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The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has stated that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu should be in the Guinness World Records for “causing Nigerians the most hardship .”   Speaking in an interview with Vanguard, the former Anambra state governor noted that the average Nigerian should be able to judge the performance of President Tinubu so far since May 2023.    Recall that President Tinubu said he deserves to be included in the Guinness World Records over his performances in the country since he assumed leadership.   Reacting, Peter Obi said; “He may actually be correct when he claims that his name deserves to be in the Guinness World Records. Don’t forget that people’s names don’t always make it into the Guinness World Records for only altruistic reasons. So, it depends on which angle he is coming from. If the idea is to put his name in the Guinness Book of Records for causing Nigerians the most hardship – untold hardship, of course he i...

Burkina Faso's military leaders have signed a deal with Russia to build a nuclear power plant to increase electricity supplies. "The government of Burkina Faso has signed a memorandum of understanding for the construction of a nuclear power plant," the government said in a statement.  The agreement was signed at the Russian Energy Week in Moscow, which was attended by Burkina Faso's energy minister Simon-Pierre Boussim.  The document "fulfills the wish of the president of [Burkina] Faso, Captain Ibrahim Traore, expressed [in] July at the Russia-Africa summit during a meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin," the statement said.  Russia's state atomic energy agency Rosatom said in its own statement that "the memorandum is the first document in the field of the peaceful use of atomic energy between Russia and Burkina Faso."  The nuclear power plant will enable the country to meet its energy needs, it said, adding that the ...

Gaza civilians have vowed they would rather die than leave their homes after Israel gave them 24 hours before launching an all-out assault.  While some heeded the call to leave, by Friday afternoon there was little sign of a mass exodus, despite the UN warning the area is 'fast becoming a hellhole'.  Death is better than leaving,' said Mohammad, 20, standing in the street outside a building reduced to rubble in an Israeli air strike two days ago near the centre of Gaza. 'I was born here, and I will die here, leaving is a stigma.'  With power supplies cut and food and water in the Palestinian enclave running short after a week of retaliatory air strikes and a full Israeli blockade, the U.N. said Gaza's civilians were in an impossible situation.  'The noose around the civilian population in Gaza is tightening. How are 1.1 million people supposed to move across a densely populated warzone in less than 24 hours?' U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths w...

The leadership of the Labour Party has asked the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to leave out its candidate, Peter Obi, from his feud with President Bola Tinubu, saying the former Anambra governor is solely focused on reclaiming his ‘stolen mandate’ at the apex court. The party however said it will welcome any interest that amplifies its quest for a nation where true justice shall reign. The response was a reaction to the call by the PDP candidate for Obi and the presidential flag bearer of the New Nigeria People’s Party, Rabiu Kwankwaso, to join his crusade in exposing the alleged dirty secrets of the president. In a statement released in Abuja on Wednesday by the National Publicity Secretary of LP, Obiora Ifoh, the party appealed that they would appreciate if their candidate is allowed to concentrate on his case at the apex court. The statement read, “The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi is presently in the Supreme Cou...

The Chicago State University (CSU) has confirmed in an affidavit that the Diploma President Bola Ahmed Tinubu submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is valid. Atiku, the presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 25 election, had requested the documents to back his allegation of forgery of the CSU certificate against Tinubu. According to the affidavit obtained by the Nation, CSU  confirmed the certificate and that of 1979 it presented to the President on graduation is valid.   CSU, in the affidavit it presented to the court in Chicago, said: ” Chicago State University provided a Diploma to Bola Ahmed Tinubu and subsequently provided a certified copy of that Diploma. Both are valid and authentic Diplomas of the Chicago State University. ”There are certain differences between the Diploma and the certified copy because all diplomas are signed by the current President/Board Chairman. There are also...

The Supreme Court has fixed December 15 to deliver its judgement on the appeal filed by embattled leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB seeking to compel the Federal Government to release him from detention.   A five-member panel of the apex court headed by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, okayed the matter for judgement, after counsel for both FG and the detained IPOB leader, adopted their final briefs of argument.   While FG was represented by a team of lawyers that were led by an Acting Director, Civil Appeals at the Federal Ministry of Justice, Mr. T. A. Gazzali, SAN, Kanu’s legal team was led by a former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Kanu Agabi, SAN.   Represented by one of his legal consel, Prof. Mike Ozehkome, SAN,  Kanu prayed the court to not only order his immediate release from detention, but to equally award “very heavy and punitive cost” against FG.   “We urge my lords to uphold our Cross-Appeal in ...

