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Tag: Aisha Alhassan

  • Alhassan urges Taraba youths to resist being used for thuggery

    Aisha Alhassan, the Immediate past Minister of Women Affairs and Child Development, has urged youths in the state to resist attempt by politicians to use them as political thugs.

    Alhassan, the Governorship Candidate of United Democratic Party (UDP), made the appeal in Jalingo on Tuesday during the inauguration of her campaign committee and unveiling of her manifesto for the development of Taraba State.

    The former minister advised the youth to rather demand to know the programmes and policies spelt out in the politicians’ manifestos that were targeted at youth development.

    She cautioned religious and traditional leaders to distance themselves from partisan politics and consider all candidates as their children during and after the electioneering period.

    Alhassan alleged that some clerics had already taken sides with some candidates as they had openly castigated others and dismissed the chances of some flag-bearers based on gender.

    She explained that she left the All Progressives Congress (APC) and joined UDP because of the injustice meted out to her by the party leadership.

    Read Also: APC disqualifies Shittu, Alhassan guber race

    “There are some clerics who are sponsored to castigate me and such clerics are going from one local government to another to mislead people that the APC governorship candidate is more suitable than me,’’ she said.

    Alhassan challenged such clerics to assemble both of them for a debate to see who is more qualified in terms of education and working experience.

    She explained that her blueprint of the state was very clear and extensive, which she had carefully put in place and intended to implement if voted into power in 2019.

    Alhassan promised to give priority to education, healthcare services, agriculture, infrastructure and youth empowerment.

    According to her, what is more paramount is the unity among the people of the state.

    She noted that if elected, she would reunite the people of the state, irrespective of religious, ethnic or regional affiliation.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the flagging off of the campaign also marked the acceptance of some people that decamped from other political parties to UDP

     

    NAN

  • As Shittu, Mama Taraba get the axe

    IN a move widely adjudged a turning point in the All Progressives Congress (APC), administrative politics, the ruling party disqualified two ministers serving in President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet from vying for their states’ governorship seats. The duo include Minister of Communication, Adebayo Shittu from Oyo State and his counterpart in the Women Affairs Ministry, Senator Aisha Alhassan, from Taraba State.

    Shittu and Alhassan were screened out by the Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) at a time the party grappled with defections among its ranks and files to rival parties.      Responding to insinuations that the duo were arbitrarily screened out, the party’s National Chairman and head of its NWC, Adams Oshiomhole, argued that Shittu was disqualified  because it was discovered that he avoided the compulsory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme after graduation.

    Alhassan, on the other hand, was disqualified from contesting for Taraba governorship seat due to concerns regarding her loyalty to the party. The NWC, however, has no cause to rue its decision given that Alhassan resigned her ministerial appointment and also defected from the APC to the United Democratic Party (UDP), soon after her disqualification.

    Speaking at a press conference, in Abuja, on Friday, September 28, Oshiomhole said that the party’s decision to disqualify Shittu and Alhassan was in order to protect the APC’s core values.

    Oshiomhole said the party’s governorship screening committee was not convinced with explanations offered by Shittu that his service as a lawmaker in the Oyo State House of Assembly and minister was equivalent to the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.

    According to him, Nigeria’s laws are clear on the issue. However, he said the Minister of Women Affairs, Alhassan, was disqualified because the party was not convinced about her loyalty.

    Oshiomhole said “As for the Honourable Minister of Women Affairs, she has issues that have to do with party loyalty. Our constitution is clear and it dictates that to contest elections or even hold office in the APC, you must be loyal to the party in every material concern.

    “From all she had said in the past and even her comments and general attitude during the screening, the NWC reviewed everything taken together and we arrived at the conclusion that she does not possess the level of loyalty that the APC requires for her to contest elections on our platform.

    “We made it clear when the defections happened that the APC may well benefit from these defections if it helps us to be more critical in terms of whom we give platform to contest elections and that there are core values that binds the APC together and they are non-negotiable.

    “The Electoral Act and the APC constitution forbid anyone from being a member of more than one political party at a time. You cannot be a member of APC and be a card carrying member of another party.

