The Chatham House on Tuesday said the All Progressives Congress presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu ambushed its chairman when he appeared for an interactive session on Monday morning.
According to Peoples Gazette, the frontline British think-tank said the ruling All Progressives Congress presidential candidate undermined its normal arrangement and did not seek prior permission to act in the manner he did.
Mr Tinubu, during his appearance, delegated political surrogates that included Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to answer questions on his behalf.
Mr Tinubu assigned the question on oil theft to one of his campaign spokespersons, Dele Alake; the question on security he assigned to Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna; and the question on youth development and inclusion to Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River.
Also, a former commissioner of finance in Lagos, Wale Edun, was asked to answer the question on job creation; Mr Gbajabiamila answered a question on national defence while incumbent Lagos State governor Mr Sanwo-Olu took the question on youth inclusion in politics and governance.
Yesterday’s event was not the norm and our Chair was not notified in advance that Mr Tinubu would be delegating questions,” a spokesperson for Chatham House said in an email to Peoples Gazette. “The principle of Chatham House events is to be able to hear the views of invited speakers, and also to hold those speakers to account.”
Nigerians have expressed serious condemnation of Mr Tinubu’s conduct during the question and answer session of the event. The former Lagos governor failed to express his plans for the country in several areas of governance, including health, education, economy and national defence.
Mr Tinubu, who has continued to ignore Nigerian media, has committed repeated blunders on the campaign trail that critics said showed manifestation of severe medical conditions.
Since the start of the campaign in February, Mr Tinubu has been seen urinating on himself, carrying a catheter device to take his bodily waste and speaking gibberish during public appearances.
The presidential candidate has dismissed public concerns about his health, saying it was misplaced since he only needs his mental capacity to govern and not his physical capacity, which should be reserved for manual labour workers.
The Congress of University Academics has expressed its disappointment with the Federal Government, especially the Ministry of Labour and Employment, over the non-payment of its members’ withheld salaries “even when the government knew that the union did not call for strike action and its members were not involved in the strike action that lasted for eight months and which shut down the university system nationwide.”
CONUA, in a statement on Tuesday, signed by its National President, Secretary and Publicity Secretary, Dr Niyi Sunmonu, Dr Henry Oripeloye and Dr Ernest Nwoke, respectively, said it was wrong for the FG to lump CONUA with members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities who went on eight months strike between February and October, 2022.
The new union of lecturers thereby viewed to sue FG for withholding its members’ salaries.
The statement partly read, “CONUA formally made its non-involvement in the strike known to the Federal Government in a letter addressed to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, in April 2022.
“In the letter, we made it clear that because CONUA constituted a separate and independent union in the university system, our members did not call for any strike. This was followed by a Press Conference in Abuja on August 19, 2022 at which it was categorically stated that CONUA was not part of any ongoing strike, and that the “No Work No Pay” principle ought not to apply to members of the union.
“CONUA’s expectation is that, due to the express and categorical declaration, the government would seamlessly release our members’ outstanding salaries when it resumed the payment of salaries to all university staff in October 2022. But to our dismay, CONUA members were also paid pro-rata salaries in complete disregard to the fact that we were indeed shut out of duties by the strike.
Subsequently, we wrote to the Accountant-General of the Federatıon and the Ministry of Labour and Employment reminding them that it was an error to lump our members with those that declared and embarked on strike action. It was yet another shock for the outstanding backlog of salaries not to have been paid to our members along with the November 2022 salary.”
CONUA said the non-payment of “our withheld salaries” contravenes Section 43 (1b) of the Trade Disputes Act CAP. T8, which stated that “where any employer locks out his workers, the workers shall be entitled to wages and any other applicable remunerations for the period of the lock-out and the period of the lock-out shall not prejudicially affect any rights of the workers being rights dependent on the continuity of period of employment.”
“This provision is consistent with global best practices,” it added.
“From the foregoing and as a law-abiding union that pledged to do things differently, we have resolved to seek legal redress of the illegal withholding of our legitimate salaries by taking the matter to court in consonance with the rights enshrined in our laws,” the union said.
In October, the FG registered CONUA, who had opted to be different from ASUU by bringing new methods as against strike to press home the demands of lecturers for better welfare and university funding.
