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No plan for alliance with Labour Party in Lagos — PDP

Beloved JOHN
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No plan for alliance with Labour Party in Lagos — PDP

THE Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has debunked speculations of a possible alliance with the Labour Party (LP) for the 2023 gubernatorial election.

LP candidate Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour had reportedly told supporters in the Lekki area of Lagos that discussing with the PDP became necessary to forge a common front against the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the governorship contest next week.

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Reacting to the reports, the Lagos PDP spokesperson, Hakeem Amode, said there was no official conversation between the parties.

He stressed that Lagos PDP governorship candidate, Azeez Adediran, often addressed as Jandor, “would not be stepping down for anyone”.

In a statement on Monday, Amode described the report saying Jandor is considering stepping down for Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, Labour Party (LP) candidate, as false.

“PDP is a proper democratic party, and it is only the State executive of the party as recognised by the national body that can be described as the custodian of the PDP.

“So, whoever Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour is talking to is only representing themselves and not Lagos PDP, as there is no official conversation between the parties.

“Jandor is not planning to step down for any candidate,” Amode, also the Chairman of Media and Publicity, JandorFunke 2023 Campaign Council, said.

The spokesman said Jandor had worked hard and had made his brand a household name.

“We are using this opportunity to urge our teeming supporters and good people of Lagos that the decision of the people to ensure that Lagos breaks free will be respected and defended in the coming gubernatorial election of March 11.

“The efforts to liberate Lagos from the present oligarchy government of APC cannot be undermined by people who do not see such a great battle that must be won and cannot be subjected to social media cruise,” he added.

Presidential poll: INEC asks tribunal to vary inspection order granted Atiku, Obi

Bankole ABE
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Presidential poll: INEC asks tribunal to vary inspection order granted Atiku, Obi

THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has urged the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) to vary the orders granted to Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) to inspect materials used for the presidential election.

The Commission said it needed to reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the coming Governorship and States House of Assembly elections scheduled for March 11.

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In a motion on notice by INEC filed on March 4, the electoral body asked the Supreme Court to vary the order which deprived it of tampering with materials used for the conduct of the presidential election held on February 25.

The Court of Appeal Abuja Division had on February 3 granted Obi and Atiku’s request to access all the sensitive materials INEC used for the presidential election.

The candidates urged the court to compel INEC to allow them to obtain documents in its custody to aid their petition against the outcome of the presidential contest.

INEC, on Wednesday, March 1, declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, winner of the presidential poll.

The Chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, announced that Tinubu won with 8,794,726 votes while Atiku Abubakar finished second with 6,984,520 votes.

Labour Party (LP) candidate Peter Obi followed closely with 6,101,533 votes, while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) came 4th with 1,496,687 votes, according to the result released by INEC.

Gombe recorded 377 okada, keke crashes in 2022 – FRSC

Mustapha USMAN
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Gombe recorded 377 okada, keke crashes in 2022 – FRSC

NO fewer than 377 motorcycle (okada) and tricycle (keke) accidents were recorded between January and December 2022 by the Federal Safety Corps (FRSC) in Gombe State.

The FRSC Sector Commander Felix Theman disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Akko Local Government Area of the state.

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According to him, the recorded 377 road crashes involved underage riding of motorcycles and tricycles, particularly in the Gombe metropolis.

Theman reiterated that the underage riding of motorbikes is illegal, noting that the organisation has taken measures to tackle the problem.

“We have instances where very young boys that are not up to the legal age of 18, parents are allowing them to ride recklessly on the road causing unnecessary crashes, particularly within the township.”

He noted that the FRSC has increased the response to road traffic offences by enforcing mobile courts in the state.

“We increased our response to road traffic offences by enforcing mobile courts sitting in collaboration with the state judiciary.

“Through the sitting, we made a high number of arrests particularly during Operation Zero between December 2022 and January 2023 to serve as a deterrent,” he said.

According to Theman, the FRSC embarked on sensitisation and advocacy on the danger of having children riding motorcycles and tricycles in the state.

“For underage, we have embarked on sensitisation targeting parents and those groups of people to tell them the danger of having children riding motorcycles and tricycles.”

He added that arrests were being made to tackle the spate of underage motorbike riding in the state.

The FRSC sector commander called on parents and guardians to monitor their wards against committing road traffic offences which could lead to crashes.

