Atiku, Dino, Ayu, PDP Members Protest In Front Of INEC Office

 

Arsenal Women FC Beat Chelsea Women FC To Win 6th Conti Cup

 

Resign, Don’t Blame Your Staff – Atiku Tells INEC Chairman

 The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, has called on the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, to resign from his position.

INEC declared the flagbearer of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, the winner of the February 25 election with 8,794,726 votes.

Tinubu beat Atiku who polled 6,984,520 votes and the Labour Party, LP, candidate Peter Obi who secured 6,101,533 votes.

Yakubu, during a meeting with the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) yesterday, noted that a number of issues affected the outcome of the polls.

He vowed that officials responsible for the infractions wouldn’t be involved in the gubernatorial poll on March 11 and would face disciplinary actions.

However, Atiku in a statement signed by his Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, on Sunday said: “Prof. Yakubu should be man enough to own up to his failure.

“A fish rots from the head down, and that is what has happened at INEC.

“Rather than suspend any staff, the INEC chairman is the one that needs to step aside as his first act of contrition.”

Osun Governor Ademola Adeleke's 100 Days In Office

 100 DAYS IN OFFICE, OSUN IS PROGRESSING WITH GOVERNOR ADEMOLA ADELEKE

ONGOING AND COMPLETED PROJECTS OF GOVERNOR ADEMOLA ADELEKE UNDER 100 DAYS


1. Provision of portable Borehole in each of the 332 wards in Osun State.

2. Construction of 20km road across Osun State.

3. Presentation of #518M to 40 communities in Osun state for infrastructural developments.

4. Imole Surgical and Medical Outreach : 2000 persons in each of the 9 Federal Constituencies in Osun State, making a total of 18,000 beneficiaries who received free surgeries.

5. Rural Electrification Projects across Osun State. Provision of transformers and other electrical materials to ensure that communities without electricity can have light.

6. Payment of Salaries and Pensions arrears from January 2016 owed by the past administration.

7. Enrolment of 3332 Osun indigenes (10 per ward) on the Osun Health Insurance Scheme (OHIS), to ensure adequate healthcare access for the vulnerable for 5 years.

8. Construction of broken bridge at Bókùsọ́rọ̀/Adẹ́kẹ́ in Iwo to forestall loss of life on the bridge in the bridge due to erosion.

9. Resumption of the construction of the Osogbo/Ikirun Kwara boundary road abandoned by the past administration.

10. Launched Osun on Tech Revolution through New Tech Innovation Policy, ICT Policy, Domestication of Nigeria's Startup Act and Osun Google Mapping Project.

11. Osun is the first state in Nigeria to domesticate the Nigeria Startup Act.

LIST OF ROADS AND INTERVENTION PROJECTS

1. Dualization of Osogbo-Ikirun road with street light, 10.5km:, OSOGBO 

2. Ọja Ọba (Iso Isu/Iso ata/Iso Eran/Iso Ewe) - First Baptist Model Academy with spur to oba Oyetona Street, 200 :, OSOGBO 

3. Enuwa - Oniyangi - Ita Osun - Oke Atam with spur to Egbedu Ilode Junction Ile Ife:, IFE 

4. Ibadan/Ife Express Road Junction - Islamiya Okiti junction Ikire 1165 - IKIRE 

5. Alajue junction, (Ojularede Street) Bode junction, Admus filling station, Ọja Oje Ede. 2890 - EDE.

6. Monday Market - Railway Station Road Ikirun, 1200 - IKIRUN 

7. Iresi Township Road 3000 - IRESI 

8. Ansarudeen Central Mosque Junction - Kuti Junction - Hospital Road Iwo 1550 - IWO

9. Ita-Ofa-Oromu - Araromi (Market Gate) Ilesa 770 - ILESA 

10. Atakunmosa Market Road, Obiteni Ọmọ Ode Road 400 - ILESA 

11. Oke Oye, Oke Ita with spur to Ogodogbo with sour to Temidire Road, Obokun 1300 - ILESA 

12. Rehabilitation of Gbenga Junction - John Mackay ( Oke Ayepe Costain) Osogbo (Phase 1) 1KM - OSOGBO 

13. Rehabilitation of Oloruntedo community (Costain John Mackay-East Bypass, Osogbo (Phase 2) 1.5km - OSOGBO 

14. Rehabilitation of Anuolu Hospital - Hamadiya Power line (Ede) 1km - EDE 

15. Rehabilitation of Ogberin Junction- Akala - Oloki junction, Oluoboni, Iso Ege 2.055- EDE


CRITICAL INTERVENTION 

1 . Spot Patching of Lameco - Station Road. 

2. Oke-Fia - Dele Yes Sir 

3. Oke Oni Tea Failed Section 

4. Owode Failed Section. 

5. Grading of 10km community road in each of the local government of Osun State.

Bode George: My Plan To Leave Nigeria After Tinubu’s Victory On Course

 A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Bode George, shares with AYOOLA OLASUPO his thoughts on the declaration of Bola Tinubu as the President-elect among other national issues

What is your general assessment of the presidential and National Assembly elections held on Saturday?

Without missing words, it was shambolic, shameless and full of inadequacies and futility. I am so heartbroken because I thought we were going to lift Nigeria to the level of a civilised world, that from every polling station, the results would be transmitted electronically into the server and it was done during Anambra, Ekiti and Osun states governorship elections. We were all clapping, happy, and ready to elevate this nation from the dull room of filth to the level of a civilised world. And as a professor, I am so disappointed, because if the National Chairman of INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, knew that there were hitches in the system, the best he could have done morally was to say ‘stop’ to all these operations. He continued with the shenanigans, rubbish and nonsense and started collating, and went back to the old system where they were manipulating the results.