Iruono slumped on Monday evening and was confirmed dead in the early hours of Tuesday.
The late politician who is also a member of the Obi-Yusuf Datti presidential campaign council was billed to anchor Peter Obi’s presidential rally in Owerri today, Tuesday.
He was the Senior Special Assistant to the Imo Governor on Entertainment. He was also the pioneer Chairman of the Imo State Entertainment and Carnival Commission.
The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC Bola Tinubu, on Monday, dropped another gaffe at the Chatham House in the United Kingdom.
Since the former Lagos governor began his presidential campaign, it has been from one gaffe to another whenever he addresses his supporters at the podium.
Series of his goofs are often mimicked by comedians and skit makers in the country for comic relief.
Addressing his audience at the UK think-tank, Mr Tinubu blew another blunder while saying, “I hereby urged all my fellow ‘consentensants’ in this election to do the same.”
A twelve seconds video clip trending on social media captured the moment he meant to say his fellow contestants.
At the event, he also assigned his surrogates to answer questions on how he intends to govern the most populous country in Africa.
Already, there are insinuation that his incoherence at public functions might be reasons he is shying away from public debates involving his rivals, and rather opting for town hall meetings organised by his party.
The Labour Party, in the last few days has been watching with consternation the grandstanding of its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Abayomi Arabambi and his cohorts in the Ogun state executive of the party wherein they have continued to dish out lies to the public concerning the leadership of the party.
The party is constrained not to go to the gutters with its national officer, especially as it concerns the internal matters of the party which we all swore oath of confidentiality to uphold. We are even more constrained knowing that when a bird dances in the air, the probability of a drummer hiding nearby is a possibility. We are also not unmindful of the gullibility of men when confronted with carrots they can’t resist, hence, we have chosen to come out with facts as distorted by our supposed spokesperson.
Appearing on a popular television programme Saturday morning, Abayomi Arabambi threw caution to the wind by callously dishing out statements attacking a party for which he claims to be the National Publicity Secretary and has also questioned the legality of the membership of our respectable leaders and the Director-General of the Presidential Campaign Council, Dr. Doyin Okupe, wherein he pronounced him expelled from the party.
On Friday, I did address a press conference wherein the party over-ruled the illegal expulsion and had also warned of dire consequences against the architects of that rascality but with the recent development, the party has decided to tell its own story of how it has unknowingly harboured a ‘Judas Iscariot’ who is driven by pecuniary gains to sell the party, it ought to be defending,.
First, at the conclusion of the party primaries, in line with the directives of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, forms of the party’s candidates are supposed to be uploaded to INEC’s Portal. As a ranking member our party from the South-West, Mr. Arabambi was tasked with handling the candidates from both Lagos State and his home State, Ogun for the House of Assembly and governorship. The party didn’t know that he had ulterior motives and never had the intention of submitting the forms. He frustrated the arrangement and made sure that no name was uploaded.
When the party found out and queried him, he apologised and promised to take the matters to the court with a view to getting INEC to accept the forms. At this point, the *distraught* party began to suspect a foul play and on closer monitoring, it was realised that the matter was not diligently pursued in the courts leading to the matter being dismissed at the Federal High Court.
The party was going to wield the big stick for dereliction of duty but again he pleaded that he would appeal the judgement and had also given a firm assurance that the forms will be uploaded. It was on the basis of that that he was given the permission to pursue those cases on behalf of the party to Appeal Court. He once again lied to the party that there was valid appeal on the two states, Lagos and Ogun but unknown to the party, he never filed any appeal proper, though he filed notice of appeal for Lagos but he didn’t *consummate* it, there were no documents, no evidence before the court.
When the party noticed that he was playing pranks, and that he was merely deceiving the party, it quickly contracted another lawyer who *pursued* the case and got judgment in Lagos within three weeks. And *thereafter* when we saw what happened in Lagos we instructed other lawyers to take over the cases in Ogun for diligent prosecution. That is how Labour Party got the list of its candidates uploaded in INEC portal.
