BREAKING NEWS: APC leaders converge in Ogun to meet Obasanjo

The APC leaders are in Abeokuta to meet the former president.
All is now set for meeting between leaders of All Progressives Congress (APC) and former President Olusegun Obasanjo at his hilltop residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
By 5.00 p.m., the leaders of the opposition party had converged at the Ogun State Government House located at Oke-Igbein, Abeokuta, to move in a convoy to Mr. Obasanjo’s home.
Mr. Obasanjo is also waiting to receive his guests, sources at his residence told PREMIUM TIMES. The former president is in company of some of his loyalists waiting for the visitors.
Those already with Governor Ibikunle Amosun at the Ogun government house include APC National Chairman, Bisi Akande; former Lagos governor, Bola Tinubu; presidential candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, Nuhu Ribadu; Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha; Adamawa State governor, Murtala Nyako; Kano State governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso; Kwara State governor, Abdulfatai Ahmed; two senators, Bukola Saraki and Ali Sherif; and a former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode.
The visitors are said to be waiting for former military ruler, Muhammadu Buhari; and Rivers governor, Rotimi Amaechi; before they go to Mr. Obasanjo’s house.
Mr. Obasanjo, a leader of the Nigeria’s ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, recently wrote to President Goodluck Jonathan, complaining of the way the party was being run.
In the letter, exclusively published by PREMIUM TIMES, he accused the president of encouraging corruption, and running the presidency in a clannish manner.

Source: Premium Time

INTERVIEW: Why APC should not be considered a progressive party — Femi Falana

In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES, activist and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, says by wooing discredited military and civilian despots who have  destroyed the country since 1966, the APC has shown that it is only interested in power for the sake of power.

Is there a difference between the APC and PDP?

For now, the difference between APC and PDP is like the difference between six and half a dozen. Frankly speaking, serious political parties are not built around big names or personalities but on the platform of ideology. From the look of things both APC and PDP subscribe to the dominance of market forces, currency devaluation, privatisation of the nation’s resources and the commercialisation of education, health and other social services. The leaders of both parties who have been in government at one time or the other in the past 30 years or there about believe in the neo-colonial capitalist system. Essentially, both APC and PDP are two sides of the same coin.
What is your reaction to the wooing of Generals Obasanjo, Babangida, Abdulsalami and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar by the APC?
In bourgeois politics the ongoing development is called “realignment of forces”. In the process, those who have been excluded from the “come and chop” policy of the PDP are being asked to choose their place at the table in case the APC takes over power in 2015. The PDP has started to fight back ferociously and violently because the stakes are so high. Already, huge funds and weapons of mass destruction are being assembled for the mother of all battles. Money, religion, ethnicity and other primordial sentiments are being deployed to confuse the electorate. Did you not read in General Obasanjo’s letter that snipers are being trained where the late General Sani Abacha trained members of his killer squad? Have some militants not threatened to declare  war on the country if President Jonathan is not re-elected by Nigerians? It is not that they believe in the PDP. They too want to protect their newly found wealth acquired through pipeline contracts worth several billions of naira.
Do you think APC will remain a progressive party as they claim?
A: The members of the ruling class of all extractions have continued to display sheer contempt for the Nigerian people. Hence the people are not being mobilised to defeat the PDP in the polls. The APC has no plan to woo the youths who constitute more than 60% of the voting population. It is the belief of the leaders of both APC and PDP  that the 2015 general election is going to be fixed by the traditional manipulators of elections. This is the basis of the ongoing mobilisation of PDP chieftains including those who cannot win elections in their own wards. By wooing  discredited military and civilian despots who have  destroyed the country since 1966 the APC has shown that it is only interested in power for the sake of power. I understand that one of the retired generals is going to become the chair of the Board of Trustees of the APC! This is a case of alienation from the people. How can APC leaders believe that Nigerians want Generals Obasanjo and Babangida to be rehabilitated after destroying the country? The duo ruled  for 20 years and ruined the country in the process. General Obasanjo has just confessed that he has been installing incompetent leadership since 1979. And he is not ashamed to make that provocative disclosure. Has he offered public apology for his maxima culpa before wooing him? The situation is not different in a number of states and local council areas where  the new PDP is busy taking over all the structures of the APC. Since the APC is positioning itself to retain the status quo it cannot become a truly progressive party.
INEC has said elections may not be conducted in the states where there is emergency rule? What is your reaction to the statement?
The statement has confirmed that the Independent National Electoral Commission has been hijacked by the most reactionary segment of the political class. In order to frustrate the emergence of a truly progressive political party in the country  the highly incompetent INEC  has conspired with the ruling class to narrow the democratic space. It has just  requested the national assembly to give it the powers to proscribe other political parties and ban their candidates. As far as INEC is concerned  the APC and PDP are the ideal political parties for the country. By saying there will be no elections in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states controlled by the APC has INEC not started rigging in favour of the PDP? Was there any incident when President Jonathan paid a 2-day visit to Borno and Yobe states a few months ago? Are elections not held in Iraq and Afghanistan which are waging serious wars against terrorists? Is INEC going to appoint sole administrators for the three states at the end of the tenure of the governors and other elected public officers?  Apart from conducting flawed elections why is INEC not interested in promoting civic education which is one of its core statutory duties?
What is the way forward in view of the frightening political crisis? 
A: It is high time the APC and PDP were stopped from further confusing our people along ethnic and religious lines.  The media must help by forcing candidates to come up with concrete solutions to the crises of under development in all its manifestation. Therefore, all genuine progressive forces in the country should come together with a view to ensuring that future elections in the country are contested and won on the basis of the  commitment of political parties and their candidates to implement the provisions of the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy contained in Chapter II of the Constitution.