    “But when you have a situation where it would appear, based on what you know and based on what I know, that someone is probably APC in the day time, maybe for the purpose of retaining certain offices and they are PDP at heart. Or if they are not PDP at heart, they are actually and simply a follower of a one-man permanent presidential candidate…then we have the right to ask ourselves if these attitudes and qualities are characteristics of an ideal member of APC,” he said.

    There is no gainsaying that Shittu and Alhassan didn’t envisage their ordeal. The duo, like several other aspirants, dreamed of clinching their party’s ticket to vie for their states’ governorship seats until the dismal news of their disqualification.

    Earlier, an upbeat Shittu, in an interview, reportedly stated that he enjoyed the goodwill and support of large segments of the electorate. The former Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General of Oyo State allegedly urged  the APC to forget about its chances in the state if he is denied the governorship ticket of the party.

    The ministers’ problems with the APC, however, started before screening commenced for the party’s aspirants. While Shittu’s travails erupted in the wake of his NYSC certificate saga, Alhassan stirred the stirred the hornet’s nest when she granted a media interview, where she pledged her unflinching loyalty to Atiku Abubakar rather than her incumbent boss, President Buhari.

    Pundits aver that Alhassan’s her public show of support for former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’ s presidential ambition last year might have earned her a spot in the black book of the ruling party.

    Thus when APC chairman, Oshiomhole, revealed plans to instill discipline among membership of the party and ensure that the party is supreme, on assumption of office, he certainly wasn’t set on a wild goose chase.

    The party’s disqualification of chieftains like Shittu and Alhassan would have been unthinkable in the past but they were excluded for reasons firmly anchored in APC’s constitution and rules, according to the party’s national chairman.

  • Woman drags ex-husband to court over abandonment of daughter

     A 40-year old house wife, Aisha Alhassan on Monday dragged her ex-husband Murtala Ishaq before Magajin Gari Sharia Court in Kaduna over alleged abandonment of his daughter for 20 years.

    The complainant told the court that since the birth of the daughter 20 years ago, she had been shouldering the girl’s responsibilities.

    “We divorced 20 years ago when Asiya was an infant, since then, he had never cared for her needs.

    “I fed her, clothed her and even paid her school fees without any support from him”, she narrated before the court.

    The woman said that her daughter had to forfeit a Polytechnic admission opportunity because she could not afford the initial registration fees of N65, 000.

    She prayed the court to compel Ishaq to henceforth take full responsibility of his daughter.

    The defendant, however, denied the allegations, saying he had always performed his parental responsibilities.

    Read Also: Dissolve my 2-year-old marriage, woman tells court

    According to him, a court had given him custody of the child 20 years ago but that the mother forcefully took her away, a situation which made him to reduce his support for the child’s upkeep.

    “They told me that the girl had gotten suitors who are interested in marriage and I gave my consent, but the mother insists the girl must go to a higher institution.”

    Ishaq told the court that he is a poor man and could not afford to finance the girl’s studies in a higher institution.

    He however told the court that he would have no objection to his daughter’s quest for further studies if the would-be husband could shoulder that responsibility.

    The judge, Malam-Musa Sa’ad adjourned the case to Sept 4, to enable the complainant present her witnesses.

    NAN

  • We didn’t ask Alhassan to resign – APC

    We didn’t ask Alhassan to resign – APC

    The National Publicity Secretary of All Progressives Congress (APC), Malam Bolaji Abdullahi, said on Friday the party has not asked the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Sen. Aisha Alhassan, to resign from the post over her recent comments in the media.

    Abdullahi also said the minister’s appearance at the party’s National Secretariat, Abuja, on Thursday, was not on a summon.

    Alhassan, who had been widely criticized over the comment on her choice of presidential aspirant for the 2019 general election, had a closed-door meeting with the party’s leadership in Abuja.

    The minister had reportedly said she would support former Vice President Atiku Abubakar if he shows interest in the 2019 presidential race, saying the man had been her “godfather.”

    The comment drew the flak of APC stalwarts, who dubbed it anti-Buhari and anti-party, saying she was disloyal to the government and should resign or be sacked.

    At the end of the meeting, which lasted about two hours, Alhassan avoided journalists’ enquiry on her mission at the secretariat.

    Abdullahi said the minister had just a meeting with leadership of the party, but “was not asked to resign her position as may be speculated.”

    ‘’No, that did not come up. What we said was that we understood the context in which she said what she said.

