Port Harcourt is Obidient!
You can say you saw it coming but that won’t beat down the fact that the news makes a front headline. Nyesome Wike, a PDP chieftain and stanch member had just declared support for the presidential aspirant of the Labour Party, Peter Obi. Wike promised to give Peter Obi whatever support he desires from Rivers State whenever he campaigns in the PDP state. He said yesterday while Obi cut the red ribbon for the Nkpolu-Oroworokwo Flyover in Port Harcourt, on Thursday. The Rivers State governor is said to be the leader of the almost-defected G-5 governors who are demanding the resignation of the national chairman of the PDP, Ayorchia Ayu, stating that the North cannot be both the presidential candidate and the Party chairman. The discord had rocked the PDP for months on end. However, the dance had taken a new turn on Thursday as the erstwhile governor had thrown his weight behind a presidential candidate of another party, the LP. We are not sure if this consists of anti-party behavior or if he, Wike, does not care. Meanwhile, the PDP is yet to make a statement pertaining this development.
NYSC gets new boss
Although the news is not yet confirmed, the Cable have reported that President Muhammadu Buhari has removed the Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps Brigadier-General Mohammed Fadah on Thursday. Brigadier-General Fadah was appointed six months ago; he promised to digitize the operations of the NYSC and improve the security and welfare of the core members during his tenure. A new NYSC boss will be announced shortly by the president.
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Three governors and their cash caught in the act
Three governors and maybe more are being profiled for money laundering and other related financial offenses. Although the identity of the three governors are not known yet, the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Abdulrasheed Bawa, has stated that the state governors were being observed on the suspicion that they might attempt to launder stashed cash in their possession. The Chairman said this while speaking to correspondents after a meeting with the president, Mohammadu Buhari, in Aso Rock, on Thursday. This comes on the heels of the move by the Central Bank of Nigeria, the CBN, to redesign the country’s higher denominations including the N100, N200, N500, and the N1000 notes. The move, according to the CBN, was to curtail the rampant cases of money laundering by politicians. The CBN also claimed that 85% of the currency in circulation in the country are outside the vaults of the commercial banks, a situation which the CBN describes as dire for the country’s economy. The CBN had therefore asked all Nigerians to deposit the old currency to the bank before December 15, 2022.
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Peter Obi’s LP kicks against underage voting, vote buying
The PUNCH has reported that the Chief Spokesperson for the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Dr Yunusa Tanko, on Thursday, led a delegation of supporters of the presidential candidate of the party, Peter Obi, on a peaceful protest in Abuja against alleged underage voters, vote-buying plots and discrepancies reported in the newly released register of the Independent National Electoral Commission. The demonstration, which started from Unity Fountain to the INEC headquarters, slowed down traffic on some major roads. Following the unveiling of the preliminary register of voters on its website ahead of the 2023 general elections, INEC came under heavy criticism over allegations of multiple registrations and discrepancies on the register. This led to an outcry on social media, especially Twitter, where many screenshot of profiles of persons who had registered multiple times were posted.
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133 million Nigerians live below poverty line – NBS
The National Bureau of Statistics has disclosed that 133 million Nigerians are multi-dimensionally poor. In its latest National Multidimensional Poverty Index report launched on Thursday, the NBS said that 63 per cent of Nigerians were poor due to a lack of access to health, education, living standards, employment and security. The Statistician-General of the Federation and CEO of the NBS, Semiu Adeniran, said this in a report released on Thursday. The NBS report further showed Sokoto, Bayelsa, Gombe, Jigawa and Plateau are the top poorest states in 2022. Sokoto leads the poorest with 90.5 per cent of people in the state poor. It is followed by Bayelsa with 88.5 per cent poor people, Gombe with 86.2 per cent, Jigawa with 84.3 per cent, and Plateau with 84 per cent. The least poor states are Ondo with 27.2 per cent poor people, Lagos with 29.4 per cent, Abia 29.8 per cent, Edo with 31 per cent, and Anambra with 32.1 per cent. The report said that 65 per cent of poor Nigerians (86 million) were in the North, while 35 per cent (nearly 47 million) were in the South. (lifted from Punch) Recall that in 2019, the president, Muhammadu Buhari boasted that his government and the APC would lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by 2022.