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Wike urges protesters to obey Court Order

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The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr Nyesom Wike, has urged FCT residents to obey the court order restricting protest to the Moshood Abiola National Stadium.

Wike made the call in Abuja on Thursday after the FCT Security Council meeting.

The meeting was to review developments following the commencement of a 10-day nationwide protest on Thursday.

He called on protesters to confine themselves to the Stadium in accordance with the Court Order obtained on Wednesday.

He explained that an intelligence report revealed that some unidentified persons would be coming out on Friday to destroy properties in the guise of protest.

Such action, according to him, may lead to loss of lives and warned that security agencies will not allow it.

“You are aware that there was a Court Order as of  Wednesday.

“The court did not stop the protest, but the court said that the protest must be confined to a particular area, which is Moshood Abiola National Stadium.

“That security agencies should allow the protesters to converge at the stadium and talk to the world through the press.

“We believe, as a democratic society, while you want to carry out your protest, you should do it according to the rule of law.”

Wike expressed concern that the protesters tried to move to the Eagle Square against the court order.

“We think that this country belongs to all of us; we think that we must work according to the rule of law, and working according to the rule of law is obeying Court Order,” he said.

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He reiterated the plea to residents of Abuja to shun the protest in order to discourage miscreants from causing mayhem and destroying properties within the city.

Citing the incidents in Kano, Kaduna and other states where the protests turned violent, the minister appealed to the protesters to give the government time to address their challenges.

The minister disclosed that an intelligence report has revealed a Senator was among the alleged sponsors of the ongoing nationwide protest.

He said that the Senator had invited some security agencies to lead some of them to provide food to the protesters.

“At the appropriate time security agencies will invite the Senator and find out how the lawmaker will be sponsoring this kind of protest against the government of the day,” he said.

He commended the residents of the territory who refused to join the protest to cause mayhem, assuring that the government was doing the best it can to resolve the challenges.

He also commended the media for the display of responsible journalism in their reportage of the protest and security agencies for not molesting any protester. (NAN)

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JUST IN: Supreme Court sets aside judgment recognising Abure as LP’s National Chairman

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The Supreme Court has set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja recognising Julius Abure as the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP).

In a unanimous judgment on Friday, a five-member panel of the apex court held that the Court of Appeal lacked the jurisdiction to have pronounced Abure National Chairman of the LP having earlier found that the substance of the case was about the party’s leadership.

It held that issue of leadership was internal affair of a party over which courts lacked jurisdiction.

The court allowed the appeal filed by Senator Ester Nenadi Usman and one other and held that it was meritorious.

It proceeded to dismiss the cross-appeal filed by the Abure faction of the LP got being unmeritorious.

Details shortly…

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Hakeem Baba-Ahmed resigns as presidential political adviser

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Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, special adviser on political matters to Vice-President Kashim Shettima, has resigned from his position, According to Daily Trust.

The newspaper quoted sources as saying that the former spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) resigned two weeks ago.

President Bola Tinubu appointed Baba-Ahmed as special adviser on political matters to Shettima in September 2023.

Baba-Ahmed is the elder sibling of Datti Baba-Ahmed, vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election.

Baba-Ahmed served as chief of staff to Bukola Saraki, former senate president, from 2017-2019.

CONFRONTATION WITH MATAWALLE OVER NEF

In April 2024, Bello Matawalle, minister of state for defence, described the NEF as a “political paperweight” after the group stated that the north made a mistake voting Tinubu in 2023.

In his reaction to Matawalle’s remarks, Baba-Ahmed said it would have served the Tinubu administration better if Matawalle had listed his achievements as minister — and the achievements of the other northern appointees — instead of attacking NEF.

“Scathing criticism of NEF by a junior minister of defence, Matawalle, is ill-advised. He could have done a better job for this admin if he identified contributions of especially northern ministers and other appointees like me to improving security and reducing poverty in the North,” Baba-Ahmed said.

In a riposte, the minister said any appointee must defend and promote the administration they work for.

“Dr. Baba-Ahmed’s relationship and affinity with Northern Elders’ Forum (NEF) is well-known,” Matawalle said.

“The fact now is that he is an appointee of the administration as Special Adviser and it is incumbent on him to work for the success of the government he is part of, protect and defend the government against unjust and vicious attacks from those who hide under ethnic and other primordial interests to heat up the polity for myopic reasons.

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“It is pertinent to state that every appointee of President Tinubu including Dr. Baba-Ahmed owes the government a copious duty to promote, elucidate and advance the good works and commendable efforts of the government across all sectors.”

He added that northern appointees must defend the government or take their exit.

Matawalle is a native of Zamfara while Baba-Ahmed hails from Kaduna.

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INEC: We are not partisan in failed recall of Natasha

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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has denied being partisan in handling the failed recall of the Senator representing Kogi Central, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.

The Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman of INEC, Rotimi Oyekanmi, who was on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, explained how the Commission handled the process.

“In the case of the Kogi Central District, we received a petition and a cover letter and of course what Nigerians were saying was that we were taking sides,” Oyekanmi said on the programme.

INEC logo and Senator Natasha Akpoti (Kogi-Central PDP)
INEC logo and Senator Natasha Akpoti (Kogi-Central PDP)

“But what happened was that in the covering letter, the representatives of the petitioners did not include their address as required in our regulations and guidelines and what we just did was to ask them to supply their address, it has nothing to do with the petition.

“And of course, there is nowhere in the law where INEC is asked to reject a petition just because the cover letter did not contain the address. So, there was no hanky-panky in what we did.”

Earlier on Thursday, INEC rejected the petition to recall Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan, saying that it has not met the requirements.

The electoral commission said the petition to recall Senator Natasha did not meet constitutional requirements.

Senator Natasha was suspended for breaching Senate rules, prompting some of her constituents to initiate her recall. They claimed the move was to ensure their constituency did not lack representation following the suspension of the 45-year-old senator.

Asked whether there could be a repeat of the recall process, the INEC spokesperson said the law did not specify if the process could be repeated and how many times.

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“The law just talks about the threshold, the threshold meaning that if you want to recall, you must have, in addition to your petition, 50 per cent plus one signatures. The law did not specify how many times you can undertake that,” he said.

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