nigerians are in need of a President who will help Nigeria become better, not 'Northern candidate or Southern candidate' or 'Northern President or Southern President'.


“The country is overcharged already with divisions along ethnic lines. We therefore can't afford to have a President who is setting one region against another for the sake of his own personal ambition.


"For me, Timi Frank, as a Southerner, I don't believe in a tribalistic and divisive President. I believe in a leader that will come and unite rather than divide Nigeria. 


“I advise every Northerner still supporting Tinubu to have a rethink. They should know that the North that apparently ‘assisted’ Tinubu to gain power in 2023 is suffering the most today.


"It is a fact that the North has been grossly sidelined in appointments and other infrastructure development programmes by Tinubu who has prioritised his personal and tribal life-interests over everything else. 


"This is why the North should wake up. They should know this route Tinubu is going in terms of 2027 politics, is not the best for Nigeria. They should rise and speak with one voice in 2027.


"I want the Northern leaders to know that should Tinubu find his way back to power in 2027, the North will suffer untold neglect as Tinubu and the APC don’t have their genuine interest at heart.


"As we speak, at least five opposition Governors are set to defect to APC not because they like Tinubu but due to intense political pressure, intimidation and blackmail, while those who will remain have been made to sign undertakings to deliver their States to Tinubu, otherwise they will be made to lose their second term elections.


"Tinubu does not believe in the power of the people. Tinubu is working to steal the election results, to grab it (power) and run away with it like he did in 2023.


"If the North can't see the omen of imminent regional stagnation and destruction, they will regret it if they do nothing to stop Tinubu in 2027.


“Tinubu does not believe in democracy and that is why he has succeeded in ensuring that PDP, Labour Party and any other opposition parties are enmeshed in intractable internal crisis in order to deny capable and qualified aspirants platforms to challenge him in 2027. 


“His singular aim is to retain power in 2027 by hook or crook. He is doing all he can at the detriment of Nigerians, a complete negation of the oath of office he swore to on assumption of office as President.”


Timi Frank lamented that at the moment, Nigeria is on auto-pilot under Tinubu's watch, yet he (Tinubu) wants to force himself on Nigerians again in 2027. 


Timi Frank added: “Nigerians must on their part, prepare to reject Tinubu. It is the only patriotic thing to do as citizens. As citizens, we have a duty to reject a bad, clueless and rudderless leader and do all that is legally necessary to prevent him from returning to power.”


He urged the opposition leaders in the country to ensure that their coalition succeeds in defeating Tinubu in 2027.


"The coalition is in the best interest of Nigeria and Nigerians. I therefore appeal to the leaders of the coalition to put Nigeria and Nigerians first as their decision would help reshape the country and its future going forward,” he said.



Comrade Timi Frank is currently the ULMWP Ambassador to East Africa and Middle East

Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufa Dumped APC, Joins SDP

Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufa Dumped APC, Joins SDP

Nasir El-Rufai

A former Governor of Kaduna State Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai today dumped the rulling All Progressive Congress APC and joined the Social Democratic Party SDP.


After ensuring that the incumbent president Bola Ahmed Tinubu secured both the party nomination ticket and won the disputable 2023 presidential election, Mallam El-Rufai was sidelined. 

His tenures as Kaduna State Governor was also marred with bandits displacement of many, most especially Kaduna South.

Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, a founding member of APC said in an update on his verified social media handles that after a wide and due consultations, he has submitted a resignation letter at his ward in Kaduna State.


Decamping from APC to SDP may actually be of no use as Bola Tinubu may be in charge of the party by proxies.


According to El-Rufai: " Today, 10th March 2025, I have submitted a letter resigning my membership of the APC to my ward in Kaduna, effective immediately. Prior to this step, I had concluded consultations with my mentors, colleagues and loyalists across the country about the future. I have now decided to join the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and adopt it as the platform for our future political engagements and activities. "



Read the full statement below: 


NIGERIA UPDATE:  Onwards to the future


As a founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), I have fond memories of working with other compatriots to negotiate the merger of political parties that created the APC. It had been my hope since 2013 that my personal values and that of the APC will continue to align up to the time I choose to retire from politics. 