Nigeria's minister of interior, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, has stated that Nigerians would have to wait more than two weeks for an international passport anymore.   The minister, on September 7, gave the NIS a two-week deadline to remove all passport application backlogs. He added that the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) had cleared all the 204,332 passport application backlogs. Speaking on Wednesday, October 4 in Abuja while updating Nigerians on the status of the passport backlog in the country,Tunji-Ojo said: “No one will ever wait for two weeks to get passports again. If you apply and have been captured, you will get your passport within two weeks.” He noted: “Immigration service did three shifts to make sure that we clear the backlogs and to ensure that never again in the history of Nigeria, are we going to have a backlog. This is not a temporary relief but a permanent solution.” The minister stated that NIS and its partners would enhance their systems in order to impro...

The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has said Nigerians should pray that the country’s refineries do not work. Oyedele said this when he spoke at The Platform’s Independence Anniversary event, held in Lagos on Monday, October 2. Oyedele said should Nigerian refineries produce petroleum, inefficiencies in the management might make a litre of petrol the most expensive in the world. “Nigerians would say if only our refineries were working, then we’ll be fine. Nothing can be farther from the truth than that. In fact, Nigerians should come together and say please make sure that our refineries don’t work. We should sell them. The National Assembly said we have spent over N10tn maintaining our refineries even when they have not produced anything. The time that they were producing, the GMD of NNPC at the time who is now the CEO of NNPC limited, said We had to shut down the one that we were producing because they took crude of $100 and prod...

Russian president Vladimir Putin is poised to announce he will seek another six-year term as Russian president paving the way for the Kremlin chief to stay in power until 2030.   Officials suspect that Putin may announce he will take part in the election in March 2024, Kommersant reported, citing unidentified sources close to the presidential administration.   The newspaper said there were, however, other scenarios for what Putin might do at the conference and the final decision rested with him. The Kremlin did not immediately comment. Putin, who was handed the presidency by Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999, has been leader for longer than any other Russian ruler since Josef Stalin, beating even Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year tenure.   While many diplomats, spies, and officials have said they expect Putin to stay in power for life, there has yet to be any confirmation of his plans to run in the 2024 presidential vote.   Putin said last month he would make an announcement on his pla...

The memorandum opinion and order read in part:  “For the foregoing reasons, the court overrules President Tinubu’s objections to Magistrate Judge Gilbert’s recommended ruling, and therefore, adopts the ruling in full. “Mr Atiku’s Application is, therefore, granted. In light of the pending Supreme Court of Nigeria deadline, represented to the court as October 5, 2023, and based on CSU’s representations that it is ready to comply with the discovery requests and produce a witness, the court sets an expedited schedule for completion of discovery. “Respondent CSU is directed to produce all relevant and non-privileged documents in response to Requests for Production Nos. The Rule 30(b)(6) deposition of CSU’s corporate designee must be completed by 5:00 p.m. CDT on Tuesday, October 3, 2023. Given the October 5, 2023, filing deadline before the Supreme Court of Nigeria, the court will not extend or modify these deadlines. However, the judge stressed that his verdict “is express...

President Bola Tinubu has given out a warning about the future that awaits Africa if it fails to break drug enterprises.    Declaring open the 31st meeting of the Heads of National Drug Law Enforcement Agencies, Africa (HONLAF) at the Abuja Continental Hotel on Tuesday, September 26, Tinubu warned that Africa will remain in chains if it fails to break drug enterprises.   The President who was represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, urged heads of national drug law enforcement agencies in Africa to renew the fight against substance abuse and illicit drug trafficking in their respective countries.   He said;    “If we don’t dismantle the criminal enterprises that threaten our future and build a brighter tomorrow for all Africans, we will remain in chains in a diseased and amoral world, as will our children and their children. “This threat has crossed borders and destroyed societies and dreams. Without the moral commitment of the men and wom...

Nigeria's President, Bola Tinubu, has objected to the release of his Chicago State University (CSU) records to the candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.   Tinubu pleaded on Monday, September 25, that if the court was inclined to grant Atiku’s application for discovery, it should be limited to only his diploma certificate he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in aid of his qualification for the 2023 presidential election. In his latest plea to the court, Tinubu said; “That conclusion should be set aside and the application should be denied because the information sought cannot be used and, therefore, is not ‘for use’ in the foreign proceedings.   “Even if a narrow subset of information can be considered ‘for use’ in the foreign proceeding, that is limited to the diploma submitted to INEC. Fishing expeditions into other documents and more document productions must be preclu...

President Bola Tinubu has reluctantly allowed a federal judge in the United States to give his university certificate to his political opponent Atiku Abubakar. But the Nigerian leader pleaded with Judge Nancy Maldonado to block all other details, especially the gender and admission records, among others, of the person who owns the certificate from being disclosed. Mr Tinubu’s prayers on Monday morning came as part of the ongoing legal battle unfolding at the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago. The case was brought by Mr Abubakar, who has been on a judicial quest to establish that Mr Tinubu was not eligible to be Nigerian president despite his election in February 2023. He won the election by 36 per cent of the vote after Mr Abubakar and Peter Obi, who was his running mate in the 2019 election, fell out, subsequently dividing their potential votes into at least two parts, paving the way for Mr Tinubu’s victory with the slimmest marg...

