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Buhari’s Re-Election ’ll Spell Doom -Secondus …As PDP Urges President To Resign Over Insecurity, Corruption …APC Has Failed Nigerians -Melaye
The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Prince Uche Secondus, says Nigeria will sink deeper into further crises if President Muhammadu Buhari is given another four-year term in 2019.
He said that all the promises made by Buhari that made Nigerians to vote him in 2015 had remained unfulfilled till today.
Apart from this, he said the President had divided the country along ethnic and religious lines with his alleged divisive style of governance since he assumed power in 205.
Secondus, who spoke in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, said majority of those who toiled day and night to get the President elected three years ago were regretting their action.
He said Buhari could have noticed the disaffection of Nigerians to the way he had been administering the country and that, this could be the reason he asked the governors elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress not to rush him into taking decision on whether he would run in 2019 or not.
Secondus said, “The President may have noticed that Nigerians are eager to end his misrule and that’s why he told the governors of the APC to give him some time before he would make up his mind on 2019.
“The fact, however, is that, allowing President Muhammadu Buhari to rule for another four years as from 2019 will be disastrous for the country and its citizens.
“Buhari promised to fight corruption, he promised to fight insurgency and also revive the economy. That’s good.
“But is the fight against corruption working? Is he not shielding alleged corrupt people in his kitchen cabinet? Are we making progress in the fight against insurgency? Nobody is even talking about the economy because if we have remained where we were in 2015 when he assumed office, it would have been better.
Meanwhile, the Bayelsa State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Social Media Organisation has said Nigeria would be better off if the kindergarten President Muhammadu Buhari threw in the towel, having failed abysmally to uphold his Oath of Allegiance to protect the lives and property of all Nigerians as the chief security officer of the nation.
The statement is coming on the heels of an open acknowledgment by Buhari of the rising rate of insecurity in the land occasioned by rampant killings by armed Fulani herdsmen, endless bombings by Boko Haram and the spiralling web of public funds being “swallowed” by snakes, dragons and monkeys under the All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government, which claims to be fighting corruption.
In a statement in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, the state Coordinator of the social media group, Comrade Abeki Kokobaiye, commended Buhari for “the open confession of his failure”, adding that he should complement his inability to discharge the sacrosanct responsibility by turning in his resignation letter.
Abeki, who regretted that the president had continued to misappropriate billions of naira from the commonwealth of the people, said the recent report by Transparency International, which indicated that corruption in Nigeria had deepened under the present administration, was an open indictment of “a government that prides itself as an agent of change.
In another development, the lawmaker representing Kogi West Senatorial District, Senator Dino Melaye has taken a swipe at the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for failing to meet the expectations of Nigerians, many of whom he said, defied the odds to vote for Muhammadu Buhari as Nigeria’s President in the 2015 general elections.
Melaye who spoke after he was conferred with the Legislator of the Year 2017 at the Daily Asset Newspaper maiden annual awards and lecture in Abuja, also charged Nigerians to conquer fear by rising up to ask critical questions on governance and service delivery.
Prefacing his remarks with his usual coinage; “If you speak the truth, you die. If you lie, you die. I, Dino Melaye has decided to speak the truth and die,” the fiery Senator wooed the audience with his vitriolic against his own party, which he likened to the Public Complaint Commission, apparently due to its penchants for blaming past administrations for its inability to deliver on some of its electioneering campaign promises.
“The APC government has become Public Complaint Commission.
I say this without fear or favour. We have more complaints in the APC and even in the Presidency than service rendered. We cannot as a people continue like this. “The President said two days ago we should all embrace peace but I want to say without fear or favour that there can be no peace without justice.
There is hunger in the land, there is poverty in the land, and there is unemployment in the land. A lot of decision has not been taken; yet we say we want peace. The primary objective of government is the security and welfare of the people.
There is no security, there is no welfare,” he said. According to the federal lawmaker, “Nigeria is not only sick presently but equally suffers from regretful congenital abnormality. There is therefore a serious need for amelioration, palliation and correction.
The question is: are you going to be part of that correction? I want to say that in an unjust society, silence is a crime, and every one of us here today, is the reason why (sic) Nigeria is sick. “It is not about the leadership, it is the inability of the followership to check the leadership.
