The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday insisted that it would not allow political parties to check the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machines (BVAS).
The INEC National Commissioner and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, stated this on Sunday night while reacting to the call by the Labour Party (LP) to check the BVAS.
Okoye speaking on Channels TV said every political party that deployed polling agents has a copy of the polling units level results.
He further stated that if the parties insist that they want to look at the same thing their agents have, the commission won’t grant the request.
Okoye said, “On the issue of a political party saying they want to come and look at our cloud, IReV or into the brain of the BVAS, the commission will not allow that to happen.
“Every political party that deploys polling agents has a copy of the polling units level results and if a political party now says they want to come into the commission to look at the same thing their agents have already, we won’t allow that to happen because the laws do not allow that.
“Look, the commission is the regulator of political parties and the political parties cannot, just because of so many things taking place, come around and wants to regulate the commission. The commission will now allow that to happen.”
He added that political parties planning to express their grievances through peaceful protest are welcome at the commission’s headquarters.
Okoye stated, “In terms of the issue of protest, the commission is a public trust. And as far as the commission is concerned, any Nigerian who has any grievance has the constitutional and legal right to come to the commission to protest.
“The commission will not prevent any individual or group of individuals, any political party or association not to protest because the commission is a public trust and a public institution and we cannot prevent anybody from coming to protest.”
Ordinarily, with Dr. Peter Mbah’s emergence as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Hon. Chijioke Edeoga is not supposed to be in the governorship race.
First, he was a signatory to the agreement by all the Enugu East zone PDP gubernatorial aspirants to support anyone among them endorsed by Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.
Two, he issued a June 8th 2022 statement, personally signed by him, accepting the outcome of the PDP primary election and pledging total support for Mbah.
His statement read in part, “Peter has reached out to us and stretched out a hand of fellowship; we are disposed to support him. Now is the time when intra party jostling should take the back seat. Now is the time to heal and the time to lend a hand towards building up our dear state. In view of the foregoing, I hereby urge all my supporters and the people of Enugu State at large to rally behind Mr. Peter Mbah for the tasks ahead”.
However, in less than a week after that, he ported to the Labour Party. All fingers pointed in the direction of the Nwodos of Ukehe, notably Nnia Nwodo, who were said to have rejected his surrender and reprimanded him for taking such decision. After all, it is their governorship project, not his. He is only but a proxy.
Indeed, although the Nwodos have craftily promoted Edeoga as that much needed pathway to an additional eight years needed by the old Nsukka zone (which includes Isi-Uzo) to equalise what they present to unsuspecting Nsukka folks as the eight years of the old Enugu zone (Enugu West and Enugu East senatorial zones with the exception of Isi-Uzo) through Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani and Barr Sullivan Chime.
Edeoga’s candidacy, in reality, is primarily a well plotted scheme for the political and economic rehabilitation of the fading Nwodo political dynasty. It is a clear scheme to pocket Enugu State and govern Enugu by proxy. Edeoga is married to Nkechi Obayi, daughter of Dr. Grace Obayi (nee Nwodo). Edeoga owes virtually all he has achieved politically and economically today to the Nwodo dynasty.
For the benefit of the millennial generations, the Nwodos used to be very powerful. Their patriarch, HRH Igwe John Ugwuamakofia Nwodo (Igwe Okwuluora II of Ukehe) was a Member of the Eastern Region House of Assembly as well as Minister of Works and Minister of Commerce and Industry in the Eastern Region. Dr. Michael Okpara also appointed him Minister of Local Government.
His three sons have also tried to build on that foundation. Chief Joe Nwodo, a successful lawyer, was marching to Enugu’s Lion Building amid fierce political battle with Hyde Onuaguluchi until General Ibrahim Babangida disqualified all the aspirants nationwide. His immediate younger brother, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, benefitted from his structures and work already done and became the first civilian governor of Enugu State. He later became the National Secretary and also National Chairman of the PDP.
