The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Aliyu Wamakko

  • PDP chieftains launch re-election campaign for Jonathan

    PDP chieftains launch re-election campaign for Jonathan

    •National chair mounts pressure on Amaechi, Kwankwaso, others to return

    Chieftains of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday in Minna expressed support for President Goodluck Jonathan in his re-election bid ,in what appeared to be a flagrant violation of the ban on campaign by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

    Speakers after speakers at the North Central Solidarity and Unity rally of the PDP led by the Senate President David Mark and the party’s national vice chairman, Yusuf Ayetogun, assured the President, of maximum support in the 2015 election.

    The national Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, made a fresh appeal to Governors Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Ahmed Abdulfatah (Kwara) and Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), who dumped the party for the All Progressives Congress (APC) to return to the ruling party.

    “We are willing to welcome them back home and I can assure them that they will be treated equally. Please come back home,” the PDP chairman said.

    He saddled the Chairman of the Northern States Governors Forum and Niger State governor, Dr. Babangida Aliyu with the responsibility of bringing back the ex-PDP governors.

    He said: “if the Niger State governor, as the leader of the G7 and Jigawa State governor, can remain in the party, I call on Gov. Aliyu to ensure the return of the other five PDP governors who went to APC.

    “Gov. Aliyu saw the light at the end of the tunnel and stayed. Your job has not finished: go back and make sure your people (G5) see the light and get them to come back home to PDP.”

    But President Goodluck Jonathan saw the defectors as retrogressive politicians.

    He described the PDP as the only stable and democratic political party in Africa. He said: “PDP is the only party that has not changed its name, logos, slogan or colour. Some parties change colours at will, they are chameleons and cannot be trusted. PDP can be trusted, we have vision and mission. If you have a vision, you will not be changing slogans, logos and colour everyday. PDP is still the dominant party in Nigeria.

    “We still remain PDP, not like some parties that today, they are red party, tomorrow, they are green party, next time, they are blue party, they are chameleons and they cannot be trusted. PDP has its vision and mission, if you have a vision, you will not be changing name, slogan, logo and colour everyday.”

    He said that those who defected from the PDP were a problem when they were in the party.

    “Some people were founding members of PDP; they were in PDP for 14 years. They had been Ministers, Commissioners, Speakers, Governors and held various positions under the party, now they say they are decamping (sic) to another party because they say they need progress, that PDP is not good enough.

    “This means that when they were in PDP, they were retrogressive elements, it means they were a problem to us in the party. Now that they have left, we will progress more, now, PDP will move faster and bigger. It is a party that will take Nigeria to development.”

    Though the president said he was not in Minna to campaign, he predicted that come 2015, “PDP will regain, recover and reconstruct the states it had lost in 2011. For us in PDP, there is no shaking, in the North Central, there is no shaking; we will recover Kwara and Nasarawa States. We will regain, recover and reconstruct these states that we have lost in 2015.”

  • Sokoto names confab delegates

    Sokoto names confab delegates

    Sokoto State Governor Aliyu Wamakko yesterday approved the names of delegates from the state for the upcoming national conference in Abuja.

    The delegates are a former Secretary to the State Government, Muhammadu Maigari Dingyadi, former Minister of Power, Bello Suleiman and Prof Aishatu Madawaki of the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.

    A statement by the Special Assistant to Governor Aliyu Wamakko on Media, Sani Umar said the nominees will represent each of the state’s senatorial districts.

    Wamakko said: “ I am convinced that you will distinguish yourselves by justifying the confidence the people of Sokoto State repose in you.”

     

  • Judge’s absence stalls hearing in PDP’s suit against Amaechi, Nyako, others

    Judge’s absence stalls hearing in PDP’s suit against Amaechi, Nyako, others

    The absence of Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja stalled yesterday, hearing in the suit by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), against five of its former governors, who defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    The PDP, is by the suit, seeking to sack the governors on the grounds of their defection to the opposition party.

