POLITICS
Niger APC Chieftain Asks Akpabio to Resign, Apologize to Protesting Youths
From Dan Amasingha, Minna
Former Niger State commissioner for Information, Culture Tourism and strategy who is also a Chieftain of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) in Niger state, Jonathan Vatsa has called on the Senate president Godswill Akpabio to immediately resign his position as Senate president and equally tender an apology to the protesting youth over his utterances on the ongoing nationwide Endbadgovernance protests.
Vatsa said the Senate president has not only embarrassed the APC where he has “come to continue eating” after 16 years of eating in the opposition People Democratic party (PDP), his Constituency and the red chamber but the entire Nigerians with his utterances. The former publicity secretary of the party in Niger state in a statement in Minna on Tuesday titled “time for Akpabio to go is now” while reacting to a comment credited to the Senate president, said it was unfortunate that while eminent and distinguished Nigerians are busy appealing to the protesting Nigerian youths to give peace a chance and embrace dialogue with the government over the current economic hardship in the country, “Akpabio decided to go the comedian way”.It could be recalled that Akpabio, in the building up to the EndBadGovernance protest last week, said those who wanted to protest could do so while he and other persons loyal to president Bola Tinubu will continue to eat from his administration.“While you protest, we shall be eating,” Akpabio was quoted to have said. An utterance Vatsa described as “very callous and regrettable, coming from the number three citizen of the country”.Vatsa said in an ideal situation and in a decent society, Akpabio shouldn’t have been made the senate president in an APC control government, stressing that “these were the same group of people that we accused of looting this country for 16 years.“It is a huge error and a disservice to this country to turn round and make someone like Akpabio a Senate president in the APC government. That is why this government can never get it right.“APC as a party has been hijacked by those that Nigerians were fed up with and decided to embrace”Change” in 2015. They have been eating and they want to continue eating like Akpabio made Nigerians to believe”.According to Vatsa, “I said it before and I will repeat it again that it is sad that we are giving red carpet reception to those we initially accused of looting this country with reckless abandon, so how can we get it right.“The same food for 16 years under the PDP government; he still wants to continue eating under the APC government. This is a tragedy of a nation”.Aside from this, Vatsa said that many criteria disqualified Akpabio from holding the position of the Senate president under an APC controlled government, stressing that “Akpabio is from a state controlled by the opposition party and therefore shouldn’t have been allowed to occupy the seat of the Senate president”.He expressed regrets that the party leadership could not find a competent person to be Senate president despite the caliber of intellectuals in the south east and south south, stressing that “recently the same Akpabio publicly insulted a married woman on the floor of the Senate by comparing her with night club girls, only for him to turned around and began to tender a belated apology.“The sins of Akpabio as far as a Senate president is worse than that of Ali Ndume which earned him suspension. I therefore called on the Senate president to immediately resign his position as the Senate president in order to restore the dignity of our great party.“This party must begin to redeem its image and build confidence in Nigerians before 2027. This must start from Akpabio’s resignation to let Nigerians know that we are serious as a party”, he added.
The Abia Chapter of the INEC Staff Welfare Association (ISWA) has warned its members to uphold the integrity of the commission and guard against the culture of manipulating election results.
The Abia Chairman of the association, Mr Collins Eze, gave the advice at the group’s general meeting and end-of-year party in Umuahia.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen on the sideline of the ceremony, Eze said that the staff members were adequately aware of their enormous responsibility and should ensure free, fair and credible elections.
He said: “We have also told our colleagues that anywhere they find themselves they should make sure that they do the needful by ensuring transparency in the conduct of elections.
“We have always told them not to allow anybody to induce them with money to manipulate election results.
“I’m happy that they have been building the capacity of our colleagues on election processes.
“So, in the coming years, we won’t have any problem in ensuring free, fair and peaceful elections.”
He said that the end-of-year party was special as it afforded them the opportunity “to wine and dine together as well as thank God for sustaining them in 2024”.
Eze said that his leadership had introduced various means of assisting members in dire financial needs by providing platforms to solicit suppory for them.
He expressed gratitude to members for their support and cooperation, describing them as the “secret behind the success of this administration”.