The youngest of the three, Chief Nnia Nwodo, served as Minister of Aviation in President Shehu Shagari’s government at a very tender age. He was also appointed Minister of Information by General Abdusalami Abubakar and served as the ninth President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide. Their sister, Grace Obayi (nee Nwodo), who is Edeoga’s mother-in-law, has served as commissioner.
However, despite these heights attained, it is really difficult to point at any major development or enduring legacy that could be ascribed to the Nwodos. They have instead emasculated and ruled Nsukka zone with iron fist and have made a handful of enemies within and outside Enugu State. Their political greed and indiscretion have equally caused great opportunities slip out of their hands; and the enfant terrible, Nnia Nwodo, is usually at the centre of it all.
For instance, once Okwesilieze emerged governor on the back of Joe Nwodo, Nnia Nwodo hijacked him and derailed his administration with his Nsukka supremacist agenda and the triangular equilibrium policy that became a triangular disequilibrium in actual sense. When Okwy emerged the PDP National Chairman, Nnia imposed himself as the clearinghouse and “collector”. He fought Okwy’s wife, Dorothy, over Enugu North senatorial ticket. He precipitated Okwy’s obstinacy and eventual fall over the political disagreement between Nwodo and governor Sullivan Chime. In his characteristic greed and scorched earth brand of politics, Nnia prodded Okwy to reject all entreaties and compromises brokered by Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and party elders and insisted on no second term for Chime and expropriation of most of the National and State Assembly tickets.
Ever since then, the Nwodos have struggled despite Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’s overtures such as the facilitation of Nnia’s emergence as PG of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, contracts, and gifting of Okwy’s son, Ikenna Nwodo, with the Council Chairmanship seat of Igbo Etiti LGA. The Nwodos, therefore, are in desperate need of a bounce back politically and economically. They also have political enemies to fight and no better way to achieve all these than through the instrumentality of the executive powers of the governor. And who could serve the purpose better than their trusted son-in-law and stooge, Chijioke Edeoga.
The Nwodos made Chijioke Edeoga the Press Secretary to the then Governor Okwesilieze Nwodo. They also helped him to the Council Chairmanship of Isi-Uzo LGA.
With Okwesilieze Nwodo’s influence as the National Secretary of the PDP, Edeoga was drafted into the House of Representatives where he served from 1999 to 2003. In 2007 he was appointed Special Adviser on Legal Matters to the then Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu. He later became a Senior Special Assistant on National Assembly Matters to President Goodluck Jonathan, all thanks to the Nwodos.
In 2015, Edeoga’s first cousin, Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, became governor. Their mothers are sisters from Obollo-Eke. But while an Eha-Amufu man of Isi-Uzo LGA married Edeoga’s mother, Ugwuanyi’s mother was married by an Orba man, which was also in Isi-Uzo LGA at the time. Udenu LGA was carved out from Isi-Uzo. Edeoga was appointed the Commissioner for Local Government Affairs, which is a very strategic position. Ugwuanyi retained him as Commissioner for Environment in 2019, a position he occupied until March 2022 when he resigned in accordance with the law to run for the office of the governor. Edeoga was an insider, and a member of Ugwuanyi’s kitchen cabinet.
It was this fraternal bond that the Nwodos sought to exploit to make their son-in-law the next governor. It started less than two years into Ugwuanyi’s second tenure when the Nwodos rallied the unsuspecting Nsukka intelligentsia to a meeting with Ugwuanyi to discuss the governor’s succession plan. An orator of note, Nnia Nwodo whipped up clannish sentiments and warped logic. He, together with the likes of Vita Abba, Okey Ezea, among others, introduced the argument of old Enugu zone (Enugu West and Enugu East senatorial zones with the exception of Isi-Uzo) and old Nsuka zone (Enugu North senatorial zone in addition to Isi-Uzo), which is unknown to the constitution. Along the line they settled for Isi-Uzo through the crafty manipulations of Nnia. Odimma Nsukka and “Ka Isi-Uzo Jee” political pressure groups were born to champion the cause with the full backing of Ugwuanyi, who bought the idea or simply played along.
