How Political Instability In Libya Is Threatening Democracy In Africa – President Buhari

August 2, 2022

President Muhammadu Buhari has observed that the political instability in Libya has been fueling terrorism in the Sahel, as well and threatening democratic sustenance in both West and Central African regions.

President Buhari, who spoke today, August 2, when receiving Letters of Credence of Canadian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ambassador James Kingston Christoff and Ambassador of Mexico to Nigeria, Juan Alfred Miranda Oritz, said that Nigeria is not left out of the equation.

“The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has undermined the progress countries have achieved in tackling food security in the last decade. While, the political instability in Libya continues to fuel terrorism in the Sahel, as well as scuttle democratic sustenance in both West and Central African regions.

“The devastating effect of global insecurity, climate change and the post-COVID-19 era has devastated global economies. Nations continue to struggle to recover from these multiple global challenges.

Buhari went on to recount the efforts his government has been making to get rid of banditry, kidnapping, herder/farmer crisis and insurgency.

The President commended collective efforts of nations towards tackling security challenges across the globe, and within Nigeria.

He said that on the part of his government, “we are making meaningful progress with the support of friendly countries like yours to sustain these fights until we overcome these challenges.”

He said that Nigeria has been working with other Member-States of ECOWAS and other regional blocs, to deal with the problems of terrorism, trans-border crimes, maritime crimes such as piracy and illegal fishing on our waters, illicit drug and human trafficking, banditry, as well as unconstitutional changes of government.

“I believe that matters of security have become the business of all nations as these challenges go beyond the abilities of any single country to effectively contain. The world must, therefore, work closely together and Nigeria counts on your support in cementing the relations between our countries at both bilateral and multilateral levels to surmount these global threats to civilization.”

The President advised the diplomats to monitor political developments in the country, ahead of the 2023 elections and to remain true to their professional ethics of non-interference.

President Buhari noted that Nigeria is drawing closer to its national elections and candidates representing their parties at different levels are beginning to build consensus within their respective parties in preparations to the launching of campaigns across the country soon.

“As the drums of campaign begin to rise, I urge you to be guided by diplomatic practice to ensure that your activities remain within the limits of your profession as you monitor the build-up to the elections and the conduct of the general elections.”

The President also advised the diplomats to focus on building on the successes of their predecessors.

“The task before you require you both to build on the successes of your predecessors and further make efforts in the expansion and advancement of the cordial bilateral relations and cooperation between Nigeria and your respective countries. These relations as you all know, span across political, socio-economic and cultural spheres, that have overtime benefitted our peoples.

“I am confident that, in carrying out your diplomatic responsibilities in the course of your tour of duties, you will spare time to appreciate the uniqueness and strength in our country’s cultural diversities, in terms of both human and natural resources, as well as the flora and fauna across the country.”

He said that the cultural diversity of Nigeria “represents our pride as a nation and identity as a people,’’ while urging the diplomats to also build friendship and acquaintances in the course of their stay in the country.

Speaking on behalf of the ambassadors, the Canadian High Commissioner thanked the President for the ceremony of accepting the Letters of Credence.

“Today marks formal beginning of our engagement with the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We will work closely with ministers and officials to start a progressive relationship.”

2023: National Unity Vs Religion And Ethnic Agenda, By A.U Atima

Editorial staff

August 2, 2022

Unity is the ability to pull towards a common goal at a given time. Ethnic and tribal divides are common amongst most Countries of the world, but weaponizing Ethnicity is more prevalent in 3rd World Countries where leaders take advantage of tribal sentiments to appeal to sectional and religion support. Evidence abounds that such leaders hardly can mobilize the entire country’s potential for growth and development. Our inability to unite our country has affected our country negatively. Therefore, inefficient governance is a direct result and Correlation of tribalism in Nigeria.

The greatest dangerous factors to the nation’s cohesion are religion and ethnicity which the political class often use for divisive sentiments to win the sympathy of the people at every election season.

We have been following this destructive path of ethnic and religious biases long before and since our independence as a country. Such antics have contributed in many ways to stifling our growth and development as a nation, much as it is truism that the bane of development of the country is leadership deficiency from top to bottom.

