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Tag: Kola Ologbodiyan

Presidency gives more details on $1b excess crude fund

The Presidency has given further details on how it disbursed the $1 billion withdrawn from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) for security was spent.

The Senior Special Assistant on Media and publicity, Garba Shehu, on Monday gave a breakdown of the N876.9 million already spent from the money domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

According to him, a balance of $123,111,571.29 remained unspent at the CBN.

The withdrawal became a subject of controversy between the Presidency and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) following a demand by the latter for explanation on what happened to the cash withdrawn in 2017.

Spokesman to the PDP, Kola Ologbodiyan, had at a news conference on Sunday, alleged that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) used the $1 to fund its campaigns for the last general elections.

The President’s spokesman in a reaction to the PDP allegation, promised to shed more light on how the cash was applied.

Shehu said: “Here is as much detail as we can provide at this time concerning the $1 billion from the ECA which withdrawal was authorised by the National Economic Council (NEC).

“The record we have is that the Buhari administration paid $496,374,470 for a dozen Super Tucano fighter aircraft for the Air Force in a direct, government-to-government (no Contractors or Commission Agents) transaction with the government of the United States of America. They are due for delivery in 2020.

“Other military procurements for critical equipment have been made. These are for the Nigerian Army (NA) and the Nigerian Navy, (NN) amounting to $380, 513,958,71.

“These procurements include money for the purchase of Navy Lynx helicopters. Total amount spent so far: $876,888,428.71. The equipment paid for have due dates of delivery of between six months to two years.

“Balance of the money that is unspent as at today is $123,111,571.29.”

Read Also: How to end crude oil theft, by expert

The Presidential spokesman said that the entire expenditure involved in these exercises is on the basis of government-to-government procurement.

He added: “In cases where the Nigerian government dealt with equipment manufacturers, their home governments have in all cases given guarantees to the federal government.

“Again, it is important to stress that no contractors or commission agents have been involved in the procurements under discussion.

“All $1 billion was domiciled in the CBN and to date, not a single dollar of it has been transferred to the Ministry of Defence or any other ministry, agency of government, individuals or political party office as was the norm under the PDP administration.

“We note that the PDP made so much of a report claiming that the National Security Adviser, NSA had declared the entire amount of $1 billion on as missing. The NSA could not have said this.

“I’m sure we have the correct story to tell. Without approval of end-user certification as issued by his office, no arms can lawfully enter Nigeria.

“In these days of fake news, citizens including political parties pretending to the role opposition parties must be careful about the reports they work with.”

July 23, 2019
PDP dares INEC, vows to reopen campaigns

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has vowed to reopen its campaigns any moment from now.

The party said its position is hinged on provisions of the Electoral Act.

A statement on Sunday night by the spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, said the decision to reopen the campaign was consequent upon the postponement of the presidential and National Assembly elections from February 16 to February 23.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had barred parties from reopening their campaigns upon the shift in election date.

The Electoral Act allows campaign up to 24 hours to election date in any category of election. The party has rejected administrative prohibition of open campaigns issued by the electoral body after the postponement.

“Such administrative pronouncement was erroneous, directly in conflict with the provision of the Electoral Act and is not backed by any other law in our country.

“Our position is predicated on the clear provision of section 99 (1) of the Electoral Act which stipulated that ‘for the purposes of this Act, the period of campaigning in public by every political party shall commence 90 days before polling day and end 24 hours prior to that day.

READ ALSO:Postponement: INEC decides on resumption of campaign tomorrow

“The clear import of this provision, in the current situation, is that given the postponement of the election to February 23, 2019, the 24 hours requirement for closure of all public campaigning falls at midnight of February 21,” the statement added.

The main opposition party reminded INEC that whenever its administrative pronouncement conflicts with the Electoral Act, such administrative pronouncement must bow before the law.

It charged INEC to be appropriately guided while directing party members to await further directives ahead of its reopening of campaigns.

February 17, 2019
PDP alleges persecution of Ekweremadu in property forfeiture suit

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged persecution of the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu in a property forfeiture suit filed against him by the Federal Government.

In a statement on Thursday by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbodiyan, the PDP called on the government to stop hounding members of opposition parties.