Okwesilieze Nwodo did not also hide their stand when Ugwuanyi and the PDP campaign trail stormed Igbo Etiti LGA and Nsukka LGA ahead of the Council election in 2022. He openly told the crowd that it was the turn of Enugu East, but that in Enugu East; it should go to Isi-Uzo for equity. Senator Chuka Utazi also toed the same line.
However, for whatever reasons, Ugwuanyi thwarted their plot at the last minute by endorsing Nkanu East in the person of Dr. Peter Mbah. But to the Nwodos, especially Nnia, that was a political hara-kiri. Ugwuanyi wants to shut the doors to the long targeted Enugu political and economic treasuries to them. Not only did they quickly draft their proxy, Edeoga into the Labour Party, even when he had wholeheartedly thrown his weight behind Mbah, they rode on the “Obidient” fever to humiliate Ugwuanyi in the last National Assembly election.
To underline their determination, one of the comrades in the conspiracy, Senator-elect Okey Ezea has declared the March 18 governorship election as “a do-or-die game” for Nsukka and a war between Nsukka and Nkanu. But don’t be deceived. It’s actually a do-or-die project of some greedy men bent on installing a stooge in the Lion Building and ravage the state resources and political opportunities by proxy. Government of the incumbent’s cousin sponsored by in-laws for their selfish gains. Is that what we want for Enugu? God forbid!
A card-carrying member of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Nibo community Awka-South local government area of Anambra state, High Chief Emeka Okonkwo, says some APGA members who fought tooth and nail to enthrone the incumbent governor have suddenly become strangers to him.
Okonkwo, who spoke exclusively with our correspondent in Awka on Saturday, lamented that ardent believers of the All Progressives Grand Alliance have all been disappointed, deserted and disillusioned by the party.
The APGA chieftain disclosed that he was one of the disillusioned party faithful. Although he admitted that APGA is almost a religion but also pointed out that APGA has become the more you look, the less you see, adding that APGA has turned to disappoint her ardent believers.
He said, “We fought tooth and nail for Soludo’s emergence as governor. We came to Anambra state when even the most ardent supporter of Soludo ran away because of insecurity and all that.
“We put in our money. Soludo never spent one Kobo to become governor. We deemed him fit to be good for the state but all of a sudden we have become strangers and tenants in our own land.”
Okonkwo who is a business mogul, said that the March 18th House of Assembly election was not about Peter Obi anymore but more of the perception of who the governor really is. He said there was need for the government in power to reach out to the people and also reorientate their policies to be people-based.
According to him, people cannot be suffering hunger and abject penury, yet government is building roads; that dead people won’t ride on the roads. He therefore stressed the urgent need for government policies and programmes to be people-centred not mere philosophical thinking.
Okonkwo equally stated that it is of paramount importance to choose good people to run the House of Assembly of Anambra state and not what he described as rubber stamps.
Although he said almost all the candidates of APGA returning to the House of Assembly were his bosom friends, on the contrary, he said to actualise a liveable and prosperous Anambra, it really doesn’t matter whether APGA, Labour Party or other political parties dominated the legislature; that what matters is to vote in credible people.
According to him, “We don’t need people that will always say Oh Yes Mr. Governor. We need people that will question where they need to question and support where they need to support for the good of the entire state.”
The disillusioned APGA member as he referred to himself also questioned the crop of appointees working for Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, saying that most of his appointees don’t know the polity and the people. That most of the appointees were people who don’t have political base, stressing that the leadership of the All Progressives Grand Alliance should endeavour to gather back all the disillusioned people so that they can come back and deliver Anambra state to APGA again.
He said for him, if APGA loses the House of Assembly elections, then it would be the end of the road and demise of the party in Anambra state.
Reacting to the foregoing, press secretary to the governor, Mr. Christian Aburime, said it was arrant falsehood that some people of the APGA family have been abandoned. Aburime told our correspondent that contrary to such insinuations, Governor Soludo has continued to carry all and sundry along in the scheme of things.
He said, “The governor has always provided a level playing ground for everyone. He has created a conducive atmosphere in terms of security and ensured that people come out to vote candidates of their choice.