Tribalism will raise primordial favours above rewards for good jobs done, creating a downward slope for Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and hence promoting impoverishment.

If Nigeria must progress, we must eradicate tribalism. Let’s unite the Centrifugal forces of Nigeria beyond ethnic and sectional sentiments in the choice of candidates into public offices

National unity has now become inevitably difficult to achieve, especially at this critical point in time where churches now openly dictate to their members who to vote for or not on the basis of primordial sentiment of religion.

The ambivalence and cataclysmic effect of hunger, hyper-inflation, perennial devaluation of naira and disastrous insecurity in Nigeria do not understand the language of religion and ethnocentric agenda while development and wealth do not speak the language of ethnicity, growth and development speak a universal language. Therefore, if Nigeria can look for the best men and women irrespective of tribe or religion, we will have a chance to rebuild Nigeria from its present ruins caused by years of ethnic politics and religion.

It is the ignorance of the people that made them susceptible to the manipulation of unscrupulous politicians. The politicians that are devoid of any political ideology or electoral value, whose major preoccupation is to have easy access to public funds for self-aggrandizement, resort to the use of ethnic, regional and religious sentiments to hoodwink and blindfold the electorate. They fan the embers of disunity, enmity, animosity and bitterness among the people to satisfy their egocentric, kleptomaniac, as well as megalomaniac tendencies.

Some ethnic jingoists, regional chauvinists, tribal champions and religious leaders are drafted into this unwholesome venture, and are working tirelessly to undermine the integrity of the electoral process. They employ hate speech, baseless insinuations, rumour and falsehood, in both mainstream and social media, which if left unchecked, can jeopardize the little gain that was made in the 23 years of uninterrupted democracy.

We need a network of thinking Nigerians, from among the Muslim and Christian populations, and from the diverse ethnicities across the country, to help salvage our country and its people from the politics of bloodletting, greed and acrimony, that is largely superintended by shameless prostitutes of power, who often have nothing to show for their stupendous wealth, except that they have held political offices as legislators, governors, ministers, board chairmen, chief executives of federal parastatals, or party chieftains; during which time they often so callously and recklessly looted the state resources entrusted to them, that many soon became richer than the institutions which they superintended.

Atima is a concerned Nigerian, wrote in from Ado-Ekiti He can be reached via a.u.atima@gmail.com

Over 70 Percent Of New Babies In Nigeria Don’t Enjoy Breastfeeding – UNICEF

Editorial staff

August 1, 2022

The United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have lamented that in Nigeria, the Exclusive Breastfeeding rate is a mere 29 percent, meaning that over 70 percent of infants in the country are denied the benefits of breast milk in their formative years.

According to the two world bodies,

in a joint statement today, August 1, by the UNICEF Executive Director, Catherine Russell and WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus marking the World Breastfeeding Week, only nine percent of organizations have a workplace breastfeeding policy, indicating that mothers lack the enabling environment to optimally breastfeed their babies.

“The results are high stunting rates of 37 percent of children Under-5, of which 21 percent are severe, and wasting among children under five years of age (7 percent). They continue to present severe consequences for the child.”

In a joint statement today, , UNICEF and WHO noted that as global crises continue to threaten the health and nutrition of millions of babies and children, the vital importance of breastfeeding as the best possible start in life is more critical than ever.

“This World Breastfeeding Week, under its theme Step up for breastfeeding: Educate and Support, UNICEF and WHO are calling on governments to allocate increased resources to protect, promote and support breastfeeding policies and programmes, especially for the most vulnerable families living in emergency settings.

“During emergencies, including those in Afghanistan, Yemen, Ukraine, the Horn of Africa, and the Sahel, breastfeeding guarantees a safe, nutritious and accessible food source for babies and young children. It offers a powerful line of defense against disease and all forms of child malnutrition, including wasting.

“Breastfeeding also acts as a baby’s first vaccine, protecting them from common childhood illnesses.

“Yet the emotional distress, physical exhaustion, lack of space and privacy, and poor sanitation experienced by mothers in emergency settings mean that many babies are missing out on the benefits of breastfeeding to help them survive.