Developments in the last two years confirm that there is no desire on the part of those who currently control and run the APC to acknowledge, much less address, the unhealthy situation of the party. 


On my part, I have raised concerns in private and, more recently, in public regarding the capricious trajectory of the party. Therefore, at this point in my political journey, I have come to the conclusion that I must seek another political platform for the pursuit of the progressive values I cherish. 


Founders rightly feel attached towards institutions they helped create, but one must be pragmatic enough to admit when a divergence appears unbridgeable. I have diligently served the APC and made my contributions to its viability as a political platform,  but I recognize that the party has since strayed and left me stuck in the vision of its well-meaning founding fathers and mothers.


As a loyal party man, I worked to help secure the APC’s election victories in 2015, 2019 and 2023. I was one of the many governors elected on the party’s platform in 2015 and 2019, that stood for certain democratic and progressive principles to advance nation-building. My eight-year tenure in Kaduna State was devoted to implementing progressive policies to advance human development in education and healthcare, as well as expand infrastructure, promote equality of opportunity, create jobs and attract investments. These records count for little in the current APC that has castrated its organs and treated its membership with contempt in the last two years. I find this no longer acceptable.


Today, 10th March 2025, I have submitted a letter resigning my membership of the APC to my ward in Kaduna, effective immediately. Prior to this step, I had concluded consultations with my mentors, colleagues and loyalists across the country about the future. I have now decided to join the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and adopt it as the platform for our future political engagements and activities. 


Without prejudice to this decision, as a member of the SDP, I will focus on engaging with and persuading other opposition leaders and parties to join us and congregate under a unified democratic platform to challenge the APC in all elections and bye-elections between now and 2027 by the Grace of God. I therefore call on all our supporters and other persons concerned about our country’s future to join us in the SDP in the journey towards making Nigeria flourish as a beacon of pride for Africans and the Black Race.


Thank you and God Bless the Social Democratic Party.

God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.


Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, CON

Abuja, Nigeria

10th March 2025

Nasir El-Rufai

A former Governor of Kaduna State Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai today dumped the rulling All Progressive Congress APC and joined the Social Democratic Party SDP.


After ensuring that the incumbent president Bola Ahmed Tinubu secured both the party nomination ticket and won the disputable 2023 presidential election, Mallam El-Rufai was sidelined. 

His tenures as Kaduna State Governor was also marred with bandits displacement of many, most especially Kaduna South.

Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, a founding member of APC said in an update on his verified social media handles that after a wide and due consultations, he has submitted a resignation letter at his ward in Kaduna State.


Decamping from APC to SDP may actually be of no use as Bola Tinubu may be in charge of the party by proxies.


According to El-Rufai: " Today, 10th March 2025, I have submitted a letter resigning my membership of the APC to my ward in Kaduna, effective immediately. Prior to this step, I had concluded consultations with my mentors, colleagues and loyalists across the country about the future. I have now decided to join the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and adopt it as the platform for our future political engagements and activities. "



Read the full statement below: 


NIGERIA UPDATE:  Onwards to the future


As a founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), I have fond memories of working with other compatriots to negotiate the merger of political parties that created the APC. It had been my hope since 2013 that my personal values and that of the APC will continue to align up to the time I choose to retire from politics. 


Developments in the last two years confirm that there is no desire on the part of those who currently control and run the APC to acknowledge, much less address, the unhealthy situation of the party. 


On my part, I have raised concerns in private and, more recently, in public regarding the capricious trajectory of the party. Therefore, at this point in my political journey, I have come to the conclusion that I must seek another political platform for the pursuit of the progressive values I cherish. 