    ‘’But, it was an act of indiscretion for someone occupying the position she is occupying in the party to make that kind of statement,’’ he said.

    NAN

  • Remaining Chibok girls to be released soon – FG

    Remaining Chibok girls to be released soon – FG

    The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Aisha Alhassan, said on Thursday the remaining Chibok girls that are still in Boko Haram captivity would be released soon.

    Alhassan stated this at the farewell dinner organised by the ministry in honour of the 106 released school girls after about  eight months rehabilitation period in Abuja.

    She said the Federal Government was still negotiating the release of the remaining Chibok girls and other citizens in Boko Haram captivity.

    “The Federal Government has never relented in the negotiation and I want to assure you that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

    “I appeal to their captors to come to the table and negotiate the release of those in captivity,’’ the minister said.

    Alhassan said the that girls were fit and ready for school again, adding that the federal government was fulfilling its promise to the girls by ensuring they were enrolled back in schools with their bills paid and necessary items for school provided.

    She said when the girls were released President Muhammadu Buhari told the world that the girls had seen the worst and promised that they would be given the best.

    “The government is fulfilling that promise as we all know. The girls have been at the rehabilitation centre for a long time and as a new school year begins, they will be in one of the best schools – the American University of Nigeria (AUN) where they will start a special foundation programmes like a pre-degree.”

    “Since their release, we have been giving them therapy to make them understand that challenges are a part of life and whatever happens to one in life is God’s will,” she added.

    The Country Representative of United Nations Women, Ms Comfort Lamprey, commended the efforts of government in ensuring the general well-being of the girls.

    She advised the girls to be responsible ambassadors of the North East, adding that the remaining Chibok girls would be released soon.

    The Deputy Representative of UNICEF, Mrs Peinille Ironside, said the girls’ return to their community was a new chapter in their lives.

    NAN

  • Alhassan turns ‘star attraction’ at FEC meeting

    Alhassan turns ‘star attraction’ at FEC meeting

    The Minister of Women Affairs, Aisha Alhassan, was the cynosure of all eyes at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday.

    Alhassan had last week told the BBC Hausa Service that she would support former Vice President Atiku Abubakar if the latter declares his intention to vie for the presidency in 2019.

    She had maintained that she would not support President Muhammadu Buhari if he decides to run for presidential elections in 2019.

    The minister, who arrived few minutes to the commencement of the meeting, went round the hall to exchange pleasantries with some of her colleagues who were already seated in the chamber.

    Photo journalists had a field day taking her shots as she moved round the hall.

    Before entering the Council Chamber, she went to greet the Minister of Mines and Steel, Kayode Fayemi, who was standing with the President’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari and the Permanent Secretary, Jalil Arabi.

    When Alhassan entered the chamber, she moved to other side of the hall and exchanged pleasantries with her colleagues, probably because many of the seats on her side of the hall were still empty.

    Among those she greeted were the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama.

    Others were the Acting Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Habibat Lawal, Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma and Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun.

    She then turned back and headed to her seat.

    Alhassan later stood up and approached Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s seat and had a brief chat with him.

    She later returned to her seat and continued to chat with the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, who sat beside her.

    The meeting started when President Muhammadu Buhari entered the Council Chamber at 11:00 a.m.

  • Buhari may not drop Alhassan

    Buhari may not drop Alhassan

    President Muhammadu Buhari may not sack Minister of Women Affairs Aisha Alhassan despite calls for her to get the push  following her comments, a source said yesterday.

    Sen. Alhassan shocked many when she said she would not support Buhari, should he decide to run in 2019. Her loyalty, she said, is to former Vice President Atiku Abuabakar.

    This is the third time the minister has made such comments against the President and his administration.

    The minister was alleged to have:

    • visited Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national caretaker chairman;
    • lambasted the administration during a session at the national secretariat of the All Progressives Congress (APC); and
    • the Sallah homage to ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar in Yola.

    A member of the President’s kitchen Cabinet, who spoke in confidence, said Buhari knew Senator Alhassan as a die-hard Atiku loyalist before appointing her as a minister.

    The source said: “Buhari is not going to sack or dismiss her. The attitude in the Presidency is to let her go on her own if she has 100 per cent loyalty to ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

    “Some of you may not know that this is not the first time the minister has attacked the President and his administration.

