Controversy rages over APC’s directive

There were  controversies  on Sunday over a directive by the All Progressives Congress to its National Assembly members  to block   the passage of all  legislative bills, including the 2014 budget  estimates.

The party, after its Interim National Executive Council meeting in Abuja on Thursday, said its lawmakers needed  to do so until constitutionalism was restored to Rivers State in particular and the nation in general.

The party had blamed the Presidency and the Peoples Democratic Party for allegedly fuelling the crisis in Rivers State and using government  machinery like the police to hound the opposition.

Presidenial Election on Valentine's Day

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Attahiru Jega, a number of Nigeria’s pro-democracy activists and U.S. policymakers will on Monday converge on Washington DC to review Nigeria’s electoral process and hammer out ways of making the forthcoming elections in the country fair and credible.

I will empower 22 million Nigerians- Al Mustapha

 
Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, President, Al-Mustapha Peace, Unity, Development Initiative (APUDI), says his organization will empower majority of the 22 million unemployed Nigerian youths with skills.

Al-Mustapha, the former Chief Security Officer to late former Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, made this known while speaking with journalists in Gombe on Sunday.

He said the organization was compiling the list of youth organizations across the country with a view to assisting the unemployed youths with skill acquisition and other entrepreneurship development schemes.

Jonathan stops SSS from quizzing Obasanjo

Goodluck Jonathan and Olusegun Obasanjo

The Presidency may have put on hold its earlier directive to  the State Security Service  to investigate the weighty allegations contained in the controversial letter  written by  former  president Olusegun Obasanjo to  President Goodluck Jonathan in December last year.

Saturday PUNCH learnt that the Presidency decided to halt the investigation of  the issues raised in the former president’s  letter in order to amicably settle the rift between President Jonathan  and his political benefactor.

SSS Summons El-Rufai

|

The  State Security Service   has  invited a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai,  to appear at its headquarters in Abuja on Friday (today) over a statement attributed to him in the Thursday edition of  a national daily newspaper .

El-Rufai,  who is also the Deputy National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress,  was said to have been invited to clarify the statement  in which he allegedly said   that “the next election  are  likely to be violent and that  many people are likely going to die.”

He was also quoted as having said  that “the only alternative left to get power is to take it by force.”

His  Media Adviser, Muyiwa Adekeye, told   our correspondent through a text message on Thursday,   that El-Rufai   was  willing to meet the SSS   in his home or office or in the alternative, the agency should produce a warrant of arrest.

APC rejects court verdict

Members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the House of Representatives, yesterday, vowed to disobey a court order restraining them from effecting leadership changes in the House today.

Rising from an emergency meeting late evening, the lawmakers said they would change the House leadership today, barring any last minute change of decision, upon the plurality attained by the party after the defection of 37 members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to the APC last December.

Adamu muazu chosen as the new PDP Chairman

A  former Governor of Bauchi State, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, has been chosen as the new Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party by President Goodluck Jonathan and governors.

He will replace the former chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, who resigned from his position on Wednesday.

Mu’azu was picked as a consensus candidate at a meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and the governors of the party at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Sunday night.

The meeting ended at 1:22 am on Monday (today) morning.

Tukur's Successor: Jonathan under pressure to dump Patience's candidate

AHEAD of tomorrow’s National Executive Committee, NEC, meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, where a successor to the immediate past National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, will emerge, strong indications emerged, yesterday, that President Goodluck Jonathan was under pressure to dump the Minister of Transport, Idris Umar.

Sunday Vanguard gathered that following the plan by governors elected on the platform of the PDP to protest against the President if he succumbs to submitting Umar’s name to the NEC as the new party leader, Jonathan has begun to beam his searchlight on Senator Abubakar Mahdi; a former Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Abba Aji; and former National Chairman, Grassroots Democratic Movement, GDM, Gambo Lawan, all from Borno State.