“Fewer than half of all newborn babies are breastfed in the first hour of life, leaving them more vulnerable to disease and death. And only 44 per cent of infants are exclusively breastfed in the first six months of life, short of the World Health Assembly target of 50 per cent by 2025.

“Protecting, promoting, and supporting breastfeeding is more important than ever, not just for protecting our planet as the ultimate natural, sustainable, first food system, but also for the survival, growth, and development of millions of infants.

“That is why UNICEF and WHO are calling on governments, donors, civil society, and the private sector to step up efforts to:

Prioritize investing in breastfeeding support policies and programmes, especially in fragile and food insecure contexts.

Equip health and nutrition workers in facilities and communities with the skills they need to provide quality counselling and practical support to mothers to successfully breastfeed.

“Protect caregivers and health care workers from the unethical marketing influence of the formula industry by fully adopting and implementing the International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes, including in humanitarian settings.

“Implement family-friendly policies that provide mothers with the time, space, and support they need to breastfeed.”

Before Obi-Dience Turns To Obi-Tuary, By Sam Omatseye

Editorial staff

August 1, 2022

Suddenly, it is all quiet on the eastern front. No street heckles or flag waving or mooning over a yellow sun, no hooting or baying in public. The rabble no longer raves. Few wonder what happened to the Nnamdi Kanu crowd. Some may wonder if they are withering?

The answer is before our eyes. The Biafran babblers are alive and well. They just swapped icons, rechristened the shrines and rewrote the rites. They left the prophet for a secular priest. They have had a switch of battle gear.

Maybe it is not quiet. We can hear and feel the cacophony. The chants and caterwauling are everywhere, especially on the phones. The twitter bees, the Instagram grimes, the Facebook freaks. They are alive and well, but they have not been at war at the side of their icon, who is griping in detention.

It’s farewell Kanu. Welcome Obi, at least until the new priest peters out. They are at his worship. They embrace it because it does not, for the first time in years, feel like they are outside the mainstream. They are not falling foul of the law, not howling from the fringes. They have Peter Obi as their man. He is mainstream. He belongs, not to the MASSOB, or Kanu’s assembly called IPOB. They can say they have a legitimate tribe and rhetoric. They may pretend to love Nigeria. They may claim to embrace INEC, cling to a political party no one in the police or DSS will harangue.

But that is where it stops. They have transferred the temperament of their former master into the new. And they have not spared any incoherence, any lack of finesse, and threats and tantrums, any show of rabid, primitive cants, or any ululations. They have abused, cursed, thrown imprecations. They have hugged lies about their candidate. They have pelted lies about others. They have distorted material.

Obi has turned out to be an excuse for even closet Biafrans to betray open emotions about Biafra without being accused of it. This includes intellectuals who did not show mercy to him while he reigned in Anambra as a pharisaic chief executive. It is like wearing a colour beneath another colour. Obi has become a shelter for both miscreants and activists of the crowd.

Obi knows this. He is happy to be their catharsis, to be their excuse for unfurling their bile at the system, for acting like revolutionaries. He is playing to it by acting as though he is the saint of Nigerian politics. Perhaps the purists of the Biafran cause are unhappy, and they unleashed a past video clip of Kanu on the social media. In it, Kanu lashes out at Obi as governor and stated what this essayist wrote about him over building a NEXT supermarket while still the governor of Anambra State. The video clip referred to him as a sort of sexual being on the fringe. You can imagine an Aso Rock sweltering with romps of the evil flesh. His so-called Obidients know this. But it counts for little.

They also know that this is the same Obi, whose emissaries were intercepted, while a governor at Apapa, by then police chief Marvel Akpoyibo with over 200 million cash. The matter became a cause celebre with impeachment dangling until the timid state house of assembly was on the take. This is the man they call stingy because he dared to spend on himself and his family, his wife being accused of spending N1.5 billion on tours. The man that admitted he placed Anambra money in his family account, and was not ashamed to confess when confronted. He did not follow due process. This is the man who is speaking from both sides of his mouth for maintaining an offshore account while a governor. This is Obi, who claimed he saved money, while pensioners were looking desperately at their graves.