    The governors are Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano) and Abdulfatai Ahmed (Kwara).

    On the last date, Justice Kolawole ordered that a fresh summons be served on the defendants, upon complaint by defendants’ lawyers that they were wrongly served with processes, prompting the judge to order the plaintiff to ensure proper service on the defendants.

    Parties were to begin hearing in the case yesterday, but for the absence of the judge, who court officials said was away with the Chief Judge, Justice Ibrahim Auta, in a conference.

    When parties got to court, they learnt from the court registrar that the judge would be around by noon. At 12pm, the registrar shifted the proceedings to 2pm, hoping the judge would be back.

    When, at 2pm, it became obvious that the judge would not make it, the registrar suggested that the parties should return on February 26.

    Parties could not agree on when next to return. While the plaintiff’s lawyer, Alex Iziyon (SAN), agreed. To the date suggested by the registrar, the defence lawyers said they would prefer to return next week.

    Sued with the governors is the Independent National Electoral Commission (listed as the first defendant).

    It is PDP’s contention that the governors should be sacked on the grounds that upon their defection, they have forfeited their offices, which, as a result, have reverted to the party.

    Should the court accede to its request and sack the five governors, PDP wants the court to order the deputy governors or speakers of the houses of assembly of the affected states, or any officer next in rank, who is still its member, to assume the office of governor.

    The PDP wants the court to declare that by the combined provisions of sections 177 (c), 221 and 222 (c) of the 1999 Constitution, the five governors, who were elected on its platform, cannot continue to enjoy the mandate given to it (PDP) by the people/electorate of the concerned states, as they (governors) have defected to another party.

    It is also seeking a declaration that in the absence of any division in the PDP, the five governors have vacated or forfeited their seats upon their defection to the APC.

    The party wants a declaration that by the combined provisions of sections 87 of the Electoral Act 2011 (as amended), and sections 177 (c), 221 and 222 (c) of the 1999 Constitution, the offices of the defected governors have reverted to the PDP.

    The PDP also wants the court to declare that by the combined provisions of sections 177 (c), 221 and 222 (c) of the 1999 Constitution, upon the defection of the five governors, the mandate reverts to the deputy governor or speaker of the houses of assembly of the respective states or any officer next in rank, who is still a member of the PDP.

  • Wamakko, Sudanese governor sign MoU

    Wamakko, Sudanese governor sign MoU

    Sokoto State Governor Aliyu Wamakko and Governor of Sinnar in Sudan Ahmed Abbas yesterday in Sudan signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for mutual partnership benefits in agriculture, trade and investment.

    The MoU will promote and advance cultural and educational status for the socio-cultural benefits of their people.

    The agreement is expected to foster and stimulate mechanisms for further unity and mutual exchange of artistic groups, culture and sports.

    Wamakko said he was delighted by the warm reception accorded him and his entourage.

    The governor said his government is ready to partner any government and organisation that can bring development to his state.

    He said his visit to Sudan was initiated to explore modern ways of mechanised farming.

     

  • Maku and the defections from PDP

    Maku and the defections from PDP

    Last Wednesday, Information Minister, Labaran Makun, launched a blistering attack on members of his ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who defected recently to the new opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), an amalgam of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

    The defectors, the minister said, were “like the Fulani nomads; they move from one party to another without shame. It shouldn’t be something we should cherish.”

    The minister launched his rather gratuitous offensive during a news briefing in Abuja, the federal capital, on the outcome of the day’s Federal Executive Council meeting.

    In launching his attack on the defectors he singled out the governors of Kano State, Dr Rabi’u Kwankwaso, and his Sokoto counterpart, Alhaji Aliyu Wamakko. They were, he said, undemocratic desperados who parachuted themselves into the APC and hijacked it from its founders.

    Their defections, he said, were however good for the party; akin to an obese person shedding undesirable fat to live a healthier and more robust life. (I am not so sure it would be wise for PDP to be so smug as the youthful minister; between Kano and Sokoto states there are relatively nearly as many voters – over seven million – as the entire Southsouth put together, with their nearly nine million).

