POLITICS
Three Aspirants Jostling for NNPP’s 2023 Presidential Ticket – Founder
The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) says at least, three aspirants have indicated intention to vie for its ticket to contest for the nation’s presidency in the 2023 general elections. Dr Boniface Aniebonam, NNPP pioneer National Chairman and founder, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Lagos.
Aniebonam, who noted that the future of the party was bright with top politicians coming into the fold, singled out former Kano governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso as one of the big wigs that had attracted a mass of good will for the political group.
According to him, the popularity of NNPP has continued to spread in the north and the south as it moves to provide a strong leadership that will create a new Nigeria in 2023.
“NNPP is open for any Nigerian man that has divine calling to lead Nigeria at this critical critical. Once it is within the time frame, the door is open.“At least three persons have shown intention to contest the presidency on the platform of NNPP. I have seen their posters. One is from the North, one from the South-East and another from the South-West. We expect more.”Aniebonam said that the party was available for credible aspirants whose dream was to create a new Nigeria.
Explaining why the party was gaining more ground in the north than in the South, Aniebonam said that politics was “a kind of industry better understood in the north”, adding, however, that the party had also been spreading in the southern Nigeria.
He said that the party had been creating awareness and was ready to popularise its ideals everywhere. “Within these two months, we have conducted congress elections from the ward, local government, state to national levels throughout the federation. “NNPP is not a party of yesterday, it is a party that has been growing gradually. The gale of defections into its fold gave it a boost. We are in all parts of the federation. We are coming and will be there,” he declared.
Aniebonam said that NNPP had been making waves in some parts of the Southwest, Southeast and South south, saying that the party would soon roll out its campaign strategy. On how NNPP intended to get credible candidates to fly the party’s tickets in 2023, Aniebonam said that there would be investigative procedure that would look at aspirants’ track record of integrity, capacity and experience.
He said the party would be presenting candidates committed to bequeathing to Nigeria enduring infrastructure, economy and peaceful existence. “A cardinal policy of the NNPP is to sit the people of Nigeria down to look at the issue of fiscal federalism and the need to live in peace,” he said.
The NNPP founder called on the media to be bold toward building a Nigeria that would work for all.On the agitation for Igbo Presidency, Aniebonam said that the two major political parties that had such internal arrangement must respect that gentleman agreement and implement it.
“The PDP and APC have been in power over time and should be faithful to their zoning arrangement. “In the NNPP, zoning is not our priority. We have never tasted power, we do not even know what is zoning.
“As far as we are concerned, we are in search of a person that can make us show Nigerians that those things that have been our problems over the years can be resolved.” He said that political leaders in Nigeria should be conscious and passionate about the children while also prioritising fairness, justice, equity and fear of God.
Aniebonam said that the pulse of the nation required someone to rescue the masses in 2023. The NNPP founder said: “Who comes to lead us now and bring us out from where we are should be what will be in the mind of a patriotic Nigerian.“The person that has that divine calling to salvage Nigeria from its challenges. That is what should occupy the mind of a patriot.
“With the state of the nation now, Nigeria needs to be salvaged. “When you look at Nigeria, you must be equitable, fair and just to every ethnic group. “What we need is a great leader who is courageous enough to sit down and invite all the critical stakeholders that made up Nigeria in a roundtable, and look at how to keep Nigeria working and going. That’s is the way out.”
The NNPP leader said there was need to tinker tinker with the nation’s constitution, and suggested the need for Nigerians to give themselves a brand new constitution that would resolve all issues.
Aniebonam decried the security situation, inflation and unemployment in the country, and alleged that conspiracy at some quarters was responsible for the lingering insecurity. “We have to look at the issues critically. With state police, proper profiling of people and involvement of traditional institutions, the situation can be resolved.
“If we want to do away with insecurity, it requires leadership and decisiveness. We need a divinely courageous man to make decisions. “If there is support to the royal highnesses as chief security officers of a town, and we profile everybody living in our domain, insecurity will stop,” he said. (NAN)
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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