“It is not true that the governor disappointed anybody. Soludo has always supported every candidate of APGA. Anyone complaining about anything should come out fully to tell us about it. But I know the people are happy with what the governor has done and what the party has done too.”
Labour party candidate is a nightmare to APC Government in Lagos State. This is why:
1. I am their worst nightmare; a true Lagosian. The great grandson of an eminent indigenous Lagosian, Justice SB rhodes, a founding father of both the Nigerian executive and judiciary who served on the executive council of Nigeria with Adeyemo Alakija and together with similarly minded nationalists built Lagos, a credit they and their leader have been trying to steal.
2. They do not want a true Lagosian to rule lagos as no true son of Lagos would allow their unchecked rape of Lagos state resources to continue. Why do you think Funso Williams was killed?
3. I pledged to take the money (10% of Lagos state IGR) they are siphoning through Alpha beta and use it to empower 1 million poor Lagosians with interest free loans.
4. My father Barrister Olawale Rhodes-vivour a distinguished, detribalized true son of Lagos who embodies the Lagos spirit of accommodation fell in love with and married my wonderful mother Nkechi from the igbo tribe and I Gbadebo (The one who brings the crown) Chinedu (which means ‘God is leading’) Patrick(of noble origin) was born. The fact I would live up to my names and fulfill my destiny to bring back the crown they have stolen scares them.
5. They are scared that the circumstances of my birth (half yoruba half Igbo) and my family’s pedigree (Rhodes – Vivour history of unblemished public service) makes it easy for both members of the Igbo and yoruba tribes in Lagos to support, trust and see me as one of their own. My soaring acceptance and political profile as a unifier amongst the yorubas, Igbos, youths and all other tribes in Lagos state scares them so much that they’ve resorted to sponsoring hungry igbo and yoruba influencers to go on the social media space to promote an Igbo takeover agenda that does not exist and tag Lagos as a no man’s land in the hopes of linking it to me with an intent to incite my people, the yoruba against me. They are afraid I’ll take the government from them and bring it back for the benefit of the people of Lagos.
6. I refused their bribe offer of 20 billion naira to sell out my ticket and step down from the Governorship race for Sanwoolu. They can’t believe I would reject this offer to betray our cause. My refusal is why they’ve tagged me otherwise that I inherited the stubbornness from my mother’s side.
7. I supported and coordinated the campaign of Mr Peter Obi the most competent presidential candidate over a questionable candidate from my tribe.
8. I have the evidence and I am insisting on going to court with Mr Peter Obi to prove that the presidential election results figures in Lagos was tampered with and rigged and he Peter Obi won Lagos overwhelmingly with 936,000 votes against their leader’s paltry 155,000 votes which is not up to 25% of the total votes cast in Lagos and despite all their entreaties and the people they’ve sent to beg me using parapoism, I refused to back down.
9. I have a plan to rehabilitate the Agberos and thugs they only use for their dirty work and reintegrate them back into the society as responsible people.
10. I promised to fix the bad roads in all parts of Lagos, from Ikotun, Ijegun, satellite town, Lagos – badagry expressway and ikorodu to sagamu express way irrespective of the predominant tribe living there in order to boost international trade in Lagos.
11. I pledged to provide affordable housing to all Lagosians and stop the racket that goes on with Government built homes.
12. I am the biggest threat to their succession plan which will see Seyi Tinubu become governor after Sanwoolu.
Following the continued refusal of the Independent National Electoral Commission to allow it access to materials used for the February 25 presidential election despite a court order, the Labour Party has threatened to occupy the office of INEC in the entire country.
The Labour Party in a press statement, accused the electoral umpire of deliberately denying it access to the materials in a bid to frustrate despite serving them the court order on the 3rd of March and a reminder on the 6th.
Dr Yunusa Tanko, Chief Spokesman of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council who signed the statement, described the action of INEC as judicial insubordination and wondered why the commission will obey the court order to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines while disobeying the order granted to them to inspect the materials used for the presidential election.