    Maku’s unflattering comparison of the defections with the nomadic lifestyle of Fulanis has been rightly condemned by many as ethnicist. However, I agree completely with the underlying assumption of his diatribe which is that any defection based on ego or personal ambition rather than on a sublime principle is a thing to be condemned.

    The trouble with Maku’s angry words, however, was that they were not based on any principle. Rather they were simply meant to please his political godfathers. Otherwise, it would have occurred to him before he spoke that his harsh words would be truer of former governor of Kano State, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, and his Sokoto State counterpart, Alhaji Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa, who subsequently traded places with their successors by defecting to the PDP. This realisation would have advised him to have been more careful in his choice of words against Kwankwaso and Wamakko.

    Take Bafarawa first. Nearly twelve years ago, on March 28, 2002 to be precise, the former Sokoto governor, as guest speaker at the second anniversary of the founding of the Arewa Consultative Forum, had only harsh words to describe what he said was the marginalisation of the North by the PDP under former president, General Olusegun Obasanjo. “Ogun and Oyo alone,” he said, in the course of his lecture to the applause of his large audience, “have benefitted from over N30 billion worth of road projects, more than what 12 states that make up Northwest and Northeast together enjoyed.”

    His answer to this marginalisation, he said, was Northern unity, pointing out that “While the West is AD 100%, the South-south and the South-east are PDP 100% … the North is 50% APP and 50% PDP.”

    He concluded that it was therefore “imperative that, at least for the sake of future presidential elections, we must all go one direction…United we stand, divided we fall.”

    Without prejudice to the merit or otherwise of his preference for the politics of regional monolithism, a preference which lacks any basis in our political history because opposition forces had always thrived in the old regions, one must ask what has changed between now and when Obasanjo left office seven years ago to justify Bafarawa’s defection to the PDP. The truth, as Bafarawa knows all too well, is that the North has been marginalised even more under President Goodluck Jonathan’s PDP than under Obasanjo’s.

    Exactly eight years to the day he was guest speaker at the ACF’s second anniversary, he said in a lengthy interview in The Nation (March 28, 2010) that he would never join PDP because being in opposition was the only way to deepen democracy in Nigeria. This was after he left ANPP in frustration, following his accusation that PDP had planted Chief Donald Etiebet as ANPP’s chairman to serve as a fifth columnist.

    Instead of joining PDP, he said, he decided to form his own Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) on whose platform he eventually contested the 2011 presidential election. Naming then PDP chair, Dr. Ahmadu Ali, and then acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, as his witnesses, he claimed Obasanjo offered him the control of Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara states by ceding the nomination of their governorship candidates to him, if he would join PDP. He said he rejected the offer.

    The Nation: What is in PDP that is making you run away from it?

    Bafarawa: I don’t believe in joining PDP because I want to help democracy grow…When there is challenge in democracy, then the government will move but if there is no opposition, there is no democracy.”

    Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, what has changed about the PDP’s proverbial “garrison democracy” four years after the former Sokoto governor’s encounter with editors of The Nation that it has now suddenly become a beacon of democracy without the threat of a viable opposition party.

    Obviously, Bafarawa needs a better excuse than the ones he’s been giving us for his defection to a party that before now he had regarded as simply incapable of fostering democracy. And what is true of Bafarawa is even truer of the former Kano State governor, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau.

    Only late last year at a conference organised by the Movement for Better Future and Democratic Emancipation in Kaduna on September 7, 2013, he dismissed President Jonathan as a “total failure.”

    “My assessment,” he said then, “is that the government is a total failure… The only answer to this failure is to get the right people to do it.”

    Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, how within a short spell of five months the president has, in the former governor’s eyes, become the only right person to take Nigeria to now “do it.”