Every party member ought and should be happy that the party now have candidates in Lagos, having gotten that judgement, but this is not so with the party’s so called spokesperson. I therefore ask, ‘Arabambi is not APC, he is not PDP member, why is he angry that his party got a judgment that enabled INEC to recognise candidates of his party? Which sane person will be fighting his own party? His reactions and actions on the judicial success of the party which he initiated, defeats any logic. So who is he working for? Is he now working for or against the Labour Party?
And now for him threatening to go to court to challenge the judgment in favour of his own party, a party where he ought to be an image maker tells you clearly that he is completely compromised. He has been detailed to frustrate the party from getting candidates to field for elections in these areas. That he has instituted action against the Party’ victory in the Supreme Court is in his determination to ensure that Labour Party does not have candidates in Lagos and Ogun states. The inference that you can draw from his actions is that he is compromised because there is no other means to justify his current position.
Secondly, his unilateral expulsion of a foremost party leader like Doyin Okupe is laughable. Like I said earlier, during my press conference on Friday, we have made a strong statement that Arabambi has no constitutional powers to suspend any member of the party, not to talk of a personality, the party had worked hard to bring over to its fold.
For his information, Dr. Okupe, a frontline politician and a former Presidential aspirant joined the party with Peter Obi along with thousands of other notable leaders and were duly granted waivers. Since joining the party, he has been of immense benefit not just to the party but also the campaign council, investing both financial and material resources to ensure that the will of the people, which is a pro-people government is actualized in Nigeria soonest.
His unilateral pronouncement on the membership of our esteemed leader or any other member without authorisation by the leadership is viewed as usurpation of the authority of the leadership of the party, in this case the National Working Committee. Arabambi, the last time I checked is neither the National Financial Secretary or the National Legal Adviser whose duties are to advise the leadership of the party on who is financially viable or who is ineligible to be a member of the party.
Let me reiterate that any member of the party who is proven to be a hireling planted to sow discord in the party will soon have a date for judgement. We can’t afford to behave like other political parties we are working hard to upstage. Meanwhile, we will not be distracted by any mechanistic actions of a few. Our eyes are on the ball, 2023 will be the end point.
This is to specially appeal to Solution Government to reconsider the process of obtaining waiver for private motorcycle and the amount levied on impounded motorcycles in ARTMA office, Awka.
I write for public interest. I met one of the Electricians whose motorcycle for private use was impounded and moved to ARTMA office. The Electrician was told to pay N30,000 for the release of the motorcycle. For one month ,he has not been able to raise the money before I met him . I promised him that I will talk to the office .
I called an Officer in ARTMA office who told me that they have more than 1000 motorcycle in their office ,that the Electrician should pay N30,000 for his motorcycle, hence this appeal to reconsider the penalty to enable some genuine and private motorcycle users opportunity to process their wavers .
In my sincere opinion , Government should show empathy to the low income earners . I appreciate the security situation that necessitated okada ban in Anambra State ,however , execution of the ban should not affect the innocent motorcycle users . The hardworking citizens should be encouraged .
This is the Electrician phone number 08060253952
Thank you as I look forward to your timely intervention.
Ndubuisi Anaenugwu writes from Good Governance Ministry (GGM)
How exactly does the mind of Tinubu supporters work? What is their thought process, really?
Are they supporting Tinubu because they genuinely believe he is mentally and physically sound to preside over Nigeria or they just want to punish the over 200 million of us?
Here is a man whose real name you don’t even know. His academic record, age and ancestry are all shrouded in mystery. 20 years of his life was practically deleted from history. Health-wise, he is not good and you don’t even need a doctor to confirm that. Mentally, he is not in a good place. Signs of cognitive impairment are shown in every of his public outings. In terms of character and integrity, he is doing even worse. The U.S cocaine indictment is still fresh in our memory. He has refused to speak to Nigerian media, not even his own media. All he’s shown the Nigerian people is disdain. Today that he wanted to form Chatham House speaker, small questions that they asked him, he pushed them to his surrogates. The few ones he tried to answer such as the question on oil theft, he was blabbing about theft and the receiver.
Yet,
You who claim to love Nigeria and Nigerians, you who spent the past 7 years lamenting the walking disaster that is Muhammadu Buhari and all the pains and sorrows and deaths he’s brought us, you want to vote Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu whom you know very well is Buhari Plus and will spend all his years as President in U.K hospital attending to his health. You are willing to take this risk even after witnessing how our lives and businesses were ruined because we elected a sick Buhari who left governance to unelected shadowy figures masquerading as the cabal who used our collective destinies to play Russian roulette. You want to take Nigerians to this very tragic route again???