Did you see it coming that Atiku would lose the election?



In our party, I kept shouting and reminding these people that a divided house will be a defeated house. We have created the avenue for these things but that will be a port-mortem analysis within the party. As an elder in the party and a member of the Board of Trustees, we saw it coming. We discussed it because of the failings of the managers of the party. I told them that the South-West had been completely disenfranchised. Look at the way those children came out. The kids between the ages of 18 and 35 came out in millions believing this is the time. They want to change the direction of Nigeria but what did we give them?

Would you ascribe that loss to the lack of support from the G-5 and Integrity Group?

Of course, where did Peter Obi come from? Most of the people who got angry went away from the PDP; a divided house is a defeated house. You said the South-West doesn’t matter. If they added Obi’s votes to PDP’s, Tinubu would have been washed away. Divided we fall, and you can see it even with the manipulation that they did. The Labour Party won them because people are tired of the All Progressives Congress. In Lagos now they are trying now to espouse the theory of Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour being an Igbo man. You see the lie, who told them Rhodes-Vivour is an Igbo man? Saturday is the election and it will be based on justice, fairness, and equity. I pray that Yakubu and his team use the electronic transmission of results otherwise he will send this country to the bottom of the sea.

Peter Obi Hires 20 SANs To Challenge Presidential Election Result

 The Labour Party said it had engaged the services of at least 20 senior advocates of Nigeria to challenge the outcome of the February 25 presidential election on behalf of its presidential candidate, Peter Obi.

According to sources within the party, the lawyers drawn from different chambers were being furnished with materials that would be used as evidence in court.

The president-elect and candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, was announced the winner of the keenly contested election last Wednesday.

Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and the LP flag bearer, who got 6,984,520 and 6,101,533 votes respectively.

But Atiku and Obi rejected the results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission, with each claiming at separate press conferences that the election was fraught with violence and massive rigging.

The drama took a twist last Friday when the two major opposition candidates were reported to have approached the court to seek permission for the inspection of election materials used during the poll.

At least six states – Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Sokoto – had dragged the Federal Government before the Supreme Court over the conduct of the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections before withdrawing the case last Friday.

How Wike Led Ugwuanyi, Ortom, Ikpeazu To Electoral Defeat

 Three of the five aggrieved governors of the Peoples Democratic Party lost their bids to go to the Senate, DIRISU YAKUBU examines the implication of the loss for the governors and the members of the Integrity Group led by the outgoing Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike

For months, reconciliatory efforts were made by chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party to bring its aggrieved five governors back to its fold but to no avail. For Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers State and leader of the Integrity Group, together with his four colleagues, Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State, Samuel Ortom of Benue State and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State, there was no pathway to peace unless Iyorchia Ayu, the National Chairman of the PDP stepped aside before the elections.

The governors premised their anti-Ayu stand on the alleged violation of the PDP constitution which provides for fair distribution of elective and national offices between the North and South. They maintained that with Atiku Abubakar’s emergence as the party’s presidential candidate, Ayu’s continued chairmanship was no longer acceptable.

Following the collapse of peace talks between the two sides, Atiku kept Ayu and worked with loyal governors of the party for the presidential election which was held on February 25.

PDP chieftains including its immediate past National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, ex-National Secretary, Ibrahim Tsauri, former Governors Ahmed Makarfi (Kaduna), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Ibrahim Idris (Kogi) and a host of others had argued that it was in the interest of the rebellious governors to sheathe their swords and team up with Atiku.

Tsauri was particularly philosophical; he told our correspondent in an interview that “It is better for your enemy to win in your party than for your friend to win in a rival party.” As it were, the Wike-led group rebuffed the gestures and counsel of party faithful including their colleague governors.

In several meetings held home and abroad, Wike assured the PDP that lessons would be learnt the hard way, even as he vowed on behalf of others to reveal their adopted candidate before the election.

But unlike Wike who was not contesting any position, Makinde is seeking re-election while the trio of Ortom, Ikpeazu and Ugwuanyi were seeking seats in the Senate to represent their respective senatorial districts.

At the final collation of ballots however, the outgoing governors lost their elections, granting their enemies and political opponents the grounds to mock them.

Ortom lost to Titus Zam of the All Progressives Congress in the race for the Benue North-West Senatorial District. Zam, who served as Special Adviser to Governor Ortom on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs before his defection to the APC, polled a total of 143,151 votes to defeat Ortom who polled 106, 882 votes.

Like Ortom, Ugwuanyi had no answer to the Peter Obi-induced Labour Party hurricane that swept across the country in a spectacular fashion. His bid to represent Enugu North was frustrated by Okechukwu Ezea of the LP whose 104, 948 votes were far above the governor’s 46,948 votes.

The story was the same with Ikpeazu who lost to the All Progressives Grand Alliance candidate, Enyinnaya Abaribe, who garnered a total of 49, 903 votes to beat LP’s Chinedu Onyeizu and Ikpeazu as the duo secured 43, 903 and 28, 422 votes respectively.

Some analysts who spoke to our correspondent made some posers; were the governors not aware that Wike had little to lose in the game that saw them more as anti-party agents than believers in the PDP creed? Could they have won had they remained loyal to the Ayu-led National Working Committee without bickering? And didn’t they know it was difficult for people to vote for different parties in elections that held the same day and the same polling units at the same time, since they already took a stand not to support their party in the presidential election?

There seems to be no straight answers to these posers but Timothy Osadolor, the Deputy National Youth Leader of the PDP, is of the view that the outgoing governors failed to realise that they had a life outside their agitation for Ayu to go.