    For this intelligent and highly eloquent former teacher-turned-politician who, most Nigerians agreed, emerged the clear winner of the 2011 Presidential debate – what with, in the words of BBC News (April 5, 2011) “his eloquence, a calm disposition and an apparent grasp of policy issues” – to now sing praises of a president he thought unworthy of his office not too long ago, it speaks volumes about the courage and integrity of the self-declared convictions of our politicians.

    Of course, real elections are won not by debating skills alone. In free and fair elections that have defied this country, politicians win on the strength of their character and performance. The long history of carpet crossing between parties in this country and the manner in which our youthful minister of Information, Labaran Maku, heaped scorn on those who defected to the opposition party is proof positive that it would be a great miracle if next year’s election is, for once, won, not on the basis of propaganda, but on the basis of character and performance.

     

    Re: Babangida’s triumph of hope over reality

    Sir,

    So IBB does not as a Nigerian, a former president, war veteran, leader, elder statesman, etc, etc, have the right to say his mind and air his views on any national issue, without you attacking him.

    So Gen IBB is wrong and you are right. How selfish, self-centered and confused you are.

    Are you attacking IBB to please your pay masters or you have nothing to write or you want to be heard loud and clear because you attacked IBB?

    You (have) many issues to write about so why wait for IBB to speak, you then attack him? He has been very kind to you and your family. He does not deserve any attack from you on pages of newspapers, more so when you have direct access to him and can see him at any time you so wish.

    Who is sponsoring you against IBB? Who is afraid of IBB?

    Please have a re-think and kindly desist. IBB only said his mind, simple and clear and he has the right to.

    Hassan Muhammad Jallo.

     

    Sir,

    Does it matter if there are hitches in a society? And despite General Babangida’s optimism, yours was “pessimism” all through! Remember, you have benefitted from this same wobbled system and you are still benefitting. Give encouragement and support to our leaders rather than sanctions and ridicule!

    Lanre Oseni.

     

     

     

     

  • Membership drive excites APC leaders

    Membership drive excites APC leaders

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) membership registration ended yesterday. Assistant Editor LEKE SALAUDEEN reports that the exercise was free, fair and transparent

    The nationwide membership registration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been hailed as a good beginning for the party, given the large turn-out of its faithful across the country.

    The one week exercise, which took off simultaneously in all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), experienced some teething problems on the first day. There was late arrival of materials and officials in some states. But these were promptly addressed by the co-ordinators. The exercise went on smoothly in subsequent days.

    To a public affairs analyst, Bernard Briggs, such hiccups cannot be ruled out in such a nationwide exercise. He observed that it was on the maiden day that the registration started late in some states due to logistics problem.

    Briggs observed: “The exercise was orderly, smooth, transparent and peaceful. APC deserves commendation for this novel idea. No political party in this country has ever achieved such a feat. The turnout of party members is a proof that APC is a national party. The beauty of the exercise was that there was no report of hijacking or snatching of registration materials.

    “The registration was simple, open and transparent. Those eligible for registration went to the polling units where they were registered as members of the party, with two passport photographs. It took maximum of five minutes to get registered,” he said.

    An 80-year old woman, Mrs Funke Oloruntoba who registered at Ward D Ifako/Ijaiye Local Council Development Area of Lagos State, was surprised when she was given the counterfoil of her registration form which she will use to collect her card later, within five minutes. The octogenarian, who was supported by her grandson, Tunde, praised the party’s leaders for making the exercise stress-free. What excited her most was that the party hired the services of a photographer to take pictures of those that do not have passport photographs, at no cost to the propective members. “It was an incentive that encouraged people like me to come out to register”, she remarked.

    In some units, excited party members besieged the registration centre as early as 8a.m. for the exercise that was to commence at 9a.m. A chieftain of the party, Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, could not hide his joy. He described APC as a conglomeration of all that is Nigeria. He said: “We (members) have registered our acceptability of APC throughout Nigeria. We have put down the party’s popularity in black and white. We have formalised our membership.