The statement reads:
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with greatest impunity have refused, neglected and failed to obey the Order of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja made on the 03rd day of March 2023, directing it to grant the Labour Party and its presidential candidate H.E. Peter Gregory Obi leave to apply and receive from INEC, certified true copies of materials used in the presidential election held on 25th February 2023.
It will be recalled that the aforesaid Order of the presidential election petition tribunal was duly served on INEC on the 3rd of March 2023 despite the fact that they were present and represented at the tribunal when the Order was made.
Not minding the service of the said Order on INEC, and a reminder letter dated the 6th day of March 2023 and delivered same date at the INEC Headquarters Abuja, the electoral umpire has continued to ignore and or disobey the valid Order of such magnitude till NOW.
It should be noted that in a democracy like ours, rule of law must triumph not only in our legal system but also in our body polity as a whole. Parties to a litigation like in the instant case must accept and obey every order of court in good faith and no party should be seen to employ self-help to disparage or disrespect an order of court which if not checked and curtailed could possibly undermine our democracy, rule of law and constitutionalism.
The action of INEC under reference also constitutes for all intent and purposes, an act of judicial insubordination and willful refusal to comply to the order of court.
As we speak INEC has chosen to obey the court order given to it to reconfigure the BIVAS machine, which they are doing right now and ignoring the order granted to us to inspect electoral materials.
We therefore call on the general public to note the level of lawlessness and brazen disobedience to a lawful order of a court by an important statutory agency such as INEC, and which is a well calculated attempt to undermine and frustrate the presentation of the Petition by the Labour Party and its Presidential candidate before the tribunal in good time.
We therefore want to state that we will not fail to call our supporters to march to INEC offices nationwide in a non violent protest which is allowed by law.
This is to curtail the flagrant disobedience to court orders by INEC
His Excellency, Peter Obi was in Enugu state earlier today where he payed a condolence visit to the late former Senatorial candidate of the Labour party, for Enugu East senatorial district.
He wrote below :
“I just arrived in Enugu, to pay a condolence visit to the family of late Barr Oyibo Chukwu, the former senatorial candidate of Labour Party, for Enugu East Senatorial zone. I was accompanied by Barr Julius Abure, LP chairman, LP governorship candidate in Enugu State, Hon. Chijioke Edeoga, LP governorship candidate in Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti, and Sen. Victor Umeh. -PO
Growing up, two proverbs stuck out for me, one by my father, and the other was a Pidgin English saying. One was: “If one person buries himself, one hand will stick out”. Young, impressionistic, and inquisitive, I asked for an explanation. My father explained it away both as an idiomatic expression and a literary saying. According to him, if one person tries to bury himself, certainly the hand that covered his body with sand would need another hand to cover it. And left that way, the man wouldn’t be fully buried.
The other was: “If a cunning man die, a cunning man go bury am”.
Looking at the charade made of the February 25 presidential election by Professor Mahmood Yakubu and the Commission under his watch, those ancient wise sayings of our people come in handy. It is about what happens with any perfidious lie; once told, a bigger one would be required to cover it. Professor Mahmood Yakubu and his Commission seem to be on a voyage to find bigger lies to cover the one told on February 25 presidential election results.
This journey became more obvious when INEC approached the Tribunal for an order to reconfigure the BVAS to enable it to use the same machines for the March 11 guber and state assembly polls.
Yes ordinarily, INEC would need the BVAS to conduct any election under the Electoral Act 2022. The BVAS performs two major functions that will permit the Commission to fulfill the mandatory and obligatory requirements of the Electoral Act 2022. One is accreditation before voting to prevent proxy voting, and the other is a verification and confirmation of the accredited number of voters and votes received by the parties/candidates that must be done by the Collation or Returning Officer.
After jeopardizing the presidential election, INEC has realized how fatal it will be to the entire exercise if further elections are conducted and results declared after circumventing the express provisions of the extant electoral act (2022). For the avoidance of doubt, Section 64 (4) of the Electoral Act states: “a collation officer or returning officer at an election shall collate and announce the result of an election, subject to his or her verification and confirmation that the number of accredited voters stated on the collated result is correct and consistent with the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units and that the votes stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the votes or results recorded and transmitted directly from polling units”. This is called ‘Condition precedent’ in law.