I can excuse those who think that being stingy is good for the economy because they are looking at how they run their family and personal finances. But no economy works in history by saving money. It stifles the economy. He has not been able to tell us how he will do it, and whether he has done it. We have no landmark in Anambra State to attribute to him, no enduring legacy.

But this essayist can understand why Obi knows that the crowd that adores him will not question him. He is therefore using religion as a bait. He is now on a weekly pilgrimage to churches. Jonathan did the same. The pastors, ever opportunistic, see him as a darling. He is visiting a sectional hue of pews. This is the man who divided the church in Anambra State in his time between Catholics and the others. He is trying to push himself as the Christian candidate of the south while his messengers foul the air with sanctimonious growl about Muslim-Muslim ticket. I am sure Kanu will chuckle in his cocoon, especially when he contemplates what he alleges as his sinful romps in hotels.

There is a divide here. He is pushing himself as a southern candidate. His core followers are advancing him as the Igbo candidate. But how do we reconcile the Biafran with an Obi, who even MASSOB, has denied has anything to do with them? Obi is taking a Machiavellian attitude to the matter. If Biafran impulse will propel him, he will take it. The Biafrans on board believe Obi is their best revenge on the Nigerian state. They can take over the zoo by acting as members of the zoo.

But this psychology is nothing new. The private man and public man may not always cohere. In their huts, they are Biafrans. On the frontlines of battle, they are Obi. It is like Mr. Mani in A.B. Yehoshua’s novel who calls himself a Jew but does not believe in Jehovah. He embraces the culture but renounces its mystery. One of 20th century’s top philosophers, Hannah Arendt, obsesses over this schizophrenia in his opus, The Origins of Totalitarianism. The Obi followers accept Biafra but reject Nigeria. They abandon the mystic of the cause, Nnamdi Kanu, and have followed Obi, its inauthentic saint. It is the pragmatism of the cause. Kanu is the unarmed prophet, sulking behind bars. Obi is out in the open, a bird in hand. Machiavelli warned against the unarmed prophet, who fights without power. Elijah was armed against his foes. So was Jesus until he was crucified. They see Obi as armed with electoral quest. It is their own version of the Trojan War. Obi is the Greek Gift that they will ride in the battle for conquest.

They have now evangelised others from outside the southeast to give a regional legitimacy to their cause. They call themselves Obidients but they obey only one call: the sound of the east. Those in south-south have been seduced as by the cooing of Obi’s voice as by evangelism of the Biafrans. Mind you, they have not abandoned Kanu. But their icon has no power for now. Obi is like Zik, Kanu like Ojukwu. One is a flair, the other a flare.

While Obi hops from church to church and beclouds the hypocrisy among political pastors, the nation watches as his sectional army taunts and harangues others. But Obi will do nothing to restrain his rabble because he knows they are doing a good job in keeping the faithful within their own bubble where they reinforce their own self-delusions. That will last until their last call at the polls. This is not the time to properly interrogate in details the false intimations of Obi’s agenda and hypocrisies. But it is safe to say one thing. Before he peters out and hurtles towards an electoral Obi-tuary, the country knows the content of the crowd and its origin. They are a caterwauling group trying to seduce, without much success, those outside its ethno-religious tent

Abuja Demolition Squad Storms Kuje

Editorial staff

August 1, 2022

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) demolition squad has stormed Kuje, capital of the Area Council.

The squad, made of police, soldiers and civilian operatives, today, August 1, cleared many makeshift shops, “containers” and other structures on both sides of the only major road in the town.

As INEC Concludes Voters Registration, Fake Online Voter Registration Springs Up

Editorial staff

August 1, 2022

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has lamented that barely 24 hours after the suspension of the Continuous Voter Registration exercise nationwide, an online site urging Nigerians to enroll for “Voter Card (PVC)” registration has sprang up.

INEC said that the fake site is claiming that the Federal Government has approved individual Voter Card (PVC) registration online to avoid unnecessary crowd in the “NIMC” Centers.