    Baraje noted that “since many of us defected from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to APC, the gale of people coming from different parties — not only from the PDP — has been tremendous, wonderful, magical and unstoppable. The individuals coming to APC are not only team players, but are also leaders who have the highest number of people in their domains. As far as I am concerned, by the grace of God, it is already a bye-gone decision by Nigerians that APC would emerge victorious in 2015.”

    Senator Magnus Abe, representing Rivers Southeast, sees the registration exercise as an opportunity for Rivers State residents to solidify the battle against oppression, intimidation and police brutality.

    Abe said “it was a golden opportunity for us to arm ourselves with the APC card, which would enable us effectively defend, protect and secure our resources from internal and external aggression.”

    According to him, “recent events have shown that APC is ready to reward hard work and dedication, unlike the PDP.

    The party leadership had during the membership drive, particularly when it was wooing the former PDP governors and their leaders, promised to create a level playing ground for all and assured that there would be no founder and no joiner. The registration has created equal opportunity for every member to formalise his membership.

    The fear that members who defected from the PDP, after the registration of the APC by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would be treated as late entrants or joiners has been laid to rest. For instance, Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who joined APC a fortnight ago, registered in their various wards.

    The likes of Governors Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers) and AbduFattah Ahmed (Kwara), have formalised their membership of APC through the registration exercise.

    The national chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, has promised to bring them back to the party. But as Nyako has noted, the registration of the former PDP members as APC members has put a stop to speculations of their returning to the ruling party. By the virtue of this exercise, all those who registered are foundation members.

    Youth activist Hakeem AbdulRahaman said the APC has proved through the registration of its members that it is a party that will not discriminate against members and will always create equal opportunities for all, no matter their status.

    AbdulRahaman recalled how the PDP discriminated against some of its members by denying them the opportunity to update their membership in the build-up to 2007 general elections. He recalled that people like Atiku were frustrated and forced out of the party. He advised the leadership of the party to remain united, allow internal democracy to reign in decision making and to carry members along in all its activities.

    Party chieftains led by example as many of them appeared physically at the registration centres to formalise their membership. Former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu described registration by proxy as rigging. Tinubu said APC would never condone rigging in whatever form. Physical appearance before registration officials, he said, is essential. Thus, it was not surprising seeing at the registration centres leaders who could have directed the officials to their posh apartments. Tinubu registered in his ward at Ikeja on the firt day of the registration. The interim National Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, was in his country home Ila-Orangun to register. Other leaders of the party like Chief Olusegun Osoba, Governors Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun State), Senator Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo), Rochas Okorocha (Imo), Adams Oshiomhole (Edo), Kazeem Shettima (Borno) and many others took time out to register at their wards.

    Fashola said the drive by the APC to register its members was part of efforts to rescue the country from difficult challenges of poor management. APC, he said, is an association that welcomes new members. He added that people are free to come and join, particularly those who believe in what the party stands for, which is to save Nigeria from its current difficult challenges and poor management. He said the exercise was tailored towards consummating the initial contacts and meetings that heralded the formation of the party.

    The governor said the registration was a process of identifying our members; the drive to deliver what is clearly the biggest political movement in our quest to give birth to a new Nigeria. All those who are concerned about our country will find a vehicle of expression in APC, he stated.

    The interim Chairman of the APC in Katsina State, Alhaji Ahmad Dangiwa, described the exercise as an antidote to bad governance in the country and reiterated that the mega party would save the country from the mismanagement of the past 15 years.

    He said: “The exercise would save the country from poor management of its human and natural resources by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). It was high time the nation’s electorate rescued the country from difficult challenges of poor management by voting wisely.”

    The APC chieftain urged Nigerians to do what it takes to establish good leadership in the country and added that if the citizens followed election process and participated in them, they would be in a good position to save Nigeria from poor management.

    Reflecting on the success of the registration exercise, presidential candidate of the defunct ACN, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu said it was a sign of good things to come when APC assumed power at the centre in 2015. Ribadu said the success of the registration is a reflection of how meticulous the APC is in planning and execution.