Earlier the same day, INEC sent out a message directing Nigerians to be ready for the guber and state assembly polls this coming Saturday. And before the day wound down the same INEC told Nigerians that the guber and state assembly elections had been postponed to 18th March. Such knee-jerk reactions usually come from a confused bunch. INEC is now much like that man who buried himself, leaving his arm sticking out on the sand.
Prof Mahmood Yakubu let himself and Nigerians down in the terrible manner he conducted the presidential election on February 25. He deliberately abandoned the electronic transmission of results as required by the electoral act 2022, particularly section 64 subsections 4, which requires the collation or returning officer to follow an obligatory process; he or she is required by that section (Condition precedent) to compare the transmitted results directly from the polling units with the copies brought to the collation centre by the INEC officials who conducted and declared the results.
This is to ensure there is no falsification leading to inflation or deflation of results, judging by the accredited number of voters in the polling units recorded by BVAS. This is the only real difference between repealed electoral act 2010 and the electoral act 2022. INEC and CSOs fought for the electronic transfer of votes to achieve real-time and to eliminate manipulations of results perpetrated by the INEC officials who often colluded with desperate politicians.
Thankfully, the President signed this critical element into law. Yet, Prof Mahmood Yakubu led the INEC to abandon the Electoral Act 2022 and did manual collation after curiously shutting down INEC IReV. There is no doubt it was deliberate and not a network glitch as they wanted Nigerians to believe. If it was not deliberately done, INEC would have raised an alarm when it occurred as a natural reaction.
Rather, it took the Commission over 12 hours to respond with a terse statement that made many uninformed and bald-faced lying claims.
As if to erase any doubts, Professor Mahmood Yakubu refused to take the window of one to two weeks offered by the electoral act 2022 to review valid complaints that border on the integrity of the process and clear violations of the enabling act that were repeatedly pointed out by Senator Dino Malaye and others. More worrisome was the fact that Mahmood thrice promised to review the complaints once done with the collation. He didn’t keep that promise, the same way he didn’t keep the promise on electronic transmission of results designed to ensure real-time uploading of results. Where then is his professorate, integrity, and patriotism?
INEC went to the Court of Appeal to get permission to reconfigure BVAS. They got it, but not exactly what they had in mind. The Court of Appeal was wiser. The appellate court permitted the INEC to reconfigure as long as the contents of the BVAS will remain intact and saved in a backend server. This was like Shakespeare’s pound of flesh in his classic, Merchant of Venice; Shylock was asked cut it without drawing blood.
Mahmood and INEC would want permission to erase the presidential election data. Now, the Court of Appeal is saying whatever you do, do not tamper with the data. In other words, INEC can reconfigure as long as the data is unaffected.
Postponement of the guber and state assembly polls was therefore inevitable because INEC would have to produce the digital infrastructure to back up the data. What is more, the transfer of data will be done on the BVAS machines used in 176,606 polling units where the presidential election took place before reconfiguring. This cannot be done overnight. If the Commission does not do this, they cannot collaborate the results upon which they based Tinubu’s victory as required by law. This could mean some INEC officials could be headed to jail and that would render presidential election cancellation inevitable. This ruling gave hope that substantive law will prevail in these Presidential election petitions, not politics and antics as is often the case.
The BVAS revolution is therefore real. Nobody can bypass the magic machine and go undetected.
For the opposition parties, particularly the PDP and the Labour party, one would urge patience. The process is everything. Those instigating convulsion of the polity may have enlisted the services of INEC leadership. The short-changed Nigerian masses should note that any violent response to their provocations would mean playing into their hands.
Nigerians must be patient and watch closely the INEC macabre dance. The dilemma of INEC stems from the fact that the majority of the BVAS uploaded results automatically when the IReV came back on after it was switched off. That’s the way the BVAS is meant to function… simply click the ‘send’ button and anytime the server comes up and the BVAS has access to the internet, uploading would happen uninterruptedly.
