The Nation Newspaper

Tag: KOWA Party

  • Osun debate: Oyetola, others promise education, health revolution 

    Plans to revolutionize education, health and other sectors were laid bare by candidates of some of the political parties participating in the Osun State governorship election in the final debate Thursday.

    The debate, which was organized by the TVC in conjunction with some civil society groups, was held at the WOCDIF Centre, Osogbo, the Osun State capital.

    The participants are Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Olugbenga Akintola of Alliance for Democracy (AD), Babatunde Loye of Labour Party (LP), Mercy Ayodele of Reformation Party of Nigeria (RPN) and Oluseyi Fabiyi of KOWA party.

    Candidates of the remaining four major parties – Social Democratic Party (SDP), African Democratic Party (ADP), People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and African Democratic Congress (ADC) were absent.

    The organizers said they all promised to attend but failed to show up.

    On education, Oyetola said the Rauf Aregbesola administration has done well in education but that he would focus more on the technological aspect of education, give scholarships, train and retrain teachers and also sustain the free meal for students.

    Akintola promised to promote functional literacy and numeracy skills, improve funding for education and improve welfare of teachers.

    The other candidates also promised to train and retrain teachers and pay salaries regularly.

    On health, the APC candidate promised to embrace the National Health Insurance Scheme for workers, upgrade facilities of primary health centres, equip them with drugs and motivate medical workers.

    Other candidates also promised to motivate health workers, build mega hospitals whose services will be paid for as well as embrace health insurance.

    On job creation, Oyetola pledged to sustain the Osun State Youths Employment Scheme dubbed OYES, create five new farm settlements and give incentives to youths to go into agriculture. He further promised to look at exploring the value chain in agriculture that includes processing, transportation and storage, among others.

    Fabiyi promised to build technology village in the three senatorial zones to harness the skills of artisans for development.

    For Loye, the way to succeed in job creation in times like this is to encourage youths to go into technology related businesses.

     

  • Ekiti 2018: 25 political parties adopt Fayemi

    The governorship bid of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has received a boost as he has been adopted by twenty five political parties.

    Citing what they called Fayemi’s “superlative and sparkling credentials” and life-changing policies and projects during his first tenure, the parties pledged to work for his victory at the Saturday poll.

    The parties also praised President Muhammadu Buhari for reducing corruption in the Nigerian society, saying this will help in stabilizing the country economically within the next few years.

    Read Also:Ekiti 2018: Why I want to rule Ekiti again – Fayemi

    Addressing reporters on Wednesday, KOWA Party State Chairman and spokesman of the group, Pastor Ade Ogunkolade, said the decision was arrived at “in the interest of Ekiti

    Some of the parties include Action Alliance (AA), Alliance for Democracy (AD), African Democratic Congress (ADC), National Conscience Party (NCP), All Progressives Congress (APC), Advanced Congress of Democrats (ACD), National Action Congress (NAC), among others.

    Ogunkolade said Fayemi was the first governor to introduce free education up to the secondary level in the state unlike now when kindergartens were being mandated to pay taxes even in private schools.

    He said apart from declaring free education for pupils, that Fayemi also created avenues for employments of youths, such as the State Peace Corps, Volunteer Corps, Social Security scheme, among other policies that affected the lives of the masses positively.

    He said: “After careful studies of all these achievements, the CNPP decided to give him all the necessary supports and strongly advise Ekiti people to come out on Saturday ad vote massively for Dr Fayemi to return Ekiti to the golden age of abundance.

    “Ekiti people must not be deceived into another era of anarchy, tyranny oppression, indebtedness and deception”.

    The CNPP condemned Governor Fayose for allegedly incurring a staggering sum of N117 billion as debt as revealed by the Debt Management Office (DMO) without nothing to show for it as achievements.

    “We appeal to the federal government to deploy more policemen to the State to prevent any rigging by the PDP-led government in the state.”

