ATTENCAO

…I want to preface my intervention with a story I told sometimes in 1999 or thereabout which is still very relevant today. And like I did back then, I seek the indulgence of readers because the story is about a supposedly loving couple having problems which bordered on sex. The husband happened to be a man with healthy appetite hence he would not allow his wife any breathing space. After putting up with his antics for some years, she took the matter to her in-law as the ‘court of first instance’. After narrating her story, her mother-in-law asked whether her son was maltreating the wife in other ways; she said no. Was he providing for her as he should? She answered in the affirmative. The parents of the husband declared that the wife had no case because their son was only claiming his rightful entitlements. Case dismissed! Defeated, the poor woman accepted her fate for a while before reporting to her own parents. Let us call this the ‘court of appeal’. Here, they equally asked th...

The former chairman of the National Caretaker Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ahmed Makarfi, has spoken on the possible reason for the loss of the chairmanship aspirants from the South-west at the party’s national convention. Five candidates from the region had withdrawn from the chairmanship race and adopted Prof. Tunde Adeniran as their consensus candidate. Adeniran later emerged second in the exercise with 231 votes, far behind the 2,000 votes garnered by Uche Secondus, the new chairman. Speaking on Channels TV Monday, Makarfi said the South-west never had a true consensus candidate for the chairmanship position. He also said a “damaging campaign” engineered by an unnamed individual rubbed off negatively on the region. “For the South-west, it was at the convention venue that they resolved on a consensus candidate. And even then, another candidate came to the state box and met the leaders and said, look they never resolved and that he was still in t...

Full disclosure in the administration of crude sales remains an issue at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) despite current efforts at enthroning transparency in the conduct of government business. An account reconciliation activity for crude oil transactions found gaps in the corporation’s reporting and remittances to the Federation Account for the month of October 2017. State governments had boycotted the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting on November 23, accusing the NNPC of cutting corners in reporting and remitting of receipts from oil in the period under review. The states insisted on thorough collation and reconciliation through representatives agreed upon by all the parties. The ensuing investigation and reconciliation uncovered the sum of N58.369 billion in unremitted funds and forced the state-owned company to issue fresh payment mandates to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to fund the Federation Account as well as the joint ventu...

For years, he was rejected at the polls and given a tag that demarketed him among the electorate. His opponents said they knew how to get people to vote against him — just dress him up in the uncomplimentary toga and voters would avoid him like a raging plague. He tried as much as he could to explain that what people were saying about him was not true. That did not change the minds of his critics. Anytime he announced his intention to become president of Nigeria, many would scoff and ask: what exactly does this man want? Why is he so desperate to become president? Is it a must? Can’t he just accept that Nigerians would never vote for him? But in 2015, everything changed. It was like a movie. The same Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, tagged as a religious bigot and dressed in the uncomplimentary toga of a jihadist for 12 years, suddenly became the darling of Nigerian voters outside his “core north” stronghold. The PDP stalwarts who said they knew how to win against him were shocked at the mo...

Uche Secondus has emerged as the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party  ( PDP) after he defeated three other aspirants with over 2000 votes. Below is the full list of new members of PDP NWC. Deputy National Chairman ( South); Yemi Akinwonmi- Ogun Deputy National Chairman ( North); Garba Gamawa- Bauchi National Secretary; Ibrahim Tsauri- Katsina Deputy National Secretary; Abubakar Mustapha National Treasurer; Aribisala Adewale- Ekiti Deputy National Treasurer; Wada Masu-Kano Financial Secretary; Abdullahi Maibasira- Niger Deputy Fin. Sec.; Irona Gerald-Imo National Organizing Secretary; Austin Akobundu- Abia Dep. Nat. Org. Sec.; Hassan Yakubu- Nasarawa Publicity Secretary; Kola Ologbondiyan- Kogi Dep. Nat. Pub. Sec.; Diran Odeyemi- Osun National Legal Adviser; Emmanuel Enoidem- Akwa Ibom Dep. Nat. Leg. Ads.; Ahmed Liman- Sokoto National Auditor; Adamu Mustapha-Yobe Dep. Nat. Auditor; Divine Arong National Woman Leader; Mariya Waziri-Kebbi Dep. Nat. Wo...