The Commission, in a statement today, August 1, by its National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye said that the fake site is not linked to the Commission, describing the link/portal as spurious and from a dubious source.

“The Independent National Electoral Commission is the only body constitutionally and legally mandated to conduct the registration of persons qualified to vote in any election in Nigeria and to update and revise the register when the need arises. “The Commission is solely responsible for organizing, undertaking, and supervising national elections in the country and does not share this responsibility with anybody or organization.

“Members of the public are strongly advised not to succumb to the antics of online scammers and should avoid such fake sites.

“The Commission has concluded the Continuous Voter Registration exercise nationwide and does not need to open an additional site or portal for the purposes of registration of voters.”

Gov Wike Is Intellectually Deficient, Can’t Teach Me Journalism – Dr. Abati

Editorial staff

August 1, 2022

“Governor Wike does not have the capacity or intellect to teach me journalism.”

Dr. Reuben Abati, special adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan, spoke today, August 1, in reaction to Governor Nyeson Wike of Rivers State.

Governor Wike had accused Dr. Abati of making shoddy, unprofessional job of the questions he (Abati) asked the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, during an encounter on Arise TV a couple of days ago.

Dr. Abati insisted: “Governor Wike is not in a position to teach me journalism. He calls it investigative journalism. I put it to him that we asked all the right questions.”

Abati said that the PDP should be blamed for making Wike feel entitled because he was the one who held the party together after it lost the presidential election in 2015.

“It’s a tragedy for the PDP that the party has been reduced to the level of tantrums and melodrama of one individual called Nyesom Wike, 59-year-old, who thinks that the party belongs to him,” said Abati.

The former presidential spokesman said the party should find out what Wike wants and give him some “lollipop.”

2023: Ohanaeze Ndigbo In Borno Endorses Tinubu, Shettima Ticket

Editorial staff

August 1, 2022

Photo credit: P.M NewsThe Ohanaeze Nndigbo Support Group in Borno State, in collaboration with Solidarity of Youth for Peace and Development, have endorsed the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential ticket ahead of 2023 general election.

They have also flagged off mobilisation of the electorate for the second term bid of Borno State governor, Babagana Umara Zulum.

Speaking at the Elkanemi Warriors Sports Centre in Maiduguri, the venue of the flag-off programme yesterday, July 31, the coordinator of the APC Support Group, Chief Ugochukwu Egwudike, said that their decision to back Governor Zulum’s second term bid as a result’s of his detribalised posture in the provision of dividends of democracy.

Egwudike recalled that Governor Zulum has been providing free transportation for all non- indigenes to enable them travel and celebrate Christmas and New Year festivities with their families.

He said Zulum’s free transportation provision, with its huge financial implication, has been going on since he became governor in 2019 till date, adding that in 2019, the governor sponsored over 300 Christians to Jerusalem.

“We are announcing our unflinching support for our competent and dynamic vice presidential candidate, Senator Kashim Shettima.

“Therefore, all hands must be on deck to actualise Governor Babagana Umara Zulum’s second term bid and the Tinubu/Kashim presidential ticket come 2023,”Egwudike said.

In his remarks, Governor Zulum, represented by the state APC chairman, Ali Bukar Dalori thanked all community leaders that came together to support the APC, assuring that Tinubu/Kashim presidency would be fair to all Nigerians.

He urged various leaders of the communities to continue to support the party and promised that Governor Zulum would always treat every non-indigene equally.

Concert Of Anti-Party Activists, By Mahmud Jega

Editorial staff

August 1, 2022

It was External Affairs Minister Professor Bolaji Akinyemi who, in the 1980s, spearheaded the formation of a Concert of Medium Powers. What we got in Nigeria this weekend was a Concert of Anti-Party Activists. At the weekend, news-hungry media houses splashed stories that former Secretary to the Government of the Federation [SGF] Babachir David Lawal and former Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara visited Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike in his country home in Rumueprikom, Obio-Akpor Local Government Area.