That is the one hand INEC is trying to bury but it keeps sticking out. Let’s wait it out, for as our people would say when a cunning man dies, a cunning man will bury him.
·Dr. Law Mefor is a senior fellow of The Abuja School of Social and Political Thought; Tel.: +234- 905 642 4375; e-mail: drlawmefor@gmail.com; follow me on Twitter: @DrLawMefor1.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued fresh operational guidelines on open banking to deposit money banks, mobile money operators and payment service providers in the country.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued fresh operational guidelines on open banking to deposit money banks, mobile money operators and payment service providers in the country.
The apex bank on Wednesday in a circular titled “Issuance of the Operational Guidelines for Open Banking in Nigeria” directed all operators and service providers in the banking sector to comply with the new guidelines on open banking.
The Central Bank of Nigeria, in furtherance of its mandate for the stability of the financial system and pursuant to its role in deepening the financial system, hereby issues the Operational Guidelines for Open Banking in Nigeria”, the statement reads.
The adoption of Open Banking in Nigeria will foster the sharing of customer-permissioned data between banks and third-party firms to enable the building of customer-focused products and services. It is also aimed at enhancing efficiency, competition and access to financial services in Nigeria
“All stakeholders are required to ensure strict compliance with the guidelines and all other regulations, as the CBN continues to monitor developments and issue guidance as may be appropriate”, the apex bank said.
Nigerian Army’s 9 Brigade recovered 1,671 Permanent Voter Cards from an apartment in the Olodi-Apapa area of Lagos State on Wednesday.
According to Eons Intelligence on Thursday, three people were arrested in the apartment, while the main suspect was said to be on the run.
The troops also recovered ballot papers, cutlasses, and Indian hemp from the apartment.
The Governorship Candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in Lagos State, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour says the security and safety of voters are paramount in the forthcoming March 18 election, adding that any form of voter intimidation and harassment will be met with resistance.
“My focus now is on security and ensuring that people come out to vote and they are not intimidated or harassed because any form of intimidation or harassment will be met with resistance. It’s just that simple,” Rhodes-Vivour said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Thursday.
On February 25, thugs attacked voters and disrupted the electoral process in Elegushi, Ikate and other parts of Lagos . The police said over 20 political thugs were arrested over cases of electoral violence and ballot box snatching recorded during the just-concluded presidential and National Assembly polls.
He also said the postponement of the governorship and state assemblies’ elections from March 11 to March 18 has not dampened his momentum and determination to become the next governor of Lagos.
“It is not about rushing an election; it is about getting it right and that is why we got the injunction to ensure that INEC actually follows its processes. There are a lot of things that must be done right if we want to get this country on the right path,” he said.
The LP governorship candidate, however, said after what happened in the February 25 presidential and National Assembly polls, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would have to win his trust again.
Rhodes-Vivour said the people of Lagos want good governance regardless of the language a leader speaks or the tribe he belongs to. He noted that he is a proper cosmopolitan Lagosian having roots with the Yoruba people and having been trained in best institutions in the world.
The LP candidate said Lagos has always existed in harmony but politicians whip up ethnicity to divide the people of the state.
He said, “Lagos State has been in harmony for a long time. What happens is politicians try to divide us. Let us be wary of politicians who remember that they are Yoruba when it is time for politics. When Fulani herdsmen were making incursions into Oyo and people like Sunday Igboho, Rotimi Akeredolu stood up, a lot of politicians in Lagos were quiet. They played politics with it.
“When it was time for Amotekun, they were quiet. They were quiet on so many interests of the Yoruba people because they wanted an alliance with the north. So, they put their political interest above the interest of their people. And all of a sudden, it is election time and they are reminding you that this person does not speak Yoruba.”
“All the agberos on the streets that are wasting their lives, young men that are getting on drugs and are multiplying for years, do they meet the ones that are Yorubas and rehabilitate them, get them off the streets and ensure that they are more productive members of the society?” he queried.