    CNPP appealed to Ekiti electorate to cooperate with security agencies to make the coming election a success.

  • LASIEC clears 12 parties for July 22 council polls

    LASIEC clears 12 parties for July 22 council polls

    Ahead of the July 22 council polls, the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) says it has cleared 12 political parties out of the 23 registered for the elections.

    Mr Dapo Olatunde, LASIEC’s Director of Publicity, said in a statement that the cleared parties had met the commission’s requirements for the polls and also presented candidates for validation.

    Olatunde listed the parties as the All Progressives Congress (APC), Action Alliance (AA), Alliance for Democracy (AD), Labour Party (LP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Accord Party.

    Others are Kowa Party, National Action Council (NAC) , People’s Democratic Movements (PDM) ,United Democratic Party (UDP)
    and United Progressive Party (UPP).

    He said the names of the validated candidates had been displayed at the commission’s headquarters for observation by party members and members of the public.

    Meanwhile, the commission has begun a three-day “Train -the-Trainer”course for its electoral officers across the 20 local government areas and 37 local council development areas.

    According to Olatunde, the training, facilitated by the International Foundation for Electoral System (IFES), was to equip ad-hoc staff engaged for the July 22 elections.

    IFES is a United States-based organisation committed to the deepening of democracy and international best standards in election management.

    The organization operates in more than 100 countries and is supported by USAID.

  • ‘1.4m PVCs yet to be collected in Lagos’

    ‘1.4m PVCs yet to be collected in Lagos’

    The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Lagos State says there are 1, 425, 282 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) yet to be collected in the state.

    The new Administrative Secretary of INEC in the state, Dr Mudashiru Mustapha disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

    He spoke on the sideline of the commission’s Stakeholders’ Meeting with political parties on Tuesday.

    NAN reports that the event, which had no fewer than 20 state chairmen of different political parties in attendance, was organized by INEC to seek support for the Continuous Voters Registration (CVR).

    The CVR exercise, scheduled to be flagged-off by the commission on April 27 nationwide, will also provide avenue for people who were yet to collect their PVCs to do so.

    Mustapha said: “There are so many PVCs yet to be claimed by their owners in Lagos State. We want residents to go to INEC offices in each of the 20 Local Governments in the state.

    “We want to canvass for the support of leaders of political parties for mobilization of eligible residents for the forthcoming nationwide Continuous Voters Registration exercise.

    “The commission needs your understanding, support and cooperation to mobilize residents for this continuous voter’s registration, even though we have done the needful in awareness campaign.

    “There is no way we can achieve success without leaders of political parties, we want to solicit your support because you are closer to the people and live among them.

    “Voter card is the power people have to elect their representatives, they must be encouraged to come out en masse and get registered. Help us sensitize and mobilize the people.”

    Earlier, Mustapha assured the party representatives that the commission had put necessary measures to ensure a hitch free exercise.

    Mrs Seye Soriyan, the Head of Department, ICT/Voters’ Registry, also highlighted the eligibility and procedures for the fresh registration, transfer and distribution of PVCs.

    Soriyan said that the exercise would be from Monday to Friday every week between 9 a.m. and 3.p.m. at the INEC office in each of the 20 local government areas of the state.

    According to her, each of the local governments will have five Registration Area Officers who will register eligible residents and distribute PVCs ready for collection.

    Soriyan said eligible persons for registration include those who turned 18 years after the last exercise in 2015 and those who did not register before.

    She added that those who want to transfer their voting centers were also free to register during the exercise.

    Soriyan explained that those registered would be given temporary Voter Cards, before their PVCs became ready after six months.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that party leaders at the meeting had urged the commission to make the exercise less stressful by decentralizing it to the ward level.

    Political parties represented at the meeting include All Progressives Congress, Peoples Democratic Party, Accord Party, All Progressives Grand Alliance, KOWA Party, Labor Party, and Young Democratic Party (YDP) among others.