Today, Nigerians have become indolent, we are suffering and smiling. We are not reactionary. We are not asking questions and that is why we are where we are. “Democracy will continue to be government of the people by the people for the people but what we have today is greedocracy which is government of the greedy by the greedy and for the greedy, “he added..
Many of us are lackadaisical about the future. I delivered a lecture recently at the University of Lagos and some students from very wealthy homes, two of them said they didn’t care who the president of the country is and that it was none of their business because their parents were very successful.
I said to them that when the poor have nothing to eat, they will start eating the rich. “A time will come when it will be difficult to drive your expensive jeeps and cars on the streets.
A time will come when it would be difficult to switch on your generator because everywhere around you is dark. Will you be the only one having light? There was no kidnapping before, and kidnapping is seen as the redistribution of both ill-gotten and legitimate wealth.
People now take from the rich and they now appropriate to themselves,” he noted even as he urged the masses to be wary of the elites whom he accused of polarizing the rest of the populace.
“The elites have divided us using tribal sentiments. When you go to the hospital, there is a column for religion on your call card, a column for tribe and local government as if this will in any way facilitate your recovery. We have become too ethnic conscious.
I sponsored a bill that is about to go for a second reading. The bill is saying that we should abolish state of origin and in its place; we should have state of residence.
This is when we will have a true Nigeria when you will not need a Senator’s note to get job with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN or the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC,” he added. APC incapable of good leadership-Makarfi On his part, former Kaduna State governor and Chairman of the defunct National Caretaker Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ahmed Makarfi who bagged the Man of the Year 2017 award said the APC cannot provide the expected good leadership because the party is made up of strange political bedfellows.
While dedicating the prize to the entire PDP family, Makarfi promised Nigerians that the party will restore their hope and deliver on quality governance if given the opportunity again.
In a private chat with Vanguard, an elated Makarfi said the award would spur him to do more for Nigeria and her people.
“The award will surely encourage me to do much more. As the chairman of the occasion, Babangida Aliyu mentioned, APC is conglomeration of incompatible political interest groups which Senator Melaye re-echoed.
Therefore, they cannot provide good leadership,” he said. APC, not a political party-Aliyu Co-chairman of the occasion and former governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu also slammed the APC, saying it was never prepared for governance.
“Why is APC not doing very well? It is because it has not become a political party. It won election before becoming a political party. It is a combination of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and one-quarter of PDP,” said Aliyu who also lamented the lack of unity among leaders in the northern part of the country.
“Why is it that there is the problem of insecurity more in the North? Why is that we cannot speak with one voice?” he asked noting that while the government of President Buhari claimed to have defeated Boko Haram, herdsmen/farmers ‘clashes birthed leading to the death of many across the country.
Tambuwal, Ishaku, Abubakar, others honoured Also honoured at the event were the trio of Aminu Tambuwal, Darius Ishaku and Mohammed Abubakar, the governors of Sokoto, Taraba and Bauchi States respectively as Governor of the Year 2017. Other awardees included Nnamdi Okonkwo, Managing Director/CEO, Fidelity Bank PLC (Banker of the Year 2017); Luke Onofiok (Young Achiever of the Year 2017); Igho Charles Sanomi (Business Person of the Year 2017 and the Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (University of the Year 2017).
President Bola Tinubu has ordered a security outreach to the hotbeds of recent killings in Plateau, Benue and Borno States, to restore peace to areas wracked by mass killings and bomb attacks.
National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, disclosed this to State House correspondents after a four-hour security briefing with the President at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja on Wednesday.
“We listened and we took instructions from him. We got new directives…to go meet with the political authorities there,” Ribadu told reporters, adding that Tinubu directed them to engage state-level authorities in the worst-hit regions.
Director-General, National Intelligence Agency, Mohammed Mohammed; Chief Defence Intelligence of the Nigerian Army, Gen. Emmanuel Undianeye; Director-General, Department of State Services, Oluwatosin Ajayi and Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, appeared for the briefing.