    “Aisha’s loyalty to Atiku is not new to the government. She has been with him all along as well as during the presidential primaries. It is nothing new.

    “And for Aisha to say that she was appointed a minister on the basis of her strength is false. The President appointed her on the basis of his conviction despite her loyalty to Atiku. Even the near miss she had with the governorship election in Taraba State was because of Buhari. Without Buhari’s popularity, she would not have garnered votes as much as she did.

    “They are making noise now in order to draw out the President. She won’t be sacked or dropped because she will now make noise as if an injustice has been meted out to her.”

    The source added: “Certainly, the presidency will take up issues with the minister and her godfather.”

    Another source said some of the President’s strategist met at the weekend and opposed Sen. Alhassan’s sack.

    The “strategists” met in Abuja and concluded that taking action against the minister might cause distractions for the administration.

    “We want her to remain in government and exercise her freedom of expression to the fullest. No one will tamper with her rights and privileges. We need to learn from the past.

    “We also want to demonstrate that there can be opposition in a government without any consequences. This is the essence of democracy,” the source said.

    Also yesterday, Senator Alhassan denied threatening to expose Kaduna State Governor Nasir El Rufai’s alleged role in the kidnap of the Chibok girls.

    According to her, those behind the statement were out to tarnish her image.

    A statement relased by her in a text message to our reporter, said:  “The attention of the Minister of Women Affairs, Senator Aisha Jummai Alhassan has been drawn to a statement allegedly made by her against Governor Nasir El Rufai.

    “The statement allegedly made by her is another ploy by mischief makers to tarnish her hard earned reputation.

    “The current APC government under President Buhari inherited series of problems from the past administration; the kidnap of the Chibok girls by the dreaded Boko Haram happens to be one of them and President Buhari and our military had been able to rescue some of them and checked Boko Haram’s excesses. Senator Jummai is not in possession of any security report and therefore will never have made the statement allegedly made by her against the person of Governor El-Rufai.”

  • Aisha Alhassan rocks the boat

    Aisha Alhassan rocks the boat

    Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Aisha Jummai Alhassan, last Wednesday let loose a torrent of shocking statements that both Taraba State, where she hails from, and the presidency, by whose grace she is a minister of the federal republic, are stupefied. She had led a delegation of Tarabans to pay former vice president Atiku Abubakar a Sallah visit. Addressing the former vice president, she had gushed: “Your Excellency, our father and our president by the grace of God come 2019, before you are your people, your supporters for life, the people of Taraba State. They are here to pay our homage and to greet you on the occasion of Sallah and for all that Allah has done to you because Allah has raised your status.” A video recording of that visit, however, leaked, with all the portentous implications of her statements.

    Probably shocked by the leakage but still keeping her wits about her, she reiterated her views on a BBC Hausa Service interview indicating that her support for the former vice president was not a fluke but a conscious, deliberate and determined action. In the interview, she alluded to a statement President Muhammadu Buhari allegedly made indicating that he would only run for one term, and suggested that the statement justified her support for the ex-vice president. She offered no substantiation for President Buhari’s so-called announcement to serve for only one term, nor has anyone from the presidency corroborated her allusions.

    Everyone expects her to be sacked from the Buhari cabinet, for her loyalty, as some argue, has become doubtful. She herself half expects the sack, but takes dubious consolation in her supposition that the president is naturally disinclined to enter hasty judgement on anyone, especially a minister. It is not clear whether in coming to her soothing conclusions she took cognisance of the president’s grovelling aides, some of whom revel in conspiracy theories and love to instigate far-reaching but sometimes damaging decisions. But soon, it seems, she will discover that she has become a pariah in the corridors of power, given the cold shoulder and palpable signals that will leave her with little choice but to fall on her sword. Or perhaps, she has set herself up to be the perfect trigger for a general cabinet reshuffle.

    Whatever the political consequences of Senator Alhassan’s incautious statement on 2019, she has at least shown she has conviction, and is willing to call her soul her own. The former vice president will doubtless stand by her, and given his own not-so-gentle rebuke of the president’s style on the same day the senator’s incendiary statement became public, both of them might have unwittingly signalled the commencement of Politics 2019.

