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CSOs accuse group of impersonation, call for arrest of culprits

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7 months ago

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A Coalition of Civil Society Organisations, have accused an NGO named, Concerned Citizens on Economic Reform Nigeria, of impersonating them and called on security agencies to arrest and prosecute the culprits.

The Convener of Initiative for Leadership and Economic Watch,  Splendour Agbonkpolor, made this known while addressing   newsmen on Monday in Abuja.

Agbonkpolor said the call was in reaction to a petition written by the said NGO to the Unites States Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) through the U.S Embassy in Abuja.

He added that the said petition was signed by one Tijani Ibrahim m, who claimed to be the Convener and Amb. Fatima Abubakar, as the Secretary of the said NGO.

According to him, the petition titled ‘Persons of interest in the violation of the coalition-agreed price cap on Russian crude’ was against the Group Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari and Chief Executive Officer, Matrix Energy group, Abdulkabir Aliu.

Agbonkpolor said the coalition was inundated with calls from well-meaning Nigerians on the fact that the office address listed on the group letterhead belongs to the coalition.

He added that the name used by the group was also twisted to look like one of theirs.

“The name of the convener also happens to be assumed to be one of us since we have such a name in our coalition.

“Gentlemen, we have gathered you here to denounce the letter written to the US government and to state categorically that we were impersonated by those who wrote it.

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“For the records, the NGO who wrote it in disguise of one of ours is not registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission.

“Secondly, the two phone numbers used in their letterhead do not exist anywhere but created out of their memories.

“Most importantly, the address listed there as Suite B5, 3rd Floor, Danville Plaza, No 5, David Ejoor Crescent, Abuja is currently unoccupied.

“We all occupied various sections of Danville Plaza for over ten years as NGOs but last year December, the owner of the place sold it and we all moved to new place.

“As NGOs, we do not subscribe to blackmail and will not sit back and watch people impersonate organisations we have built credibly for years in order to make us look like enemies of a well-meaning Nigeria state.

“Anyone who has an axe to grind with NNPCL and its management as well as the Matrix Energy Group should be bold to use their registered NGO as well as address and not ours,” he said.

Agbonkpolor urged the  U.S. government to disregard the petition submitted by the group, saying it was not authored by any of the members of the coalition who were former occupants of the address used by the said group.

He said the coalition  found it distasteful to be used by any group of persons or companies fighting for their own interests.

Axcordimg to him, they will be proceeding to submit a letter of of withdrawal to the U.S. Departinent of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) through its United States, Embassy in Abuja on this issue that is almost eroding our integrity, credibility and reputation.

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Also, the Convener of Social, Political, Economic, Educational and Environmental Rights Initiative (SPEEERI), Jacob Okpanachi, called on the security agencies to expose the persons behind the petition and bring them to book.

Okpanachi said the group would not allow any group of persons to tarnish the credible image they had build over the years. (NAN)

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National

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

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36 minutes ago

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April 4, 2025

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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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National

Hakeem Baba-Ahmed resigns as presidential political adviser

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2 hours ago

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April 4, 2025

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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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National

INEC: We are not partisan in failed recall of Natasha

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3 hours ago

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April 4, 2025

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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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