The Tide’s source reports that in Plateau State, inter-communal violence between predominantly Christian farmers and nomadic herders spiralled into gory slaughter when gunmen stormed Zikke village in Bassa Local Government early on April 14, killing at least 51 people and razing homes in a single night.
In Benue, at least 56 people were killed in Logo and Gbagir after twin assaults blamed on armed herders.
Meanwhile, in Borno State, eight passengers perished and scores were injured when an improvised explosive device ripped through a bus on the Damboa–Maiduguri highway on April 12.
Ribadu explained that after an extensive briefing, intelligence chiefs received fresh instructions to restore peace, security and stability across Nigeria.
“In particular, Tinubu had ordered immediate outreach to the political authorities in Plateau, Benue and Borno States, and the defence team had gone round those States to carry out his directives and report back.
“We gave him an update on what has been the case and what is going on, and even when he was out there, before coming back, he was constantly in touch. He was giving directives. He was following developments, and we, in charge of the security, got the opportunity today to come and brief him properly for hours. And it was exhaustive.
“We listened and we took instructions from him. We got new directives. The fact is, Mr. President is insisting and working so hard to ensure that we have peace, security and stability in our country. We gave him an update on what is going on, and we also assured him that work is ongoing and continues.
“We also carried out his instructions. We went round, the chiefs were all out where we had these incidents of insecurity in Plateau State, Benue State, even Borno, these particular three states, and we gave him feedback, because he directed us to go meet with the political authorities there,” the NSA explained.
Ribadu described Tinubu as “worried and concerned,” and said he directed that all security arms be deployed around the clock.
The government, he added, believes these steps have already produced measurable improvements, even if the situation is not yet 100 per cent safe and secure.
“He’s so worried and concerned, he insisted that enough is enough, and we are working and to ensure that we restore peace and security and all of us are there. The armed forces are there, the Civil Police, intelligence communities, they are there.
“They are working there 24 hours, and we feel that we have done enough to believe that we are on the right course, and we’ll be able to be on top of things,” Ribadu stated.
The NSA emphasised that combating insecurity was not solely a Federal Government responsibility.
He stated, “The issue of insecurity often is not just for the government. It involves the subunits. They are the ones who are directly with the people, especially if some of the challenges are more or less bordering on community problems.
“Not entirely everything is that, but of course it also plays a significant role. You need to work with the communities, the local governments, and the governors, especially the governors.
“The President will continue to direct that. We should be doing that, and that’s what we are able to. We are very happy and very satisfied with the instructions and directives given by Mr. President this evening.”
In Borno State, the NSA noted that while violence had surged in recent months, the insurgents refused to accept defeat.
He warned that most recent casualties there resulted from improvised explosive devices—”cowardly” IED attacks targeting civilians—and from opportunistic raids that follow any lull in fighting.
“We are getting the cooperation of the leadership at the state level, and everybody. It’s not 100 per cent…but we are going there.
“When you are having peace and you are beginning to get used to it, if one bad incident happens, you forget the periods that you enjoyed peacefully,” he added.
He paid tribute to the “many who do not sleep, who walk throughout, who do not go for any break or holiday”—the soldiers, police and intelligence officers whose sacrifices have created the fragile calm Nigerians now experience.
“They will continue to be there,” he said, adding, “Things have changed in this country…we are on the right track and we will not relent. We will not sit down; we will not stop until we are able to achieve results.”
A Federal Government agency – the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, has decried the low patronage of Nigerian-made products by Nigerians.
The agency identified some challenges leading to the low patronage of the local products as affordability and public perception, among others.
Speaking during a stakeholders meeting organised by the agency in Akure, Ondo State capital, yesterday, the Deputy Director of Engineering at NASENI, Mr Joseph Alasoluyi, said Nigerians preferred buying foreign goods compared to local goods.
Alasoluyi, however disclosed that the agency had trained over 50 participants in the production of hand-made products, in a bid to ensure Nigeria-made products are patronised.
He explained that NASENI was set up to promote science, technology, and engineering as a foundation for Nigeria’s development and currently operates 12 institutes nationwide to achieve its objectives.
According to him, the aim of President Bola Tinubu, who is also the overall chairman of NASENI, was to ensure high production and patronage of “our local products thereby creating employment opportunities for many.”