Founders rightly feel attached towards institutions they helped create, but one must be pragmatic enough to admit when a divergence appears unbridgeable. I have diligently served the APC and made my contributions to its viability as a political platform,  but I recognize that the party has since strayed and left me stuck in the vision of its well-meaning founding fathers and mothers.


As a loyal party man, I worked to help secure the APC’s election victories in 2015, 2019 and 2023. I was one of the many governors elected on the party’s platform in 2015 and 2019, that stood for certain democratic and progressive principles to advance nation-building. My eight-year tenure in Kaduna State was devoted to implementing progressive policies to advance human development in education and healthcare, as well as expand infrastructure, promote equality of opportunity, create jobs and attract investments. These records count for little in the current APC that has castrated its organs and treated its membership with contempt in the last two years. I find this no longer acceptable.


Today, 10th March 2025, I have submitted a letter resigning my membership of the APC to my ward in Kaduna, effective immediately. Prior to this step, I had concluded consultations with my mentors, colleagues and loyalists across the country about the future. I have now decided to join the Social Democratic Party (SDP), and adopt it as the platform for our future political engagements and activities. 


Without prejudice to this decision, as a member of the SDP, I will focus on engaging with and persuading other opposition leaders and parties to join us and congregate under a unified democratic platform to challenge the APC in all elections and bye-elections between now and 2027 by the Grace of God. I therefore call on all our supporters and other persons concerned about our country’s future to join us in the SDP in the journey towards making Nigeria flourish as a beacon of pride for Africans and the Black Race.


Thank you and God Bless the Social Democratic Party.

God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.


Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, CON

Abuja, Nigeria

10th March 2025

Why Labour Party (LP ) May not be the Platform for 2027 General Election — Veteran Che

Why Labour Party (LP ) May not be the Platform for 2027 General Election — Veteran Che

Mega movement will emerge to unseat APC in 2027 – NCF DG, Okunniyi (Veteran Che)


Already, the current situation for both Labour Party and Peoples Democratic Party is that they are under a firm remote control of the Bola Tinubu led APC government. 


Nigerians surely need alternative political platform to rescue the country from misgovernance of Failed hope and total hopelessness of the APC.


Okunniyi

In this interview with WALE AKINSELURE, the Director-General of the National Consultative Front, Wale Okunniyi, discusses plans to form an “ultra-mega” coalition to challenge the All Progressives Congress ahead of the 2027 general election


Will the Labour Party remain the third force or will a new mega coalition emerge as an alternative to the APC in the 2027 election?


Cuts in… The Labour Party was the first force, if not for the rigging. It became the first force at the election after we created the Labour Party as the third force, and we won. Regarding 2027, we are not banking on a third force. We are going back to what we did in 2011 and 2015. In 2011, we started the mega summit movement to check the one-party rule of the Peoples Democratic Party, because the then-PDP National Chairman, Vincent Ogbulafor, said the party would rule for 60 years. At that time, we came together under the leadership of Chief Anthony Enahoro of blessed memory. I was the Secretary-General at that time too. Chief Olu Falae, and Odumegwu Ojukwu all had parties; Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, and Dr Tunji Braithwaite came together to check the one-party rule of the PDP back then. We started that process in 2008. I was coordinating the secretariat at the time. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and General Muhammadu Buhari joined us. Atiku came in from the PDP. The PDP was in power, but he had issues with its leadership. So that was what we did at the time to check the one-party rule.