    Ribadu however urged the party to consolidate the goodwill and popularity it enjoys at the grassroots by ensuring unity of its leaders and other key stakeholders, stressing that the party’s success depends on the unity of stakeholders at all levels.

    According to him, “the popular saying, united we stand, divided we fall, is very true. If we want to accomplish our mission, we must work sincerely as a team. We must not allow any crack that our detractors can leverage on.”

    Ribadu therefore charged leaders of the APC to put the interest of the party and Nigeria first before individual aspirations and interests, if the party was to make progress. “At this time, the party is still at formative stage. What is expected of all of us is to come together and take this party to a higher level. Aspirations are legitimate in politics, but we should not allow the party and Nigeria to suffer because of our individual interests.”

    He noted that APC is a party with divergent views and with eminent citizens as members, which has grown beyond individuals to a truly democratic party where decisions are taken with the involvement of all stakeholders.

    On Nigerians’ expectations on the party, Ribadu noted that APC will ensure investment in critical sectors of the socio-economy. He noted that what is seen in states governed by the party would be replicated at the centre come 2015, if it is given the mandate.

    Observers believe there are lessons for the INEC to learn from the APC registration exercise. For instance, Briggs said the success of the party’s membership registration has proved that the electoral commission with abundant resources can produce a credible voters’ register with proper planning. The manual registration carried out by APC, he said, was cost effective and was executed with despatch, unlike the INEC that spent billions of naira on importation of voters’ registration machines, which at the end of the day failed to produce credible voters register.

    Briggs said with the membership registration, APC now has a database of all its members, who constitute part of the registered voters in any national election. According to him, the party can plan, project and predict its performance in any given election.

    He advised the party not to stop its membership drive, adding that the registration should be a continuous exercise.

    “The next line of action after the registration is to reconcile all the records and ensure that those who want to join the party were not left out,” he added.

  • How INEC can conduct fair polls, by Wamakko

    How INEC can conduct fair polls, by Wamakko

    Sokoto State Governor Aliyu Wamakko suggested yesterday two options to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for a free, fair and transparent election in 2015.

    First, he said, the agency should conduct the elections in a day. The second option is to conduct the presidential election last.

    He said doing so would ensure the transparency of the agency as an independent electoral umpire.

    Wamakko spoke when the United States Ambassador to Nigeria, James Entwistle, visited him at the Government House, Sokoto.

    He said: “It is the only option that would ensure transparent elections in the country.

    “If that will not be possible, let the elections be conducted in this order – the House of Assembly, governorship, National Assembly and the Presidential election,” he said.

    Wamakko, who dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the All Progressives Congress (APC), said it was only by doing so that there will be free, fair and credible elections to usher in leaders who will ensure the well being of Nigerians.

    He noted that no amount of intimidation would deter nor frustrate the progressives.

    The governor explained that the progressives would mobilise its supporters to desist from violence and thuggery, so that there would be free and fair elections.

    “The state government would continue to partner the United States government to improve on the well being of the people in the areas of education, water supply and agriculture, among others,” he said.

    Entwistle urged Nigerians to shun violence, in order to have free, fair and credible elections to ensure good governance.

    “Free and fair elections would ensure good democratic governance, for peace, progress and political growth of the country”, he pointed out.

    According to Entwistle, “the time has come for Nigerian politicians to shun political violence, as a means of ensuring transparent elections.

  • Wamakko advocates transparency for development

    Wamakko advocates transparency for development

    Sokoto State governor, Aliyu Wamakko, has stated that strict adherence to the principles of transparency and accountability will lead to good governance and development in the nation.

    He spoke yesterday in Sokoto at the opening of the 2014 Mandatory Continuing Professional workshop and induction of new certified Financial Analysts.

    The governor urged Nigerians to keep demanding for the enthronement of these principles to enjoy dividends of democracy.