He said, “The idea of this programme is to interface to ensure we produce products using our indigenous technology. This is what NASENI is out for, to ensure that homegrown technologies are encouraged.
“We are out there to ensure we integrate efforts to ensure that local technology is used to develop products within the resources we have.
“ The NASENI’s ‘3 Cs’ – Creation, Collaboration, and Commercialisation – that define NASENI’s strategic mandate: Creating innovations through research, Collaborating with partners to develop and refine products, and Commercialising these solutions to benefit the economy.
“Our achievements include the development of solar irrigation systems, CNG conversion centres, building machines capable of producing up to 1,000 blocks per hour, 10-inch tablets, locally made laptops, and electric tricycles (Keke Napep) set for market launch.”
In his remarks, the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Prof. Samuel Oluyamo, blamed the Federal Government for not properly funding research in the varsities, also noting that many research outputs were left halfway due to lack of funding and weak linkages between research institutions and industry.
Oluyamo also queried the Federal Government’s commitment to funding research and development, saying many academic innovations remained on the shelve due to a lack of support for commercialisation and poor infrastructure.
“Until we upscale research into mass production, technological growth will remain elusive. The government is not funding research in the universities enough. Thank God for TETfund that is trying in this regime. The major interest in beefing up research in universities and research institutions is really not there,” he said.
The Director-General of the Debt Management Office, Patience Oniha, has said that Nigeria is in advanced discussions with JP Morgan to re-enter the Government Bond Index and renew investors’ confidence.
Oniha disclosed this on Wednesday at a Nigerian Investors’ Forum on the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C.
The DMO boss explained that Nigeria has enjoyed favourable credit assessment among rating agencies in recent times on the back of the sweeping reforms initiated by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Fitch Ratings recently upgraded the Long-Term Issuer Default Ratings of seven Nigerian banks and two bank holding companies to ‘B’ from ‘B-‘, noting that the outlooks are Stable.
The affected issuers are Access Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, United Bank for Africa Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Limited, Guaranty Trust Holding Company Plc, First HoldCo Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Ltd, Fidelity Bank Plc and Bank of Industry Limited.
The upgrades of the Long-Term IDRs of the banks followed the recent sovereign upgrade and reflect Fitch’s view that Nigeria’s sovereign credit profile has become less of a constraint on the issuers’ standalone creditworthiness, the rating agency said.
Fitch also upgraded Nigeria’s Long-Term IDRs to ‘B’ from ‘B-‘ on 11 April, a decision that reflected increased confidence in the government’s broad commitment to policy reforms implemented since its move to orthodox economic policies in June 2023, including exchange rate liberalisation, monetary policy tightening and steps to end deficit monetisation and remove fuel subsidies.
“These have improved policy coherence and credibility and reduced economic distortions and near-term risks to macroeconomic stability, enhancing resilience in the context of persistent domestic challenges and heightened external risks,” Fitch said.
Nigeria was removed from the JP Morgan index in 2015 ostensibly due to its deviation from orthodox monetary policies and influence of capital control in its management of foreign exchange.
Principally due to reduction in oil revenues at the time, Nigeria introduced currency restrictions to defend the naira after it failed to halt a dangerous slide with burning of dollar reserves. The bank had earlier warned Nigeria to restore liquidity to its currency market in a way that allowed foreign investors tracking the index to conduct transactions with minimal hurdles.
“Foreign investors who track the GBI-EM series continue to face challenges and uncertainty while transacting in the naira due to the lack of a fully functional two-way FX market and limited transparency,” the bank said in a 2015 note.
Nigeria was listed in JP Morgan’s emerging government bond index in October 2012, after the Central Bank removed a requirement that foreign investors hold government bonds for a minimum of one year before exiting.
The JP Morgan Government Bond Index reflects investor confidence and opens doors to billions of investment flows, making Nigeria’s proposed re-entry a positive signal to the market and investors.
Oniha explained that talks with JP Morgan were ongoing and had gained momentum in recent times due to the stability created by the FX market reforms.
“With all the reforms that have taken place, particularly around FX, we have started engaging JP Morgan again to get back into the index. We think we are eligible now,” the DMO DG said.