He said that 34 of at least 350 staff members of the commission in the state retired from service in 2024.
According to him, the development has placed a huge financial burden on the association, in terms of their welfare and entitlement as members.
Report says that each member received a carton of tomato paste as Christmas gift from the association. (NAN)
A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to be thankful to God that its 16-year administration was not probed by the successive APC-led governments.Okechukwu stated this on Tuesday in Abuja, while reacting to a statement by PDP congratulating Ghanaians for the conduct of free, fair and transparent general elections.
Report says that PDP had, in a statement, said that the verdict of the people of Ghana in the presidential election was a signal to the APC that its days were numbered. The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, had said in the statement that the power of the people in Nigeria, just like in Ghana, would ‘surely prevail and end the APC’s oppressive rule’.This, he said, would “return Nigeria to the path of good governance, security, political stability and economic prosperity on the platform of the PDP in 2027.”However, in his reactions to Ologunagba’s statement, Okechukwu said that the PDP clan should thank God that former President Muhammadu Buhari and President Bola Tinubu, out of sheer statesmanship, had refused to probe ‘the 16 locus years of PDP administrations’.Okechukwu, a former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), described the 16 years of PDP administrations as ones full of squandering and lack of plan.He said that Nigeria had yet to recover from the humongous culture of impunity and trust deficit planted by PDP on the Nigerian soil.Okechukwu said corruption was among the culture of impunity, saying it governed the privatisation of Nigeria’s electricity value chain, a key element in the country’s industrialisation drive.“Another is the blatant rigging of the 2007 general elections which the foremost beneficiary, President Umaru Yar’Adua, out of good conscience and noble magnanimity, publicly acknowledged the malfeasance which characterised his victory,” he said.Okechukwu also mentioned what he called conscienceless sale of the legislative and ministerial quarters, the annual rentage of which, he said, was bleeding the country’s treasury.“Another one is the neglect of $23 billion Greenfield Refinery, which could have saved over $70 billion expended on importation of refined petroleum products and which simulated the economic hardship of today,” he said.On why, for nine years, the APC administration could not fix those challenges, he recalled the efforts made by the Buhari administration to reopen talks on the Greenfield Refinery which, according to him, the Chinese regrettably rebuffed.The former VON director-general said that Nigerians were not in a hurry to forget the deliberate breach of the rotational convention of president from the north to the south.He said that the country could not also forget the utter disregard for Section 7 of the PDP’s constitution which expressly mandated zoning.Okechukwu advised the PDP not to insult the sensibilities of Nigerians by assuming that citizens would easily forget how they were put in the harms way.He said that PDP should thank God that Buhari and Tinubu did not want to probe them, adding “that’s why Nigerians cannot decipher the difference between the two political parties.” (NAN)
Sen. Ned Nwoko (PDP-Delta) says that Local Government Administration is central to democracy in Nigeria as it ensures grassroots governance and service delivery at the local level.This is contained in a statement signed by Dr Michael Nwoko, the Chief of Staff to the lawmaker in Abuja on Monday.Nwoko said this on the occasion of the presentation of an award “Icon of Hope” to him by the Association of Local Government Vice Chairmen of Nigeria (ALGOVC).
He was represented by his Chief of Staff. He said that the importance of local government administration in the country could not be overemphasised, as it was the bedrock of democracy.According to him, local governments in Nigeria play key roles in the country’s democracy by promoting participatory democracy, providing services, and representing citizens.“Local Governments help determine local needs and how to meet them. They also act as a link between the centre, state, and local people.“They are created to decentralise power and bring the government closer to the people. They perform both mandatory and concurrent functions.“It is in view of this that I took it upon myself to enhance the viability of local governments through the Paris and London club loan refunds,”he said.Dr Folashade Olabanji-Oba, ALGOVC National Chairman, while presenting the award at its 7th Annual National Conference, said the award was in recognition of the lawmaker’s significant contributions to strengthening local government administration.She highlighted Nwoko’s critical role in ensuring the Paris and London Club loan refunds, a financial breakthrough she said enhanced the capacity of local governments nationwide.(NAN)
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