INEC presented a budget of N305 billion for the 2023 general elections to the National Assembly on Monday in Abuja. Its chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, made the presentation to the Senate Committee on Appropriations. The committee had invited INEC to present the budget so as to include it in the 2022 budget billed for passage by both chambers of the National Assembly on Tuesday. According to INEC Chairman, the N305 billion is different from the N40 billion yearly budget of the electoral body. He noted that while N100 billion had been released to the Commission out of the total projected…
Author: Ifeanyi N.
Ortom wants the National Assembly to accept the president’s reasons for the rejection. Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue has commended President Muhammadu Buhari for declining to assent to the 2021 Electoral Act Amendment Bill. Speaking to journalists on Tuesday in Makurdi, Ortom insisted that party primaries were the exclusive reserve of political parties. He said that direct primaries was expensive hence only big parties with enormous resources could afford them. On indirect primaries, he said that the process only differed with direct primaries in terms of election of delegates at the ward levels. Ortom said of all the processes of…
There was confusion on Friday, December 24, 2021 as the Osun State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) announced a new Acting Chairman. The Acting Chairman, Barrister Wale Ojo, according to sources belonged to the Olasoji Adagunodo faction of the party in the state. Barrister Wale Ojo is the Former Senatorial Chairman of PDP representing Osun East Senatorial district. The appointment was arrived at after the ratification of a resolution by some stakeholders of the Peoples Democratic Party in Osun State. Wale Ojo’s appointment, it was noted was intended to fill the vacuum created by the exit of Adagunodo as the Vice…
A possible Listeria contamination has prompted the recall of sliced white mushrooms sold in Ontario and Quebec and possibly other provinces or territories. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says a recall has been issued by Carleton Mushroom for the mushrooms, which were prepared for Metro Brands. The product was sold in 227-gram packages with a best before date of Oct. 25, 2021. Customers are being told to either throw the mushrooms out or return them to the store where they were purchased. There have been no reports of any illnesses linked to the product. Food contaminated with Listeria may not…
Sen. Sadiq Umar (APC -Kwara) says overriding President Muhammadu Buhari on the Electoral Amendment Act Bill by the National Assembly will have plunged the country into constitutional crisis. Umar, also Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, said this when he interacted with the Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Ilorin on Friday. He said the senators decided not to act on the matter following the decision of the House of Representatives to stand down debate on the president’s letter. “What happened was that after the National Assembly passed the Electoral Amendment Act Amendment Bill, the…
Former Head of State, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida has described Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as a good man, who has what it takes to be a good leader. Babangida said this on Thursday, December 23, 2021, when the Osibanjo Grassroots Organisation visited him at his Hilltop residence in Minna, Niger state. He said, “I know the Vice-president very well. He is a good man. A man who has conviction about Nigeria; a man who can communicate with the country and inspire people. Such a man is worthy person to work with. We need good man to lead Nigeria. “A man…
Sheikh Ibrahim Khalil, a prominent Islamic scholar and former chairman of the Kano Council of Ulama, has announced his resignation from the All Progressives Congress (APC). Khalil announced his resignation from the party while a rift between Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje and Senator Ibrahim Shekarau, his predecessor, is raging. “Well, as an APC member and one of the elders and one of the caucus, I want to make sure I leave the APC,” he told the BBC. “Everything in life has a reason. There are three reasons: either the educated and the intelligent know, or everyone knows, or the person…
Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo State, Mr. Dayo Ogungbenro, has declared that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has gone to a long political voyage in the state. Ogungbenro noted that the APC cannot take over the state again in 2023. Our correspondent recalls that the PDP’s candidate, Engineer Seyi Makinde won the gubernatorial election and defeated APC candidate and other candidates of other political parties in 2019. But, Ogungbenro, who spoke with journalists on Thursday in Ibadan, noted that the erstwhile ruling party is not likely to return to government in couple of years to come. He said…
President Joe Biden on Thursday made two final nominations to the federal bench this year as he caps his first year in office with 40 judges confirmed, the most since Ronald Reagan was president. Nancy Gbana Abudu, his nominee for the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in the deep South, would be the first Black woman to sit on that court. The circuit covers Alabama, Georgia and Florida, where 8.5 million people are Black yet there is only one Black judge on the 12-person panel, Charles Wilson, and he was nominated by former President Bill Clinton. The…
Senator Alex Usman Kadiri, an APC stalwart, who represented Kogi East from 1999 to 2003 in the National Assembly, told JOHN AKUBO in Abuja that for refusing his assent on the 2021 Electoral Act the lawmakers should veto President Buhari. The National Assembly passed the electoral amendment bill 2021, which gives INEC leverage to transmit election results electronically at its discretion. The other is the Direct Primary to decide how parties decide persons to field for elections. As a former lawmaker, what’s your position on the controversial stalemate? The President is so weak that it is the governors that dictate…