Oyo LP leaders abandon party’s candidate, back PDP’s Seyi Makinde

Vincent Ufuoma
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Oyo LP leaders abandon party’s candidate, back PDP’s Seyi Makinde

LEADERS of the Labour Party (LP) in Oyo State have endorsed Governor Seyi Makinde of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the March 11 governorship election in the state.

The LP leaders abandoned their party’s candidate, Tawfiq Akinwale, even after he refuted reports that he had stepped down for Makinde.

The LP chairperson in the state, Atayase Sadiq, announced the decision to endorse Makinde at a press briefing in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, on Sunday, February 5.

According to Sadiq, the decision to support Makinde was taken after consultations with party members across the state’s 33 local government areas.

He stated that the LP leaders considered Makinde’s character, competence, capacity to lead and concern for citizens’ wellbeing, especially regarding security, agricultural development and financial stability.

Sadiq further explained that the LP leaders had to consider the party’s future in the state, given the keenly contested presidential election, in which the LP emerged as a third force party.

He added that the LP’s strength as a party had grown due to the quality of its candidate, and it was essential to support a candidate that best served the citizens’ interest.

Urging the people of the state to vote massively for the PDP governorship candidate, he said Makinde’s administration had addressed issues that were crucial to the state’s development.

Noting that no party could win the gubernatorial election alone, Sadiq said the citizens’ priority should be the emergence of a candidate who best serves their interest.

He added that the LP leaders had decided to work with the PDP, whose policies aligns with theirs regarding security, agricultural development, and financial well-being.

Sadiq’s announcement has triggered mixed reactions among party members and political analysts in the state. Some have commended the LP leaders for their decision, stating that it is a wise move that would benefit the party in the long run.

However, others have criticized the LP leaders for abandoning their candidate and wondered if their decision would affect the party’s reputation and future in the state.

The development has added more intrigues to the governorship election in the state, which is expected to be keenly contested among the major political parties.

Governor Makinde of the PDP is seeking reelection, while other parties, such as the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), also parade strong candidates.

Open Notebook offers Sharon Dunwoody mentoring program

Blessing OTOIBHI
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Open Notebook offers Sharon Dunwoody mentoring program

THE Open Notebook, with support from the Science Sandbox and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, is inviting applications for its Sharon Dunwoody Science Journalism Mentoring Program.

The program aims to increase the diversity of voices covering science.

Selected participants will be paired with a mentor who will help in providing the skills and community support to help participants do their best work in covering science.

Participants will work towards a concrete, actionable goal which includes pitching or writing articles for publication, or learning and gaining experience in a new skill such as podcasting, or something else.

Science journalists from underrepresented communities including people of color, LGBTQ+ people, people from the Global South, and people with disabilities can apply for a mentoring program.

This is a free, nine-month program that will run from May 3, 2023, to February 3, 2024.

The deadline for the submission of applications is March 17, 2023. Interested applicants can apply here.

Presidential election: Atiku, PDP leaders protest at INEC

Bankole ABE
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Presidential election: Atiku, PDP leaders protest at INEC

THE Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, alongside other leaders of the party, are currently protesting at the national headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja.

Others at the protest include the national  chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu, Sokoto State governor Aminu Tambuwal and former national chairman, Uche Secondus

The protest is part of the party’s way of showing its grievances with the just-concluded Presidential Election.

The PDP is insisting that the election was not free and fair and that the results announced by INEC are not credible.

Atiku and the party leaders and their supporters started the protest from the Legacy House in Maitama.

PDP chairman and supporters at the protest. March 6,2023
PDP chairman, leaders, and other supporters at the protest. March 6, 2023

Atiku had earlier on Thursday blamed INEC over the conduct of the elections, saying the umpire’s failure to upload results on IReV was a “rape of democracy”.

INEC, on Wednesday, March 1, declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, winner of the Presidential Election.

The Chairman of INEC Mahmood Yakubu announced that Tinubu won with 8,794,726 votes while Atiku Abubakar finished second with 6,984,520 votes.

Labour Party (LP) candidate Peter Obi followed closely with 6,101,533 votes, while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) came 4th with 1,496,687 votes, according to the result released by INEC.

The protest is still ongoing as of the time of filing this report.

Brother replaces murdered lawyer as LP candidate for Enugu East

Vincent Ufuoma
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Brother replaces murdered lawyer as LP candidate for Enugu East

KELVIN Chukwu, the younger brother of the murdered Oyibo Chukwu, a lawyer, has been elected as the Labour Party (LP) candidate for the Enugu East Senatorial Zone.

Oyibo, the candidate of the LP for Enugu East Senatorial Zone of Enugu State, was murdered two days to the February 25 National Assembly election.