The socio-economic rights guaranteed in the Constitution have to be made justiciable in the interest of the masses. This must be accompanied by a commitment to address the challenges of poverty, insecurity, unemployment, corruption and infrastructural decay. For instance, since 1999 the Federal Government, with 52% of the nation’s resources, has not completed any new road or hospital in any part of the country! Is it what the APC wants to continue by wooing the PDP leaders who unleashed unmitigated disaster on our people? Or are we to believe that these characters have committed class suicide?

Instead of waiting for 2015 we call on all our oppressed people to learn from the Academic Staff Union of Universities by resorting to strikes and other forms of civil disobedience to force the ruling class political parties to make funds available NOW for education, health, housing, job creation and poverty elimination.

In 2011 President Jonathan was pitied by Nigerians when he said he had no shoes while growing up. But he has refused to buy shoes for millions of other children. The Unicef says 15.5 million Nigerian children are roaming the streets. What has the President done to ensure that those poor  kids are enrolled in schools? Having regard to the N5 trillion given to AMCON to bail out banks run down by the comprador bourgeoisie, the missing $50 billion from the Federation Account and the unprecedented looting of the treasury by the political class have confirmed that the country is sufficiently endowed to make poverty history. The struggle to end poverty in the land cannot afford to wait till 2015!

Source: Premium Time

I Suffer Depression Chime's Hand - Former Enugu First Lady

 Former First Lady Enugu Lamenting her ordeal in her husband hand, Gov. Chime

Jonathan is Victimizing Rivers - Amaechi

Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi has spoken on his frosty relationship with President Goodluck Jonathan, saying the state is being victimised.

The state is neglected by the Federal Government, which ceded its oil wells to neighbouring Bayelsa State, the governor said.

 Amaechi, who is also the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), noted that he left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the main opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) to protect the interest of Rivers.

 He urged Rivers indigenes to be politically-conscious and become agents of progressive change, thereby voting out the ruling PDP at the federal level.

 The governor spoke on Wednesday at the Government House, Port Harcourt, the state capital, while interacting with medical doctors.

 Amaechi said the APC held the light to the country’s rapid development and to reducing the general impoverishment in the country.

 He said one of the reasons for his disagreement with the Federal Government was the Soku oil wells in the Kalabari area of Rivers State, which were ceded to Bayelsa State and which the Rivers State government contested in court.

 The NGF chairman said: “For Rivers State, basically that is the cause of the quarrel and you have a choice to make. The choice for me is to vote out PDP and there is no sentiment about that.

 ”Legally, we have not lost Soku (oil wells). We have just lost Soku to the fact that the President is from Bayelsa. When a President that is not from Bayelsa comes, he will look at the facts and the facts are there.

 ”The Federal Government, in writing in the court, said to the court: ‘sorry, court, we made a mistake; we will correct the mistake’ and we have told the Federal Government: ‘don’t call us for a meeting; go and correct that mistake. How could you people wake up in 2011… suddenly changed the map of Nigeria and take Soku into Bayelsa State?”

 Amaechi also said the Jonathan administration failed to execute a road project awarded by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration to link the oil-rich Bonny Island in the state.

  He said: “That road to Bonny was awarded by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. They started; they have done just one bridge. The road has been abandoned. Yar’Adua tried to restart it, but he stopped.

“President Goodluck Jonathan has forgotten about that road completely, despite the fact that part of the money that feeds the Nigerian economy comes from that place, Bonny. That’s where you have the natural gas plant.”

 The governor said the Federal Government had not reimbursed the state for the N105 billion spent on the Port Harcourt-Owerri federal road, Eleme and Agip flyovers in Port Harcourt, among others.

 On his administration’s bid to secure a loan to provide potable water for residents, Amaechi said the loan was being held up because of the challenge posed by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, whom he noted had not signed off on the loan.

 Amaechi said: “I will start from water. We got African Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank to give us a loan, for which we will pay 0.4 per cent for 40 years, which is a wonderful loan and we planned to give Port Harcourt people water first.

 ”If everybody in Rivers State is drinking (potable) water that will reduce the number of patients that go to Braithwaite Memorial Hospital or any other hospital. World Bank agreed; Federal Government agreed; ADB agreed. They said, ‘go and do due process’. We have finished due process. What is remaining is for the Minister of Finance to just sign off.