Subsequently, the APC gained ascendancy into power and the PDP was in opposition. We created the APC. We were in the Congress for Progressive Change then, with General Muhammadu Buhari. I insisted to General Buhari that the only way to go is to create something formidable and to bring all the parties together, including the Action Congress of Nigeria and we did that. We created the APC through a merger of CPC, ACN, part of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, All Nigeria Peoples Party and forces in the ruling PDP then, including the likes of Rotimi Amaechi, and Bukola Saraki. Some of us always compare notes for things like that, because that’s our speciality and we were able to create APC. But in 2017, we began to talk of a third force because the APC in power was not doing well. The PDP, as the opposition, was not doing well. So we decided that there must be a third force. We started with what you call the Nigeria Intervention Movement, with Olisa Agbakoba, Pat Utomi, Tafawa Balewa, and all of us. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo latched onto that and also supported us. It didn’t materialise because, at elections, the movement broke into various parties. And then you have 15 of us contesting as presidential candidates against the others. So there was no way we could have won that election. Some even worked with the PDP. In 2019, after that election, we decided that we were going to consolidate on the third force initiative. On June 12, 2019, at MKO Abiola’s house, we had a resolution that we would have a third force. The third force, which was meant to be a major movement, will sponsor only one party, and we will not allow our members to contest under different parties. Everybody who joined must work towards a party and that was what we did by talking to the people. And so we started the National Consultative Front to consult and to bring all the other forces into a third force. Obadiah Mailafia, Attahiru Jega, Prof Pat Utomi, even Nigeria Labour Congress Ayuba Wabba, Oby Ezekwesili, Olisa Agbakoba, Femi Falana and so on. All of us decided we needed a third force of a fresh breed of youths.


When did Mr Peter Obi become the candidate of the third force in the last general election?


At one point, we couldn’t get a party of our own to register. So we started looking for political parties to use. Despite all the disappointment we experienced with existing parties, we were able to, last minute, very late in 2022, when the electioneering had started, we decided on the Labour Party, and we emptied all our force into the Labour Party to create a third force. It boomed almost immediately. That was how Peter Obi came in to join us in that third force of the Labour Party. Nigerians took it from us as theirs, and the Obidient movement. That was a formidable movement and we won that election, if not for what happened. This was because we had done serious work leading to the adoption of the Labour Party. On October 1, 2021, we held a major advocacy conference and rally to talk about the electronic transmission of results. And all forces are gathered through that in readiness to work together in a political party.


Variously, we have had different forms of engagement of government or the ruling power, either as a third force or as a strong opposition. But what is emerging now is that there are strategies and consultations ongoing, silently, with even stakeholders in the APC and the forces of the youth movement, forces of the PDP, Labour Party, NNPP and so on to come together to save democracy.


Considering the failings of the past, how do you intend to have a successful third-force campaign this time?


We are doing this not for ourselves but for productive democracy so that it won’t be a one-party rule or one-party dictatorship. That is what we are trying to do. The consultation is ongoing, and we will get an existing political party – it might be the Labour Party, it might be the PDP, it might be NNPP – it might even be any other existing party that we can move into, rebrand and restructure for a negotiated democratic leadership to emerge. Then, we will create a real mega movement, an ultra-mega movement within that existing party. This is because we know, quite well, that INEC may not be disposed to registering a new party. We are trying to see whether we can register but, if INEC doesn’t register us, we can use any of the existing parties. I speak as the Director-General of the National Consultative Front, which is guiding this, with Prof Pat Utomi as the chairman. We started the process on February 6 last year, during the birthday ceremony of Prof Utomi. We have consultations ongoing among gladiators within APC, PDP, and LP. All this will coalesce into a major, formidable coalition party that will engage governance and the ruling party. This aims to sustain democracy, rescue Nigeria, and ensure Nigerians experience the benefits of democracy.


Is the target simply to contest in 2027?


Well, that is part of it because if you don’t contest power, how will you be able to carry out your ideological programmes? How do you execute your ideas? What we intend to do is to build something formidable that Nigerians can take as their own, through our messaging and ideological presentation. It is not because we are saints. This is what we want to do and we will stand by it. We will be true to it and be principled enough to make sure it happens. That is not a problem for us because we have done this thing over and over again.


What will be different this time?