AN analysis of Nigeria’s public debt stock, released by the  National Bureau of Statistics , has shown that each Nigerian currently owes N396,376.19 in terms of debt per capita. The NBS  published  that the country’s total public debt increased by 75.27 per cent from N49.85 trillion in the first quarter of 2023 to N87.38 trillion at the end of the second quarter of 2023. In monetary terms, this is an increase of N37.53 trillion in three months. The ICIR  calculated the debt stock per capita by dividing the total public debts of the country by the country’s population. According to the  World Poverty Clock , Nigeria’s population is estimated at 220.4 million. Breaking down by category, the total external debts by the federal government stood at N29.9 trillion, while the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory external debts were N3.35 trillion. For domestic debts, the Federal government’s debt is N48.31 trillion, while for States and FCT is N5.82 ...

A section of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in Abuja is currently on fire.   According to reports, the offices of three justices in the apex court have reportedly been affected by the fire. The cause of the fire outbreak is yet to be ascertained. Men of the FCT Fire Service are on the ground to help put out the fire.

The Justice Arum Ashom-led Lagos State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal will today September 25, deliver judgment on the petitions filed by the governorship candidates of the Labour Party (LP), Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, and his counterpart in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, against the emergence of Babajide Sanwo-Olu as winner of the March 18, 2023 governorship election in the state.   Rhodes-Vivour and Jandor are challenging the return and declaration of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and Deputy Governor Obafemi Hamzat of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as winners of the state governorship election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).   Rhodes-Vivour, in his petition marked EPT/LAG/GOV/04/2023 dated April 9, 2023, had urged the tribunal to nullify Sanwo-Olu’s victory on the alleged grounds that the candidate of the All Progressives Congress was not qualified to run in the election. In his p...

The Public Relations Officer for the court, Festus Akande, has said that the fire incident that occurred on Monday morning, September 25, won’t have an effect on the presidential election petition.   Speaking during an interview on Arise TV this morning, Akande disclosed that an electrical fault was the cause of the fire outbreak.   “As a matter of fact, there’s no single connection, and it won’t affect anything in the court. This incident occurred in a chamber equipped with a computer and other equipment, as well as a functional library used by any justice occupying such chamber. The only thing that was affected were the books and computer equipment in the chamber. Even the books are replaceable. Also, it has nothing to do with it because it was from an electrical fault, which could happen anywhere, and there are things that happen daily.”   LIB had reported earlier that a fire broke out in a section of the apex court earlier today.

Minister of Works, David Umahi has revealed that the Abuja-Lagos highway will be completed in 2027 and will last for 100 years.    Addressing journalists on Saturday, September 23, Umahi said the proposed 470 kilometres Abuja-Lagos Greenfield superhighway will be built by a private sector consortium at no cost to the government.   The minister said the consortium will operate the facility for a yet-to-be-determined period on a build, operate and transfer deal. The highway will also be tolled at different points to enable the investors recoup their investment.   He said;    “When I first introduced this to the public, many doubting Thomases were saying ‘it is impossible, Lagos-Abuja that is done in 14 hours cannot be done in four and half hours’, that is the renewed hope of Mr President. “The President has approved that I fast-track this project. This project is going to be two lanes but each lane is going to be a two-carriage way and it is going...

The legal teams of President Bola Tinubu and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, will resume a legal battle over the President’s Chicago academic records in a United States court on Monday. A US District Judge, Nancy Maldonado, had on Thursday agreed to stay an order directing Chicago State University to make Tinubu’s academic document available to Atiku’s legal team. The hearing came up late Thursday night after the President’s lawyers filed an emergency motion seeking a delay in the implementation of the self-effectuating order directing the CSU to comply with Atiku’s subpoenas till Monday. Atiku is currently challenging the victory of the former Lagos State governor at the 2023 presidential poll and his recent affirmation by an election petition court in Nigeria. Earlier, a magistrate, Jeffrey Gilbert, had on Tuesday ordered Tinubu’s alma mater to provide all relevant and non-privileged documents to the applicant, Atiku, within two...

The Enugu State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal has dismissed the petition of Chris Agu of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) against Peter Mbah for alleged forged National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificate, non-qualification, and corruption.   The PRP had claimed that Mbah entered a plea bargain with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in the past.   In a judgment delivered today September 21, the Tribunal chaired by Justice Kudirat Murayo Akano held that the petitioner failed to prove that the respondent did not possess the minimum requirement to stand for election which is a school certificate or its equivalent. According to him, there’s no evidence to support the claim that Mbah is not qualified to stand for the election.   On the issue of the plea bargain by Mbah, the tribunal averred that the exhibits presented by the petitioners did not show any plea bargain by the respondent. The tribunal also held that to prove the issue ...