As a result, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) rescheduled the Enugu East senatorial election to March 11, the date for the governorship and state assembly polls.

A fresh primary election was held on Sunday, March 5, by the LP to select Oyibo’s replacement.

Oyibo’s brother, Kelvin Chukwu, was chosen as his brother’s replacement in the primary election.

The LP National Vice Chairman (South-East), Innocent Okeke, announced Chukwu’s emergence as the new candidate for the senatorial zone in the presence of two INEC observers.

Chukwu defeated his rivals, Uchenna Ogbodo, Chinedu Nneji and Christian Onyeni, with 223 votes, while his rivals did not score any votes.

The 231 delegates drawn from the 77 wards in Enugu East Senatorial Zone were praised for their resilience and support by the Chairman of the LP in Enugu State, Casmir Agbo.

The member-elect, Enugu North and South Federal Constituency, Chimaobi Atu, expressed joy that the delegates unanimously elected Chukwu to fly the party’s flag on behalf of his late elder brother.

On his part, Chukwu promised to fulfil his late brother’s dreams and make the people of Enugu East Senatorial Zone proud.

He added that the family is yet to recover from the murder of their elder brother and his personal aides, who were gruesomely shot and burnt just two days before the previous election.

He vowed to seek justice for his late brother and urged the authorities to investigate the matter thoroughly and bring his killers to book.

The ICIR reported that the late Oyibo Chukwu was killed along Amaechi-Agbani Road in the Enugu metropolis on February 22.

Yet to be identified individuals approached him and some of his supporters while they were travelling in a Sienna car, shot at them and set the vehicle on fire.

Although President Muhammadu Buhari had ordered the police to fish out the perpetrators, no arrest has been made in connection with the murder.

NDLEA intercepts heroin, skunk at Lagos, Abuja airports

Beloved JOHN
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0
NDLEA intercepts heroin, skunk at Lagos, Abuja airports

THE National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has intercepted 9.40 kilograms of heroin concealed at the bottom of two travelling bags and another 1.924 kilograms of skunk hidden in cream tubes in Lagos and Abuja, respectively.

The consignments were bound for two Asian countries – the heroin to India and the skunk to Oman.

This was disclosed in a statement issued by NDLEA spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, on Sunday, March 5.

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Babafemi said NDLEA operatives recovered the 9.40kg of heroin hidden in two travelling bags from one Kingsley Celestino at Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos on Saturday, March 4.

Kingsley Celestino and his travelling bags

The 49-year-old is a self-claimed businessman who frequently moves between Nigeria and India using a Guinean international passport.

Similarly, the NDLEA said it seized the skunk consignment from one Etounu Monday, at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja, during the outward clearance of an Ethiopian Airline flight on Monday, February 27.

Etounu Monday

Babafemi said the agency’s operatives intercepted other illicit goods, some of which were to be moved abroad, within the last week.

The anti-narcotics agency further said it recovered 244 parcels of cannabis that weighed 79kg bound for Canada at Tincan Sea Port, Lagos, and a consignment of nine boxes of methamphetamine concealed in native black soap, Dudu Osun, heading to Europe, also in Lagos.

It also seized 778,190 pills of pharmaceutical opioids, tramadol and a drum of 270kg Methylene Chloride in Taraba, 27.45 kilograms of cannabis in Jos, and 18kg of the same substance in Osun.

Illicit trafficking of hard drugs is a significant problem in Nigeria. The Federal Government continues to battle smugglers and perpetrators leveraging airports, vessels and seaports to push out their products.

Some substances often smuggled by merchants within and outside the country are cocaine, heroin, cannabis, codeine, opioids, colorado and tramadol.

Presidential poll: Nigerians question results uploaded on IReV

Harrison EDEH
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Presidential poll: Nigerians question results uploaded on IReV

SOME Nigerians have questioned the credibility of Presidential Election results uploaded on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Result Viewing portal (IReV).

Many Nigerians are currently glued to the portal, trying to track the uploaded Presidential Election results.

The ICIR learnt that the INEC has so far uploaded 161,624 results from 176, 846 polling units, eight days after the presidential poll.

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The figure represents 92 per cent of results from all the polling units.

A Professor of Law at Baze University in Abuja, Sam Amadi reacted with a tweet after INEC uploaded results from Obio-Akpor Local Government Area (LGA) of Rivers State.