The federal government has approached the Federal High Court seeking to seize some properties said to belong to the lawmaker but which he failed to declare in documents he filed with the Code of Conduct Bureau.

Some of the properties listed include houses said to b located in the United Kinddom, United States, United Arab Emirates, Abuja and Enugu.

But the PDP, in the statement, frowned at the Motion Exparte filed by the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property against Ekweremadu, saying it was part of a plot to silence opposition elements.

The statement added that while the PDP was in full support of any genuine anti-graft war, the All Progressives Congress (APC) – led administration’s obsession with Ekweremadu was another clear indication that it was not ready to fight corruption, but rather out to scandalise, persecute, and bring down its perceived opponents.

The party said, “The PDP recalls that this government rushed to arraign Senator Ekweremadu and the Senate president, Dr. Bukola Saraki in 2016 on trumped up charges of forgery of Senate Standing Rule, even when there was no even a mention of their names in the contentious police report or Proof of Evidence. It eventually withdrew the charges for lack of merit.

“The police raided and ransacked Senator Ekweremadu’s official guest house in Abuja in May 2017 and blamed it on false whistleblowers, which they charged to court. Nothing has been heard about the trial of the alleged false whistleblowers again.

“In the current matter, apart from relying on an obsolete law to dabble into the roles of the Code of Conduct Bureau, we are not surprised that the Panel could not carry out a thorough and independent investigation on the purported property of the senator, but relied on a petition by the former Chief Judge of Enugu State, Justice Innocent Umezulike, who is standing corruption trial in several courts, after his removal from office by the National Judicial Council (NJC) in 2017.

“We recall that the senator accused Umezulike and some politicians of stealing and doctoring his will, inserting non-existent properties or properties that had nothing to do with him.

“It is also instructive that this calculated smear campaign is in the guise of forfeiture of phantom assets came on the heels of Senator Ekweremadu’s alarm and scathing criticism of the APC-led administration over the nation’s deteriorating democracy and in the midst of the ongoing executive-legislature faceoff, in which a ranking senator of the APC extraction identified Ekweremadu as a pillar of support to the Senate President”.

The PDP insisted that contrary to the Federal Government’s claims, Senator Ekweremadu had assured it that he declared his assets.

It wondered why the Federal Government, by its own admission, rushed to court without completion of investigation, but had turned deaf ears to the outcry by Nigerians for the prosecution of the administration’s functionaries and friends indicted for corruption.

“This government and party have the appetite for prosecution and media trial of the opposition while investigation is on, but refuses to prosecute its members and friends indicted by even its own presidential or ministerial panels.

“While members of the opposition are taken to court on stretchers, the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Engr. Babachir Lawal, indicted by both the Senate and a presidential panel only got a pat on the back.

“The APC Federal Government has failed to prosecute those involved in the Ikoyigate scandal, and the recall of fugitive Abdulrasheed Maina, among others.

“Ekweremadu is a major symbol of the opposition. We believe that this is part of the grand plan to strangulate the PDP ahead of the 2019 elections and we will resist”, it added.

The PDP traced Ekweremadu’s travails to attempts by the ruling party to strangulate the opposition ahead of the 2019 election and challenged the Federal Government to publish the assets of APC political office holders.

“Now that the Federal Government has gleefully inundated the public with the imaginary assets of the Deputy Senate president, can it now also publish the full assets of President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo, cabinet ministers and APC governors, who have all failed to make public their assets as promised during the 2015 election”.

March 22, 2018
PDP cautions FG on fuel price increase

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Friday told the Federal Government to shelve any plan to increase the pump price of fuel of N145 per litre.

National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, said any increase in price now would not only be criminal but inhuman and completely unacceptable to Nigerians.

The opposition party claimed that the Federal Government has not been telling Nigerians the truth about oil-related issues while using the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to bandy figures to deceive the people.

It said:”Instead of putting more burden on the people, the APC Government should come out clear on sleazes in the oil sector under its watch, particularly the shady oil subsidy payouts and illegal lifting of N1.1 trillion worth of crude using unregistered companies.