  • Governors, ministers want Buhari to seek re-election – El-Rufa’i

    Governors, ministers want Buhari to seek re-election – El-Rufa’i

    Kaduna State Governor, Nasiru El-Rufa’I, said on Friday the All Progressives Congress (APC) governors and ministers have resolved to call on President Muhammadu Buhari to contest the 2019 presidential election.

    El-Rufa’i, who made this known to State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with President Buhari in the Presidential Villa, Abuja, said the governors and the ministers made the call as members of the “Buharist Group.”

    The “Buharist Group” is an association of APC governors and ministers, whose primary aim is to promote and defend the perceived socio-political interests of President Buhari.

    The governor dismissed the assertion that he was being groomed to replace Buhari in 2019.

    According to him, as a member of the “Buharist group’’ he has no presidential ambition as being speculated since he left the public service as minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in 2007.

    He said: “My name has continuously been mentioned as a presidential aspirant s‎ince 2007 after my years in the FCT, there is nothing new about that.

    “What I want to say here very, very clearly is that I have never been a presidential aspirant. I have never even been a gubernatorial aspirant.

    “I am governor today by the grace of God because President Buhari called me and said go and run for Governor of Kaduna State.

    “As far as 2019 is concerned, my position is the President (Buhari) is looking very well, he is recuperating very fast. My hope and prayer is he will contest in 2019.”

    On the recent comments attributed to the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Aishat Alhassan, El-Rufa’i said Nigerians should not be surprised or shocked over her utterances, saying in the APC she was never in the Buhari camp.

    Aishat Alhassan had on Wednesday told the BBC Hausa Service that she would rather resign as minister than abandon former Vice President Atiku Abubakar “if he decides to run for presidential elections in 2019.”

    However, El-Rufa’i said Alhassan neither supported Buhari’s candidature during the APC National Convention nor voted for him during the party primaries.

    “This has always been her position because from time she has never supported Buharism or what Buhari stands for.

    “Being part of Buhari’s government is a different thing because government sets policies and if you are a minister you execute the policies. You can execute those policies while pursuing a different brand of politics,’’ the governor added.

    El Rufai, who said he was in the Presidential Villa to wish the President “very happy Sallah’’ and also join him in performing the Juma’at prayer, said it was the President’s prerogative to either retain or remove the minister from the cabinet.

    He said: “Look, you can retain a person in the cabinet even if he doesn’t support you but adds value to the country. Because this is a government, it is not a political group fighting for some political progress.

    “If Jummai Alhassan is coming as Minister of Women Affairs and adding value to the government and the people of Nigeria it is the President’s prerogative to retain her despite her political views.”

    NAN

     

  • APC to Atiku, others: Watch your utterances

    APC to Atiku, others: Watch your utterances

    The Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), North West Zone, Inuwa Abdulkadir, on Friday cautioned members of the party to watch their utterances and not hide under the freedom of speech to bring the party to disrepute.

    Abdulkadir, who was reacting to a statement credited to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar that he has been sidelined by both President Muhammadu Buhari and the party, described the claim as “unguided statement” which should not be coming from a man of his repute.

    The APC chieftain, who spoke with journalists at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja, also said the Minister of Women Affairs, Aisha Alhassan, was practically blackmailing the President with her statement.

    He said: “Atiku Abubakar is a very important member of this party. He is one of the leaders of this party and I have no doubt about his contribution to building this party. He has also added value by his personality during the last election.

    “People of such standing and reckoning in this country, particularly being a former vice president of this great nation, he has attained the position of a statesman and what we expect from him is nothing less than that. By virtue of his former office and his age, he is qualified to be a statesman.

    “But when you reach that status and age there are certain things you have to come to terms with, most important of which is to exhibit a high sense of decorum in your conduct. What I mean is that you have to guard what you say, how you say it and when you say it because what is expected of you as a statesman is nothing but factual.

    “Secondly, majority of the people look up to you to provide leadership in the sense that from what you say people can learn a lot.

    “Of recent Atiku has made some statements to the effect that or created an impression of the failure of the party and President Muhammadu Buhari-led government. At that level, good party members, especially of his status should not be seen to be making such public statements even if those criticisms are factual, whereas in this case some of these statements were misleading and incorrect.”