This time, we will learn from our various mistakes from 2007. I remember Atiku Abubakar and Muhammadu Buhari were supposed to work together, to engage (Umaru) Yar’Adua, which didn’t materialise. I remember some of us were arrested at Onikan Stadium. We will learn from our various mistakes. Although we had it in 2015 as the APC, what happened later? Some people seized power and locked up the Villa. Buhari was held captive. He didn’t even remember some of us who were the brainbox of his emergence. He was locked up in the Villa and didn’t remember all we promised Nigerians we would do, starting from Pro-National Conference Organisation days. He even vowed to Chief Enahoro that he would do them if we made him the President, but he didn’t remember to do them.


What did Buhari promise Chief Enahoro?


In 2003/2004, he joined PRONACO. He sat before Chief Enahoro to say that if he emerges, he will implement the PRONACO resolution. He didn’t touch anything. So, we have come a long way and we will go full hog this time in consultation. Our forces are strategising on the best way to save the country, to rescue democracy, and to make sure that the people take ownership of their governance. It’s not for us; it is for the people. We are going to a major national summit soon, where all opposition politicians and progressives will have their say on the kind of party that should be created. That will happen in the year.


When is it likely for the plans to take shape this year?


We are looking at June/July after the national summit of political stakeholders. In May, there will be a major national summit of political stakeholders and the people will be invited to shape the future of the new, ultra-mega opposition political movement that will emerge. Something will emerge by July. The process is going on. Just watch out


Are Atiku, Peter Obi and their men involved?


At their levels, they are talking; they are consulting. So everybody is involved and every talking point will connect. Every talking point for a virile and formidable opposition will have to connect at some point. All the forces will connect at the national summit likely to be held in May. We can use any of the parties. It may even be the PDP. Be sure that any chosen party would have its leadership rebranded and restructured. If you take an existing party, like the PDP or Labour Party, for instance, you have to discuss with their leadership to allow you to rebrand and restructure. You may have to get the consent of the incumbent leadership of such parties. You have to first know that they are amenable to rebranding and restructuring.


Is the North buying into the agenda?


The consultation is nationwide. The North is involved. The North is more involved now and I don’t know the reason for that. I only know the North is more involved than the South. Probably, it is because the President is from the South and, maybe, they are feeling the heat more. Even the consultation is generic. People were on their own and saw the El-Rufai forces moving. So many stakeholders in the APC are even more driven by consultations than some of us in the progressive movement. This is not geared at a person; It is geared at saving democracy. The aim is to rescue Nigeria so that the people can be taken out of impoverishment and hardship foisted on them by some of the policies of the government. And the people can then give a mandate. The government in the last 30 years has refused to consult the people. The consultative process has died. The last time that some gimmick of consultation happened was under the administration of Ibrahim Babangida, when you had to debate the collection of the Structural Adjustment Programme loan; debate the constitution and all kinds of things. People know what the government wants to do. But in a democracy, unfortunately, government policies and programmes are shrouded in secrecy. Before you know it, the National Assembly has passed it and the constitution of Nigeria is such that the people don’t even have a role in their governance. If you look at Nigeria’s 1999 military constitution, there is no role for the citizens to play. A referendum or plebiscite is taken off the Nigerian Constitution. In Britain, you see consultations on issues of the presidency. In America, the parliament is quick to throw issues at the people. So we want to change all of that; we want to empower the people more, to give direction to the new government that will emerge in Nigeria.



Atiku recently alleged that the APC bribed the opposition with N50m. How will your movement navigate such tactics, if the allegation is true?


It is for the consultation itself to be quite open, transparent and genuine. If the consultation is genuine, transparent, and democratic enough, it will navigate all attempts to stifle opposition parties with funds or other tactics. So, it’s for us to be thorough; I’m not going to tell you strategies on the pages of the newspaper. We have not done that in the past. But we can tell you that consultations are ongoing. We are aware of all the moves and that is natural. It is a political game. So, we are aware and we are doing everything to overcome that.


You have links with various groups and political parties. Is The Patriots, a group led by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, among those being consulted?