    Wamakko, who was represented by Chairman of the State Civil Service Commission, Mujitaba Ahmed, said the principles were required to further put the country’s economy on a sound footing.

    President of the association, Dr Abdullahi Usman urged government to come up with realistic and popular development agendas, noting that such step would further translate into medium to long term plans and budgets.

     

  • PDP’s defected governors: Court orders fresh service of processes

    PDP’s defected governors: Court orders fresh service of processes

    A Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered fresh service of court processes on five former governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    The processes are on a case filed by the PDP seeking the governors’ sack following their defection to the opposition party.

    The governors are: Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano) and Abdulfatai Ahmed (Kwara).

    Justice Gabriel Kolawole gave the order yesterday following the complaint by the plaintiff’s lawyer, Alex Iziyon (SAN), that despite being served, the defendants were not only absent in court but also failed to file any response to the processes served on them.

    The judge ordered that the governors be served through the national office of the APC in Abuja.

    Justice Kolawole also granted the plaintiff the permission to publish the court processes in two specified newspapers.

    He adjourned till February 6 for hearing of the plaintiff’s originating summons.

    Sued with the governors is the Independent National Electoral Commission (first defendant).

    The PDP argued that the governors should be sacked from office because, by their defection, they had forfeited their offices which the party said should revert to it.

    Should the five governors be sacked from office, the PDP urged the court to order their deputies or speakers of the Houses of Assembly of the affected states, or any officer next in rank, who is still its member, to assume their positions.

    The PDP urged the court to declare that by the combined provisions of Sections 177 (c), 221 and 222 (c) of the 1999 Constitution, the five governors, who were elected on its platform, cannot continue to enjoy the mandate given to them by the people/electorate of the affected states as they (governors) have defected to another party.

    It prayed for a declaration that in the absence of any division in the PDP, the five governors have vacated or forfeited their seats following their defection to the APC.

    The party sought a declaration that by the combined provisions of Sections 87 of the Electoral Act 2011 (as amended), and sections 177 (c), 221 and 222 (c) of the 1999 Constitution, the offices of the defected governors have reverted to the PDP.

    The PDP also urged the court to declare that by the combined provisions of Sections 177 (c), 221 and 222 (c) of the 1999 Constitution, following the defection of the five governors, their mandate has reverted to the deputy governors or Speakers of the Houses of Assembly or any other officer next in rank who is still a member of the PDP.

     

  • Sokoto sponsors mass wedding for 125 couples

    Sokoto sponsors mass wedding for 125 couples

    No fewer than 125 couples were at the weekend joined in a mass wedding conducted by Sokoto State.

    Governor Aliyu Wamakko and Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar III presided over the ceremony.

    Sultan Abubakar was represented by the Magajin Rafin Sokoto, Alhaji Rilwanu Bello.

    Government House Mosque Sokoto where the wedding Fatiha took place attracted well wishers.

    Sokoto state deputy governor, Alhaji Mukhtari Shagari and the Speaker, Alhaji Lawalli Zayyana, were prominent personalities that also assisted Wamakko and Sultan Sa’ad to conduct the wedding.

    Wamakko explained that the gesture was aimed at further reducing the problems associated with the high number of unmarried youths.

    He called on the couples to uphold the trust reposed in them by the state government.

    Wamakko further appealed to wealthy individuals to complement the efforts of the state government in this direction.

    “I must also urge the beneficiaries to engage in meaningful activities rather than idling away or engaging in executive begging,” Wamakko further stated.

    Abubakar, while applauding the gesture, commended the state government for the purposeful commitment, adding that” it will further reduce the problems associated with the non marriage of youths.”

    He expressed worries over the traditions that tend to prevent some youths from getting married.

    Commissioner for Social Welfare, Alhaji Zubairu Yari, said that the mass wedding gesture gulped N30 million.

    One of the couples, Dahiru Mohammed and Amina Shehu, scored the state government high for the gesture, promising to uphold the trust and confidence reposed in them.