Nigeria News
PDP Children’s Day Gift To Amaechi
By Emmanuel Onwubiko
Reading an old copy of the constitution of the Peoples Democracy Party (2009 as amended) freely given to me by an elder statesman and one of the few principled founders of the party, I have come out with the impression that the party is determined to truly restore total respect of the fundamental human rights of Nigerians which were breached most flagrantly and primitively by the military boys who illegally took over political power for nearly three decades and only relinquished it in 1999.
As widely expected from a people whose nation has just been rescued from the throes and/or jackboots and suffocating control of the military dictators, the founders of the PDP had then inscribed the words human rights in the first page of their constitution.
The preamble of the constitution of this political behemoth that has ruled Nigeria at the centre for fourteen years now said the party was formed basically because they recognised that many years of military dictatorship in Nigeria had breached and impeded the respect for rule of law and that there is the urgent need to raise the nation to moral and intellectual dignity; recreate civil political institutions; reconcile and unite Nigeria’s various peoples and rekindle in ourselves the spirit of brotherhood, confront social decay, remedy existing evils undermining the moral, social, and political condition of the country and arouse ourselves to a desired state of consciousness to build a prosperous and lasting democracy.
These were the poetic words that flowed freely from the fountain of the wisdom of those who originally crafted the PDP’s constitution.
Sadly, from formation stage till date, the party has consistently breached the fundamental provisions enshrined in their constitution and has instead created the larger–than–life image of a political platform that does not recognise the need to respect the fundamental human rights of their individual members.
The intra-party crises in the PDP have so much made this political platform one of the most litigated political parties in the world even as most of the state branches of this party have consistently remained in the legal trenches for years without resolution.
The same party which recognised zoning and rotation of all the political positions was at the forefront of the party that negated this sacred accord in the 2011 elections which has thrown Nigeria into politically motivated upheavals. Those who felt rightly or wrongly that the North ought to present the successor to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in the 2011 presidential poll, threatened to make Nigeria ungovernable should the south succeed in fielding Goodluck Jonathan as the party’s candidate.
Shortly after the election which produced Goodluck Jonathan as the President, the north was turned into a war zone even as terrorists invaded all parts of the north, throwing bombs and carrying out targeted killings. At the last count, over 5000 innocent Nigerians have been killed by the armed Islamic insurgents who publicly vowed to dethrone Jonathan from power and to establish their own brand of Islamic Republic.
But like an old leopard that is too old to change its colour, the PDP’s leadership rather than resolve to respect democratic tenets of free choice has sunk deeper into the mud water of political intrigues and deception.
This primitive desire to institutionalise god-fatherism and the total disregard for democratic ethos have grown so large that the party now arbitrarily suspends or dismisses party members at will especially those who have not fallen short of the provisions of the party’s constitution but who insist on maintaining the sacred loyalty to constitutionalism and democratic tenets.
The latest victim of this in- house dictatorship of the PDP is the Governor of Rivers State Mr. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi who has just emerged re-elected chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum [NGF] after defeating Plateau State Governor Jonah Jang suspected to be the anointed candidate of President Jonathan who is seen as the national leader of the PDP.
In the wake of the bitter discord that trailed the election of Governor Amaechi as Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, the National Working Committee of the party met hurriedly on Monday, 27 May, 2013, being Childrens’ Day and suspended the Rivers governor from their fold but in a subterranean move known as the notorious characteristic of political god-fathers in our clime, the national leadership of the party went deeper into their old bag of tricks to invent another raison d’etre for this ignominious and atrocious political blunder.
This is like a Childrens’ Day gift from the ruling party to one of its members who has fallen out of favour with the Abuja big man – Goodluck Jonathan- who suspects strongly that Governor Amaechi may rock his political boat if Amaechi runs as vice president to a northern candidate in the 2015 election.
I’m not sure the PDP’s hierarchy realizes how childish their decision to suspend Governor Amaechi looks like in a typical Children’s Day.
Prior to this charade enacted in Abuja by the PDP, a repentant Niger Delta militant from Rivers State, Mr. Asari Mujahid Dokubo had hinted that for beating the favoured candidate in the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Chibuike Amaechi would be treated as a “traitor”. The Peoples Democratic Party has actualized the threat by Dokubo who has since assumed the self-acclaimed position of ‘campaign manager’ of Goodluck Jonathan for the 2015 election.
In the communiqué issued at the end of what it called an emergency meeting of the National Working Committee and endorsed by the National Publicity Secretary Mr. Olisa Metuh, the party claimed that Amaechi was suspended based on a pending petition from a faction of the Rivers State branch of the party.
The party stated as follows: “The National Working Committee at its emergency meeting on Monday, 27 May, 2013 considered the petition submitted by the PDP Rivers State Executive Committee against His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the Executive Governor of Rivers State for violating Articles 58 1(b),(c),(h) and(m) of the PDP Constitution following his refusal to obey the lawful directive of the Rivers State Executive Committee to rescind his decision dissolving the elected Executive Council of Obio-Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State.
“The National Working Committee after preliminary hearing, in exercise of the powers conferred by Articles 57(3), 59(3), 59(5) and 29(2.b), hereby suspends the Executive Governor of River State, Rt Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi as a member of the PDP and refers the matter to the appropriate disciplinary committee of the party. This is in furtherance of the determination of the leadership of the party to enforce discipline at all levels within the party.”
This is indeed a charade, and one may like to know when the National Executive Committee of the party assumed the role of the state House of Assembly which is a body clothed with the constitutional power to sanction any state executive that fundamentally ‘breaches’ the constitution of a properly elected local council officials.
It is a notorious fact that this same issue cited above as the reason for the suspension of Chibuike Amaechi is a pending matter before the court and indeed the Rivers State governor is currently at the Appeal Court challenging the legality of the faction endorsed for Rivers state by both the national executive committee of the party and the Abuja High Court. Why won’t the national leadership of the party await the final decision of the court before jumping to take sides? This Childrens’ Day gift to Amaechi was done in bad faith and is therefore reprehensible and despicable.
•Onwubiko is head, Humanrights Writers’ Association of Nigeria.
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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.
Source: PM News
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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
Nigeria records 55 new COVID-19 infections, total now 165,110
Military, Police Ring Abuja to Forestall Boko Haram Attack
UFC: Usman gets N584m after beating Masvidal
Insecurity: Lagos bans occupation of abandoned buildings
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