The Patriots group is not part of the movement. It is the National Consultative Front that is driving this. The Patriots group is involved in the national question, issues of federalism, restructuring, cohesion, national unity, national stability, and national integration. That may involve reforming the polity, having a major constitutional restructuring of the country, and having national conferences, and constituent assemblies. Members of The Patriots are not involved in partisan politics. These are eminent Nigerians who are above partisan politics


Are you suggesting that Nigerians should place their hope in the coalition you’re building to offer a truly fresh hope?


Well, You can’t build something on anything. The policy direction of the government is so discouraging, and it has not helped the economy. So it is most disheartening and demoralising. Nigerians should be hopeful because the emerging coalition will be owned by them. We will take the ownership straight to them. Nigerians are going to be represented in the party. That is a ray of hope which I think they can latch on. You know, the government can call a national conference and nothing happens. I thought they said they were going to do a youth summit sometime. They didn’t do it. What manner of governance is that? You are taking the youth, the citizens for a ride?




Source: Punch 


Mega movement will emerge to unseat APC in 2027 – NCF DG, Okunniyi (Veteran Che)


Already, the current situation for both Labour Party and Peoples Democratic Party is that they are under a firm remote control of the Bola Tinubu led APC government. 


Nigerians surely need alternative political platform to rescue the country from misgovernance of Failed hope and total hopelessness of the APC.


Okunniyi

In this interview with WALE AKINSELURE, the Director-General of the National Consultative Front, Wale Okunniyi, discusses plans to form an “ultra-mega” coalition to challenge the All Progressives Congress ahead of the 2027 general election


Will the Labour Party remain the third force or will a new mega coalition emerge as an alternative to the APC in the 2027 election?


Cuts in… The Labour Party was the first force, if not for the rigging. It became the first force at the election after we created the Labour Party as the third force, and we won. Regarding 2027, we are not banking on a third force. We are going back to what we did in 2011 and 2015. In 2011, we started the mega summit movement to check the one-party rule of the Peoples Democratic Party, because the then-PDP National Chairman, Vincent Ogbulafor, said the party would rule for 60 years. At that time, we came together under the leadership of Chief Anthony Enahoro of blessed memory. I was the Secretary-General at that time too. Chief Olu Falae, and Odumegwu Ojukwu all had parties; Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, and Dr Tunji Braithwaite came together to check the one-party rule of the PDP back then. We started that process in 2008. I was coordinating the secretariat at the time. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and General Muhammadu Buhari joined us. Atiku came in from the PDP. The PDP was in power, but he had issues with its leadership. So that was what we did at the time to check the one-party rule.


Subsequently, the APC gained ascendancy into power and the PDP was in opposition. We created the APC. We were in the Congress for Progressive Change then, with General Muhammadu Buhari. I insisted to General Buhari that the only way to go is to create something formidable and to bring all the parties together, including the Action Congress of Nigeria and we did that. We created the APC through a merger of CPC, ACN, part of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, All Nigeria Peoples Party and forces in the ruling PDP then, including the likes of Rotimi Amaechi, and Bukola Saraki. Some of us always compare notes for things like that, because that’s our speciality and we were able to create APC. But in 2017, we began to talk of a third force because the APC in power was not doing well. The PDP, as the opposition, was not doing well. So we decided that there must be a third force. We started with what you call the Nigeria Intervention Movement, with Olisa Agbakoba, Pat Utomi, Tafawa Balewa, and all of us. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo latched onto that and also supported us. It didn’t materialise because, at elections, the movement broke into various parties. And then you have 15 of us contesting as presidential candidates against the others. So there was no way we could have won that election. Some even worked with the PDP. In 2019, after that election, we decided that we were going to consolidate on the third force initiative. On June 12, 2019, at MKO Abiola’s house, we had a resolution that we would have a third force. The third force, which was meant to be a major movement, will sponsor only one party, and we will not allow our members to contest under different parties. Everybody who joined must work towards a party and that was what we did by talking to the people. And so we started the National Consultative Front to consult and to bring all the other forces into a third force. Obadiah Mailafia, Attahiru Jega, Prof Pat Utomi, even Nigeria Labour Congress Ayuba Wabba, Oby Ezekwesili, Olisa Agbakoba, Femi Falana and so on. All of us decided we needed a third force of a fresh breed of youths.