Quite frankly, you cannot love Nigeria and Nigerians and still support Tinubu to preside over this country after what we’ve suffered and are still suffering under Buhari. It’s simply not possible.
I mean, how can anyone who wish his/her fellow Nigerians well support Tinubu? How?
Let’s even look at Tinubu’s vice Presidential candidate, Kashim Shettima, one of the deadliest politicians this country has ever had the displeasure of producing. Do you guys even know how this man emerged as the governorship candidate of his party to finally become governor? Have you any idea? Have you? The man who won the primary was shot dead, paving the way for Shettima who was next in line. This was a man in whose governorship lodge here in Asokoro, Abuja, Kabiru Sokoto, the boko haram terrorist who masterminded the Christmas day bombing in a Catholic church in madalla, was captured.
As in, a sitting governor making his own governor’s lodge a safe haven for a terrorist who just finished k!ll!ng dozens of Christians in a church on a Christmas day!
This is the man who will be acting as President should Tinubu emerge top come 2023.
You know all these, yet, you are still supporting Tinubu and you call it politics. How?
How do you want to deliberately make a wrong choice that will have a terrible consequence of existential nature on over 200 million people and still call it mere politics?? People’s lives, their very existence, is mere politics to you?
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Ray Morphy, has dumped the party and its presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Morphy who was a former special adviser to the former APC National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun, said he is leaving the ruling party where he had made intellectual, material and financial contributions, all in a bid to help secure better governance but to no avail.
Morphy, an APC big wig in the Cross River State chapter, said the country deserves more “than the comedy of gaffes APC is trying to sell to Nigerians.”
Morphy was a leader of APC and member of the APC presidential council in 2019 and was also a member of APC National Campaign Councils to many states and a pioneer member of The Buhari Organisation (TBO).
In a statement he issued on Sunday in Abuja, Morphy said he has realised after much effort that public good is the last thing on the mind of the leadership of the APC, whether in government or out of it.
In the statement he titled: “I am not sorry”, Morphy said, “I am not sorry! I have lost many friends because they expected me to live a lie, they expected that I would like them, condemn the APC misrule in private and hail APC in public. I do not know how to speak with a forked tongue.
“I am not sorry that I left APC where I had made intellectual, material and financial contributions, all in a bid to help secure better governance for our! I realised after much effort that public good is the last thing on the mind of the leadership of the APC whether in government or out of it. Talking about public good to APC is like talking to a stone, so I took a walk.”
“I am not sorry that I did what my conscience bids me to do. I cannot support a ticket that does not take into cognisance the diversity of our country.
I am not sorry, that I happen to believe that this country needs better, indeed deserves better than the comedy of gaffes that the APC is trying to sell to Nigerians in order to further impoverish and already traumatised and despondent citizenry!
I am not sorry, because I am a seeker of what is right and true. This is what we do, we stand with the truth and part ways with those who prefer lies! We stand with the public and part ways with those who see nothing wrong with the mass sufferings of the citizenry.
“I am not sorry that I stand for what is good for our Nation.”
Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has declared that he is in support of change of leadership from the North to South in 2023.
With this, Obasanjo is not backing the candidacy of the PDP’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
He spoke at the weekend when the leadership of the apex Socio-Cultural group in Tiv land of Benue State, Mzough U Tiv (MUT) paid him a visit at his Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) Penthouse residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital.
Obasanjo said he was in support for the change of the leadership of the country from the North to the South, while the Middle-Belt region should continue to advocate for rotational presidency for the country.
If Nigeria is ready to get it right, the 2023 election should be a turning point. We should not go for emotion that will destroy us,” Obasanjo, who was conferred with the title of a “Great Warrior” of Tiv land by the socio-political group said.
He also said with the growing population of the country, the oil and gas sector could no longer feed the nation.
In a statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Kehinde Akinyemi, the former President enjoined Nigerians to see the country as for all, “to save it and restore to what God has created it to be,” Obasanjo who was responding to the President-General, Chief CP Iorbee Ihagh’s (rtd.) speech said.