 ”In fact, you know, like I tell people, I have no appetite for money, they can award the contract to whoever they want; all I want is water, because that will impact on other sectors of the Rivers State economy. ‘Oh, you are quarrelling with the President, we will not sign’; that is why they have not signed.

 ”Should the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that schooled in the University of Port Harcourt, worked at OMPADEC, Ministry of Education, University of Education or College of Education (COE) sit down there and deny Rivers people water?”

 The people chorused ‘No’. “Should I remain in that kind of government (party)?” Again, the people chorused ‘no.’

Amaechi said his decision to join the APC was not for his personal interests, but for the state. The people of the state to discourage politics based on tribe or region and play politics for the collective interests of the people.

 He said: “It is not about Ijaw. It is not about Southsouth, because the first question I will ask myself is ‘what have I benefitted in the government of President Goodluck Jonathan?  We gave him between 1.5 million to 2.1 million votes. What have we got?  What has the Federal Government done for Rivers people?” ”Nothing,” the people chorused.

 Amaechi also decried the grounding of the state’s aircraft by the Federal Government and its refusal to sign to allow the state to bring in two surveillance helicopters from the United States to check kidnapping and other crimes.

 The NGF chairman also stated that his critics in the state had been angry with him for his refusal to be corrupt, stressing that the Police Commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, was influenced in his actions by the Presidency.

 The Rivers Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Ibitrokoemi Korubo, assured the governor that they would continue to support his good policies.

Ms. Akinjide says she wants to help Jonathan succeed.
The Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Olajumoke Akinjide, has vowed to stick with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and President Goodluck Jonathan, despite her husband’s defection to the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Mrs. Akinjide’s husband, Ahman Pategi, was one of the 37 ex-PDP members of the House of Representatives who defected to the APC on Wednesday.
Mr. Pategi, who was elected to the lower legislative chamber on the platform of the PDP, represents Edu/Moro/Pategi federal constituency of Kwara State. He is the Chairman of the House Committee on Water Resources.
Mrs. Akinjide, who hails from Ibadan in Oyo State, responded to a PREMIUM TIMES enquiry via a text message. She dismissed speculations that she was going to join her husband in the APC. She vowed to remain in the PDP to work for the success of the president, the Transformation Agenda, and the party at future polls.
The minister, who is the daughter of the Second Republic Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Richard Akinjide, added that her entire family dynasty remained loyal to the ruling party and the president.
“I’ll never ever leave the PDP,” she said. “The Akinjide family is loyal to the PDP and loyal to President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. My father, Richard Akinjide is a founding member of the PDP and a member of the PDP Board of Trustees.”
“I am the arrowhead of the PDP in Oyo State as the minister in an opposition state. I will continue to work hard to ensure the success of Mr. President, the Transformation Agenda, and the success of the PDP at the polls in the 2015 elections.”
While presenting items to some PDP members in Ibadan earlier in the year, Mrs. Akinjide had asked the president to contest the 2015 presidential election.
The minister belongs to one of the several factions of the party in Oyo state. Reports say she and a former deputy governor of Oyo State, Taofeek Arapaja are leading one camp, while a former governor, Adebayo Alao- Akala, and former Senate Leader, Teslim Folarin, lead two other camps.

Keshi: I would have stopped Iheanacho’s Man City move if…

Coach Stephen Keshi has insisted that he would have resisted the movement of Kelechi Iheanacho to Manchester City, if the player had been in camp earlier.
According to the Big Boss, there was nothing he could do about it because a process was already on before the 2013 FIFA U-17 Most Valuable player was invited to senior national team “there is no way we could keep Kelechi. It is because there was something in the pipe line before now.
So we had to allow him go. But if not, I would not have allowed him go at least for now, because, in as much as the club needs him, so do we also. I would not say I would miss him in the team, because, I am just knowing him for only some days. He is good a player, with a lot of potentials. He is an asset to the country, and we pray for him to succeed in his career. As a human being, I will miss him among the family”.
The former Super Eagles Captain said that he is in constant talks with the players in camp to ensure that many of them stay around till January when the CHAN championship would be played, “ as regards the the older players, we are pleading to them to delay their movements for now, and they have agreed, while the new players we would talk to them to know their mind set. It makes our job more difficult” he bemoaned.
It would be recalled that Stephen Keshi led the exodus of players out of the local league after he was axed by the football federation in 1985 alongside his team mates in the then New Nigeria Bank of Benin. They failed to report to camp at the stipulated time.
Keshi left for Cote d’ivoire enroute to Belgium, opening professional windows for other Nigerian players.

St. Theresa Catholic Church Christmas Bomber Kabiru Sokoto Gets Life Imprisonment

A federal high court in Abuja,  Justice Ademola Adeniyi has found Kabiru Sokoto guilty of the crime of terrorism and murder. Sokoto was the mastermind of the deadly Christmas day bombing of St. Theresa Catholic church that killed at least 44 people  in 2011.
Sokoto was a member of the Shura council of Islamist sect Boko Haram according to his persoanl testimony during the trial.