When did Mr Peter Obi become the candidate of the third force in the last general election?


At one point, we couldn’t get a party of our own to register. So we started looking for political parties to use. Despite all the disappointment we experienced with existing parties, we were able to, last minute, very late in 2022, when the electioneering had started, we decided on the Labour Party, and we emptied all our force into the Labour Party to create a third force. It boomed almost immediately. That was how Peter Obi came in to join us in that third force of the Labour Party. Nigerians took it from us as theirs, and the Obidient movement. That was a formidable movement and we won that election, if not for what happened. This was because we had done serious work leading to the adoption of the Labour Party. On October 1, 2021, we held a major advocacy conference and rally to talk about the electronic transmission of results. And all forces are gathered through that in readiness to work together in a political party.


Variously, we have had different forms of engagement of government or the ruling power, either as a third force or as a strong opposition. But what is emerging now is that there are strategies and consultations ongoing, silently, with even stakeholders in the APC and the forces of the youth movement, forces of the PDP, Labour Party, NNPP and so on to come together to save democracy.


Considering the failings of the past, how do you intend to have a successful third-force campaign this time?


We are doing this not for ourselves but for productive democracy so that it won’t be a one-party rule or one-party dictatorship. That is what we are trying to do. The consultation is ongoing, and we will get an existing political party – it might be the Labour Party, it might be the PDP, it might be NNPP – it might even be any other existing party that we can move into, rebrand and restructure for a negotiated democratic leadership to emerge. Then, we will create a real mega movement, an ultra-mega movement within that existing party. This is because we know, quite well, that INEC may not be disposed to registering a new party. We are trying to see whether we can register but, if INEC doesn’t register us, we can use any of the existing parties. I speak as the Director-General of the National Consultative Front, which is guiding this, with Prof Pat Utomi as the chairman. We started the process on February 6 last year, during the birthday ceremony of Prof Utomi. We have consultations ongoing among gladiators within APC, PDP, and LP. All this will coalesce into a major, formidable coalition party that will engage governance and the ruling party. This aims to sustain democracy, rescue Nigeria, and ensure Nigerians experience the benefits of democracy.


Is the target simply to contest in 2027?


Well, that is part of it because if you don’t contest power, how will you be able to carry out your ideological programmes? How do you execute your ideas? What we intend to do is to build something formidable that Nigerians can take as their own, through our messaging and ideological presentation. It is not because we are saints. This is what we want to do and we will stand by it. We will be true to it and be principled enough to make sure it happens. That is not a problem for us because we have done this thing over and over again.


What will be different this time?


This time, we will learn from our various mistakes from 2007. I remember Atiku Abubakar and Muhammadu Buhari were supposed to work together, to engage (Umaru) Yar’Adua, which didn’t materialise. I remember some of us were arrested at Onikan Stadium. We will learn from our various mistakes. Although we had it in 2015 as the APC, what happened later? Some people seized power and locked up the Villa. Buhari was held captive. He didn’t even remember some of us who were the brainbox of his emergence. He was locked up in the Villa and didn’t remember all we promised Nigerians we would do, starting from Pro-National Conference Organisation days. He even vowed to Chief Enahoro that he would do them if we made him the President, but he didn’t remember to do them.


What did Buhari promise Chief Enahoro?


In 2003/2004, he joined PRONACO. He sat before Chief Enahoro to say that if he emerges, he will implement the PRONACO resolution. He didn’t touch anything. So, we have come a long way and we will go full hog this time in consultation. Our forces are strategising on the best way to save the country, to rescue democracy, and to make sure that the people take ownership of their governance. It’s not for us; it is for the people. We are going to a major national summit soon, where all opposition politicians and progressives will have their say on the kind of party that should be created. That will happen in the year.