Insofar as Governor Wike is actively seeking to undermine his PDP party’s Atiku Abubakar/Ifeanyi Okowa presidential ticket and insofar as Babachir and Dogara are actively trying to undermine their APC party’s Bola Tinubu/Kashim Shettima presidential ticket, the threesome meeting is best described as a concert of anti-party activists. I do not know if the term existed in the First Republic. But when Second Republic politics kicked off in 1978-79, political pages of newspapers were soon replete with stories of politicians being expelled by their political parties for what was called “anti-party activity.”

Anti-party activity was broadly defined in that era to include paying a social visit to the home of a member of another party, giving out your daughter in marriage to the son of a member of a rival party, allowing tenants in your compound to hoist the flag of another party, or even being seen exchanging banters by the roadside with a member of a rival party. To politicians, anti-party activity is the equivalent of a soldier fraternising with the enemy in wartime. There was this story I once read that during the First World War, German and Allied unit commanders in one small sector in France declared a Christmas Day truce. The guns fell silent; one German soldier stood up in his trench, waved at enemy soldiers and wished them merry Christmas! Some Allied soldiers responded, and they soon emerged from trenches, met in the no-man’s land in-between and fraternized.

When the truce ended, the soldiers dived back into their trenches and resumed fighting, but with less enthusiasm. As one American soldier later recounted, a German soldier he met during the truce was his age mate, who just like him was from a rural area, who just like him dropped out of college when he was conscripted into the army, and who just like him had a mother and a sister who were praying for him to survive the war. The commanders on both sides who orchestrated that damaging truce were arrested and, at least on the German side, were executed.

Babachir, Dogara and Wike may not be in danger right now of facing the political equivalent of arrest, trial and execution by their respective political parties because both major parties are still reeling from the aftermath of their nominating conventions and in particular, their choice of presidential running mates. What did the three men discuss at their meeting behind closed doors? Babachir told reporters after the meeting that “their mission was a brotherly visit to the Governor of Rivers” because “every now and then, the Bible enjoins you to visit one another.” The question is, why did Babachir ignore this biblical prescription to visit Wike all these years, until now, when he thought he found common political cause with him? Dogara on his part said “they were on a quest to build an all-inclusive Nigeria,” meaning that his party’s Muslim/Muslim ticket is an all-exclusive Nigeria.

Tellingly, the two men went to Rivers straight from a meeting in Abuja of a hastily formed organization called APC Northern Christian Political Leaders. Back in the Second Republic, when different political associations often came together to form political parties, the first rule was to disband all previously existing groups and to insist that “everyone joins the party as an individual, not as a group.” No formal groups are allowed to form within the party afterwards, though in practice old alliances and camps persist. When a formal faction emerges within a party, such as nPDP in 2014, it was usually preparing the ground for exit. A disgruntled politician does not however exit from a party until he does as much damage to it as he possibly can. That way, he will be more valued by the new party that he defects to. In 2015 Governors Rotimi Amaechi, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Murtala Nyako, Aliyu Wamakko and Abdulfatah Ahmed did much damage to PDP before they defected to APC, where they were welcomed with open arms and state party structures were promptly handed over to them.

If Babachir and Dogara were merely setting the stage for their exit from APC, they probably overdid it because the APC Northern Christians Political Summit they organized in Abuja resembled The Great Schism of 1053AD. They did not stop at the political issue at hand, but threw in many other issues from appointment of polytechnic rectors to selection of traditional rulers. The Babachir/Dogara Schism however falls short of a Reformation because it lacked Martin Luther’s moral authority. Babachir is a problematic champion of Christendom. He fell from a prestigious government position due to the infamous grass cutter scandal. In the run up to the APC presidential primaries, Babachir did much to derail a prominent candidate, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who is also a pastor.

The most obvious reason was that Osinbajo chaired the presidential panel that probed Babachir’s deals in the grass cutter scandal and recommended his sack. How can a man who helped to torpedo the presidential aspiration of a Christian pastor, turn around and say Christians are marginalized because they did not get a running mate? Between running mate and the candidate, who is in a better position to help the faith? As for his allegations against Tinubu, it was rather late in the day to accuse him of religious sectarianism because Babachir was on record in 2015 as saying that it was Tinubu who stood firm and ensured his appointment as SGF despite opposition from some Northern quarters.