“Obio-Akpor LGA results on INEC Portal. LP:70,186, APC:12,547. Meanwhile INEC announced something different. APC: 80,239, LP: 3,829”, he tweeted via his handle @SamAmadi.

Another Twitter user @mindset shared similar tweet about the uploaded Obio-Akpor LGA result.

“Obio-Akpor LGA results on INEC Portal. LP:70,186, APC:12,547. But INEC announced APC: 80,239, LP: 3829” @mindset tweeted.

Also reacting, another Nigerian, Alex Oriprite, said, “What should I believe now after going through IRev? Did INEC intentionally set Tinubu up? Guys, if you go through the IRev, the result and margin of victory with which Peter Obi won is so resounding. How do they even intend to defend that in court?”

Nigerians expected that the election results would be uploaded on election day as promised by INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.

INEC, however, did not fulfil this promise and did not upload the result at the portal, resulting in a wide range of criticism from Nigerians.

Contrary to the manual collation witnessed at the Presidential and National Assembly Election, INEC has promised to upload the results in the March 11 governorship and state assembly elections.

Following the concerns raised by Nigerians, INEC has taken full responsibility for the problems associated with the delay in uploading most of results to the IReV.

Festus Okoye, INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee in a statement on February 26 said the electoral umpire
regretted the distress the development caused the candidates, political parties and the electorate.

Okoye assured Nigerians that results from the polling units, copies of which were issued to political parties, are safe on both the BVAS and the IReV portal and cannot be tampered with.

“The Commission is aware of challenges with the INEC IReV. Unlike in off-season elections where the portal was used, it has been relatively slow and unsteady. The Commission regrets this setback, especially because of the importance of IReV in our results management process.

“The problem is totally due to technical hitches related to scaling up the IReV from a platform for managing off-season, State elections, to one for managing nationwide general elections. It is indeed not unusual for glitches to occur and be corrected in such situations,” he said.

All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate BolaTinubu was declared winner of the election with 8.8 million votes, while the main opposition candidates Atiku Abubakar (PDP) and Peter Obi (LP), got 6.9 million and 6.1 million votes, respectively.

Presidential Election failed to meet expectations – US ambassador

Beloved JOHN
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0
Presidential Election failed to meet expectations – US ambassador

THE United States (US) Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard, says the February 25 Presidential Election failed to meet the expectations of Nigerians.

The election left many Nigerians angry and frustrated, the ambassador said in a statement issued on Sunday, March 5.

“It is clear that the electoral process as a whole on February 25 failed to meet Nigerians’ expectations,” the US envoy observed.

She noted that the poll was riddled with irregularities that affected the voting and counting process.

Also, she asked Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to address the range of problems that marred the election before the March 11 governorship and state assembly polls.

According to her, INEC should provide the citizens with information on solutions adopted and their level of effectiveness.

“We thus reiterate our call on INEC to address promptly the challenges that can be resolved ahead of the March 11 gubernatorial elections and to undertake a broader review of the problems that transpired during the last elections and what can be done to fix them.

“In all cases, INEC should share with the Nigerian public information about its actions.”

This, according to her, would ensure a positive growth trend for Nigeria’s democracy.

“Nigeria has accomplished much in just two decades since the return to democracy. A gradual improvement in the quality of its elections in that time constitutes one of those accomplishments. We recognise that Nigerians want that positive trend to continue, including using new technology to make reporting results more transparent.”

Leonard further advised those who are not satisfied with the election result to seek legal solutions.

The ambassador said, “It will be necessary for the future of this country that Nigerians do not let their differences divide them and that the legally established process for resolving challenges to the election be allowed to take its course.”

In the same vein, the US government representative notes that the last election produced some remarkable results which show that the Nigerian political landscape is changing.

In about 20 states, the winning candidate and incumbent governor were in different political parties, and 12 of such states are led by All Progressives Congress (APC) governors, she said.

“For the first time, four presidential candidates won at least one state, and the top three each won 12 states based on these initial results. In the National Assembly elections, even with incomplete results, we already know that changes are afoot.

“Seven sitting governors lost in their attempts to win election to the Assembly; the Labor Party has won at least seven seats in the Senate; the NNPP has won at least 11 seats in the House of Representatives,” she added.

APC candidate Bola Tinubu was declared winner of the presidential election with 8,794,726 votes, defeating 17 other candidates.

He also had over 25 per cent of the votes cast in 30 states, more than the 24 states constitutionally required.

However, both Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party (LP) flagbearer Peter Obi have faulted the process and vowed to challenge the result in court.

Read the full statement here

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