When is it likely for the plans to take shape this year?


We are looking at June/July after the national summit of political stakeholders. In May, there will be a major national summit of political stakeholders and the people will be invited to shape the future of the new, ultra-mega opposition political movement that will emerge. Something will emerge by July. The process is going on. Just watch out


Are Atiku, Peter Obi and their men involved?


At their levels, they are talking; they are consulting. So everybody is involved and every talking point will connect. Every talking point for a virile and formidable opposition will have to connect at some point. All the forces will connect at the national summit likely to be held in May. We can use any of the parties. It may even be the PDP. Be sure that any chosen party would have its leadership rebranded and restructured. If you take an existing party, like the PDP or Labour Party, for instance, you have to discuss with their leadership to allow you to rebrand and restructure. You may have to get the consent of the incumbent leadership of such parties. You have to first know that they are amenable to rebranding and restructuring.


Is the North buying into the agenda?


The consultation is nationwide. The North is involved. The North is more involved now and I don’t know the reason for that. I only know the North is more involved than the South. Probably, it is because the President is from the South and, maybe, they are feeling the heat more. Even the consultation is generic. People were on their own and saw the El-Rufai forces moving. So many stakeholders in the APC are even more driven by consultations than some of us in the progressive movement. This is not geared at a person; It is geared at saving democracy. The aim is to rescue Nigeria so that the people can be taken out of impoverishment and hardship foisted on them by some of the policies of the government. And the people can then give a mandate. The government in the last 30 years has refused to consult the people. The consultative process has died. The last time that some gimmick of consultation happened was under the administration of Ibrahim Babangida, when you had to debate the collection of the Structural Adjustment Programme loan; debate the constitution and all kinds of things. People know what the government wants to do. But in a democracy, unfortunately, government policies and programmes are shrouded in secrecy. Before you know it, the National Assembly has passed it and the constitution of Nigeria is such that the people don’t even have a role in their governance. If you look at Nigeria’s 1999 military constitution, there is no role for the citizens to play. A referendum or plebiscite is taken off the Nigerian Constitution. In Britain, you see consultations on issues of the presidency. In America, the parliament is quick to throw issues at the people. So we want to change all of that; we want to empower the people more, to give direction to the new government that will emerge in Nigeria.



Atiku recently alleged that the APC bribed the opposition with N50m. How will your movement navigate such tactics, if the allegation is true?


It is for the consultation itself to be quite open, transparent and genuine. If the consultation is genuine, transparent, and democratic enough, it will navigate all attempts to stifle opposition parties with funds or other tactics. So, it’s for us to be thorough; I’m not going to tell you strategies on the pages of the newspaper. We have not done that in the past. But we can tell you that consultations are ongoing. We are aware of all the moves and that is natural. It is a political game. So, we are aware and we are doing everything to overcome that.


You have links with various groups and political parties. Is The Patriots, a group led by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, among those being consulted?


The Patriots group is not part of the movement. It is the National Consultative Front that is driving this. The Patriots group is involved in the national question, issues of federalism, restructuring, cohesion, national unity, national stability, and national integration. That may involve reforming the polity, having a major constitutional restructuring of the country, and having national conferences, and constituent assemblies. Members of The Patriots are not involved in partisan politics. These are eminent Nigerians who are above partisan politics


Are you suggesting that Nigerians should place their hope in the coalition you’re building to offer a truly fresh hope?


Well, You can’t build something on anything. The policy direction of the government is so discouraging, and it has not helped the economy. So it is most disheartening and demoralising. Nigerians should be hopeful because the emerging coalition will be owned by them. We will take the ownership straight to them. Nigerians are going to be represented in the party. That is a ray of hope which I think they can latch on. You know, the government can call a national conference and nothing happens. I thought they said they were going to do a youth summit sometime. They didn’t do it. What manner of governance is that? You are taking the youth, the citizens for a ride?




Source: Punch 


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