“Any increase in fuel pump price would be an indirect tax on Nigerians to fund APC interests and considering the pains Nigerians have suffered under this inept and unfeeling Government, this intended hike will be callous.

“It is now clear to all that this APC- controlled government will never act in the interest of Nigerians. All the actions and policies of APC, in their close to three years in office, have been targeted against Nigerians and there are no signals that they will change.

“We, therefore, urge Nigerians to reject this plot to raise the prices of petroleum products even as they gear towards using the next election to end the misrule of the APC.”

January 5, 2018
APC jittery over success of PDP convention, says Ologbondiyan

The new leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has been jittery over the success of its just concluded national convention.

In a statement on Sunday by the new National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr, Kola Ologbondiyan, described criticism of the conduct of its Saturday’s elective convention by the APC as laughable.

The APC, through its spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi, had derided convention, saying that the PDP had failed to learn its lessons.

“It is indeed laughable that the APC which has roundly failed in not only managing the affairs of the country but also its own internal issues would recourse to panic mode just because the PDP has succeeded in uniting its fronts by conducting of a very credible elective national convention.

“We were very much aware of the plots by the APC to scuttle the convention and failing, it has resorted to a failed attempt to discredit an elective convention that has been adjudged as creditable, novel and laudable by political stakeholders and lovers of democracy across the nation.

“This unwarranted attack is only symptomatic of a party that has lost control and only clutching on straws for survival, having been outrightly rejected by Nigerians.

“Is it not disgusting, reprehensible and embarrassing that the APC that has repeatedly failed to hold meetings, congresses and convention in the last three years, and has flagrantly continued to violate its own constitution, is questioning our party’s rights to perform her legitimate and constitutional obligation?

“Perhaps APC leaders have never read Article 25 (A)(i) of their party’s Constitution which stipulates that “the National Convention of the party (APC) shall be held once in two years at a date, venue and time to be recommended by the National Working Committee (NWC) and approved by the National Executive Committee (NEC) subject to the giving of the statutory notices to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and at least 14 days notice given to members eligible to attend”.

The PDP wondered Which impunity could be higher than the APC’s violation of its own constitution, adding that it is strange that the ruling party could be moralising on the principles of social justice whereas its actions against Nigerians are a complete departure from the norms.

Continuing, the PDP said, “It is important for this spokesman of a failed party and his pack of incompetent members to reminisce on the needless pains and suffering they have inflicted on Nigerians rather than being jittery over the successful outcome of the PDP’s elective national convention.

“Nigerians have come to discover that APC is a fraud, an organization of deceitful characters who have failed to keep a single of its countless promises made to the citizens.

“It is no longer news that the nation is drifting under APC and the PDP has come to the rescue. We must therefore remind the APC that the era of deceit, trickery and scaremongering, which has been the hallmarks of their government, is gone and Nigerians are just waiting to kick them out come 2019”.

December 10, 2017
Ex-CGS Akhigbe dies at 68

Former Chief of General Staff (CGS), Vice Admiral Mike Okhai Akhigbe, is dead. He was 68.

Admiral Akhigbe died in a New York Hospital where he had been admitted for cancer, it was learnt last night.

The late Admiral Akhigbe hailed from Fugar, Edo State. He rose to the pinnacle of his career as Chief of Naval Staff. He was also the Military Governor of Ondo and Lagos States

President of the Senate David Mark, described his death as “the loss of a brother, confidant, friend and comrade-at-arms.”

Senator Mark in a statement by his spokesman Kola Ologbodiyan, recalled their days at the Nigerian Defence Academy, noting that “Mike was fearless and very diligent in our course.

“He took these attributes to all the formations where he was privileged to have been posted either in his core military postings or political offices.

“He was one of the poster boys of our Course 3 and we were all very proud of him. His death is a huge personal loss to me, the members of Course 3, the Armed Forces, Edo State and the nation.

“But we cannot question God. He alone gives life and takes same when he so desires. We are bound by his decision to take our brother and friend at this time.

Senator Mark, who is the Chairman of Course 3 Alumni of the Nigerian Defence Academy, said: “We are however consoled that while Mike was with us, he lived his life in the service of God and mankind. May the Lord grant all of us the fortitude to bear this very painful departure.

October 29, 2013