According to him: “Only farming and agric business could tackle the nation’s growing population. Farming and agric Business is what will feed the nation.”
He called on the Tiv people to focus on farming and Agric Business, stressing that he had put the experience of having his farm burnt in Benue State behind him, as he hinted of having an industry established in the state next year.
Ihagh had stated that the reason for the group’s friendship visit “is basically to interface with you as our former Head of State, a political Pillar, a nationalist and elder statesman to appreciate your overwhelming love, passion and concern you have demonstrated over the Tiv people,” stressing that it was also historic.
He listed three prayers for the former President’s consideration, including the need for the establishment of a fruit juice industry in Benue state and inclusive National Politics.
Also, was the issue of Fulani herders attack on TIV land and position on the Nigerian power sharing formula.
According to him: “With regards to the current power equation in the country, we in the Mzough u Tiv in conjunction with the Middle Belt Forum had unanimously resolved for power shift from the North to the South for fairness, justice and a true federalism.
We want to call on your Excellency and other well meaning Nigerians to strictly adhere to the principle of rotation and distributive justice. If this is enforced, the middle Belt would also be assured of producing the next president come year 2031.”
Governors of the 36 states of the federation have said there is hardship in the land because of President Muhammadu Buhari has allegedly failed to fulfil his 2019 campaign promises.
The Minister of State for budget and national planning, Clement Agba, had blamed state governors for the nation’s poverty index, saying the governors had abandoned 72 per cent of Nigeria’s poor citizens in the rural areas, only to build airports and flyovers.
A day after the Minister’s comment, President Buhari also accused the governors of stealing from the local government allocations.
But reacting to the allegations on Saturday, the Director of Media and Public Affairs of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo said the federal government should not blame the governors for its failure to lift Nigerians out of poverty, provide security and make life better for the people.
Part of the statement reads, “It is the federal government that, in its campaign message in 2019, promised to take 100 million Nigerians out of poverty. Today, records show that more than 130 million Nigerians are living below the globally accepted poverty line of a dollar a day. Under the current administration that Mr Clement Agba is minister, the national cash cow, the NNPC, had failed to remit statutory allocations to states in several months.
The situation had compelled governors to rely on other sources of revenue like; the SFTAS programme and other interventions anchored by the NGF, to fund states activities while monies budgeted for such federal ministries as agriculture, rural development and humanitarian affairs are not being deployed in the direction of the people.
The Minister who should be responding to a question demanding to know what he and his colleague, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, were doing to ameliorate the hardship Nigerians are facing attempted to defray the notion that rising levels of hunger and lack were peculiar to Nigeria.
“It is the opinion of the governors that the dereliction that the Minister is talking about lies, strictly speaking, at the doorstep of the federal government which he represents, in this scenario.”
The statement by the NGF further noted that the primary duty of the government is to ensure the security of lives and property, however, the current administration has been unable to fulfil this covenant with the people.
“First and foremost, the primary duty of any government is to ensure the security of lives and property, without which no sensible human activity takes place. But the federal government which is responsible for the security of lives and property has been unable to fulfil this covenant with the people thus allowing bandits, insurgents, and kidnappers to turn the country into a killing field, maiming and abducting people, in schools, market places and even on their farmlands.
This dereliction of duty from the centre is the main reason why people have been unable to engage in regular agrarian activity and in commerce. Today, rural areas are insecure, markets are unsafe, surety of travel is improbable and life for the common people generally is harsh and brutish.
“The question is, how can a defenceless rural population maintain a sustainable lifestyle of peace and harmony when their lives are cut prematurely, and they wallow permanently in danger? How does a minister whose government has been unable to ensure security, law and order have the temerity to blame governors?
Two states, Edo and Akwa Ibom had promptly responded to the vituperations of the Minister. According to Akwa Ibom State, what determines poverty and unemployment in a country is its economic policy, which is set, normally by the central government nationally.
Akwa Ibom insists that the federal government cannot abdicate its responsibility by blaming states and goes further to ask, albeit rhetorically, how economic policies in a state drive the dollar which determines almost every aspect of our national existence,” the e NGF noted.