Dogara too could be interrogated for multiple standards. In 2015 when he clinched the House Speakership even though he was not favoured by President Buhari, he filled a plane with Sayawa tribal chiefs from Bauchi State and took them to Sokoto to thank Governor Aminu Tambuwal, whom he credited with single handedly making him the speaker. Maybe, as Babachir and Dogara alleged at the Summit, there is an agenda to politically, religiously and economically suppress and oppress the Northern Christian. But neither Babachir nor Dogara is a good bearer of this message, if first Tinubu and then Tambuwal helped them to attain the highest positions in their political career, as they themselves attested.

Both men were initially mentioned as likely running mates to Tinubu after he won the APC ticket. Trouble is, politicians’ top calculus in these matters is demonstrable electoral strength. Both men’s home states of Bauchi and Adamawa are PDP controlled. It was not for nothing that the three men shortlisted for Atiku Abubakar to choose his running mate from were all from PDP-controlled Southern states. APC members from Babachir’s Adamawa State and from Dogara’s Bauchi State were quick to point out that both men lost their local government areas to PDP in the 2019 presidential polls. In Babachir’s Hong LGA, they said, APC got 20,471 votes while PDP got 23,039. In Dogara’s Bogoro LGA, APC got 5,284 votes while PDP got 23,664. The kind of figures that party chiefs like are those from running mate Kashim Shettima’s Maiduguri Metropolitan LGA, where APC got 146,181 votes to PDP’s 9,632.

But if Babachir and Dogara were looking for a way out of APC, why did they go to Wike, who is possibly looking for a way out of PDP? While the two of them may be looking towards PDP, Wike might be looking in the direction of APC. He recently said that his party’s presidential candidate, Atiku, told many lies during his Arise TV interview. Wike recently tweeted that he “will speak soon and Nigerians will know the truth of all that has transpired in the PDP in recent times.” It promises to be quite a story. The operational word here is “all.” Can Wike tell all that transpired, including the tools that he used to come second at a convention widely alleged to be awash in monetary inducement of delegates?

It is not for nothing that Army Generals do not allow their troops to fraternize with the enemy in war or even in peacetime. They may find out that they have much in common. Babachir and Dogara’s visit to Wike may not achieve much because each side is looking to cross over to the side that the other is trying to exit from. Trouble is, in case each one remains where he is, they, just like that German soldier and his American enemy, will be thinking that they have much in common with the other side. Governor Wike, whose mouth is a human assault rifle, may hold off some rounds lest he hits his new found friends.

Nigeria Has 2 Presidential Candidates: Atiku And Tinubu; Obi Is No Match – Dino Melaye

Editorial staff

August 1, 2022

“We have two very important people contesting this (Presidential) election in 2023. They are Atiku Abubakar of the PDP and Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC.”

Former Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial district, Dino Melaye, who made this observation today, July 31 at the Public declaration for Atiku and induction ceremony by the Diamond Ladies in Politics in Abuja, said that the notion held in certain quarters that the presidential candidate of the Labour party would spring surprises at the presidential poll is not true.

According to Dino Melaye, Peter Obi has no political clout to spring a surprise in the presidential election because his supporters, for now, are only on social media.

“Obi is a fantastic Nigerian but he was not known nationally until Atiku identified him. Atiku is a talent hunter. Everyone who was a reformer in this country between 1999 to date was a discovery of Atiku.”

This was even as the Convener of the Diamond Ladies in politics, Princess Maimunat Wada, promised to mobilise over two million votes for Atiku in the presidential poll.

She contended that Atiku has the wherewithal to address the challenges bedeviling the country.

“With Atiku Abubakar on the saddle of leadership of the country, there would be inclusiveness of Nigerians irrespective of their tribal and religious affiliations. Atiku choice of his running mate, His Excellency Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, his array of business partners, investments spread across the country and even the ethnic backgrounds of his spouses are clear testimony that he would be a true Nigerian president.

”As of today, His Excellency Atiku Abubakar remains the only candidate that has released a clear roadmap to economic recovery of the country. This simply means he is the most prepared presidential candidate in the country.”

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