Governor Amaechi took N30 billion from Rivers state to fund APC's presidential campaign - Wike

The Former Minister of State for Education and the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Rivers State, Chief Nyesom Wike, has accused the Rivers State Governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, of spending the sum N30 billion to fund the presidential campaign of the All Progressives Congress.

Wike explained that the development had made it impossible for the state government to pay workers’ salaries, adding that the governor was using state resources to fund the APC with the hope that he would be picked as the running mate to the APC presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari.
Wike pointed out that Amaechi was being deceived by the leadership of the APC to continue to fund the party and added that the APC leadership had never been interested in selecting the governor as Buhari’s running mate.



Speaking during his thank you visit to Ikwerre Local Government Area on Thursday, Wike stated that the future of Nigerians was in the PDP and not the APC.

“Do you know why workers’ salaries have not been paid? Amaechi spent N30 billion in funding the presidential campaign of the APC. They (APC leadership) allowed him to spend the money and later, they called him mugu (fool).

“They (APC) leadership said we will not make this ‘boy’ who does not respect the President (Jonathan) the vice president. We should know that our future is in the PDP and not the APC,” Wike stressed.

He urged the people of Ikwerre to vote for him and President Goodluck Jonathan, adding that he would review the value of land Amaechi bought from them for the Greater Port Harcourt project.
The former minister decried the statement credited to the APC governorship candidate in the state, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, that he (Peterside) would build on Amaechi’s legacy.

According to him, some of the governor’s actions on the state judiciary, monorail project were not worth continuing as a legacy.

Wike, however, disclosed that he would unveil his running mate on Tuesday, promising that a woman would emerge as his deputy.

Reacting to Wike’s allegation, the State Commissioner for Information and Communication, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, said the PDP governor spoke without facts, even as she challenged him to show any proof that Amaechi was funding the APC.

Describing Wike’s allegation as false and baseless, Semenitari insisted that nobody would spend such an amount on political campaigns, insisting that the state government will not dignify the suck statement with responses.

“Rivers State Government will not dignify such unintelligent talk with responses. We will not respond to unintelligent talk; we will not react to stupid conjecturing,” Semenitari stressed.

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Osinbajo joins other passengers in BRT bus, tells Nigerians to vote Buhari

The vice presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the 2015 presidential election, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, on Thursday said the country needed a man of integrity, such as the APC’s flag bearer, Maj. Gen. Muhamadu Buhari, to end corruption in the country.


Osinbajo, who joined passengers in the Bus Rapid Transit from the Tafawa Balewa Square to Barracks area of Lagos, urged Nigerians to vote for Buhari, saying the former military Head of State is the only one that can curb corruption in the country.

The former Lagos State Commissioner for Justice addressed passengers in the bus, saying he would utilise “unusual opportunities to reach out to Nigerians on the need to vote out the PDP.”

He said, “Every Nigerian knows that Maj. Gen. Buhari is a no-nonsense person. He is going to make changes that would turn Nigeria around for the better. Remember that the APC is the party of change. Collect your PVC and ensure that you vote for the APC.

“The only way to make an omelet is to break an egg. You have to do something and I think that all of us, whatever it is that we are involved in must be interested in making a difference in this country. This country needs help desperately. Considering the economy and the security challenges, everyone of us must be involved in trying to get a change.”

While responding to a question by one of the BRT passengers, identified as Mfawa Edet, on whether Buhari was sponsoring Boko Haram, Osinbajo dismissed the allegations as “pure propaganda.” He noted that if Buhari was sponsoring the Boko Haram sect, they would not have attempted to kill him.

The arrival of Osinbajo at Barracks area of Lagos attracted some APC supporters and caused a mild gridlock on the road. Party supporters, who chanted solidarity songs, struggled to take photographs with him.

Giving an account of his stewardship as a former Attorney General of Lagos State, Osinbajo said the Lagos State judiciary recorded huge success because he enforced a zero tolerance policy for corruption.

He said during his tenure, 22 magistrates and three judges were sacked because of corruption-related cases.

He said, “In 1999, there was a survey, a great percentage said there was so much corruption in the judiciary in Lagos State. We decided on a plan; first we increased the salaries of the members of staff, we also decided that if a report was made about any judge, we follow up the report and treat any complaint of injustice, involve in investigation and we will reach a logical conclusion.”

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Confession of a 14-year-old female bomber: 'My parents took me to Boko Haram, volunteered me to take part in suicide attack'

A 14-year-old Nigerian girl who was arrested with explosives strapped to her body told journalists Wednesday that her parents volunteered her to take part in a suicide attack.

The girl, who was identified as Zahra’u Babangida, was arrested in Kano on December 10 following a double suicide bombing in a market that killed 10 people.

She was presented to journalists by police and instructed to recount how Islamist militants allegedly forced her to take part in the attack.

She said her mother and father, both Boko Haram sympathisers, took her to an insurgent hideout in a forest near the town of Gidan Zana in Kano state.

NABBED: 14 year old female suicide bomber, Zahra’u Babangida

She said one alleged militant leader asked her whether she knew what a suicide bombing was.
“They said, ‘Can you do it?’ I said no.

“They said, ‘You will go to heaven if you do it.’ I said ‘No I can’t.’ They said they would shoot me or throw me into a dungeon,” Zahra’u told journalists.

There was no way to independently verify her story and she had no lawyer present. No information was available concerning the whereabouts of her parents.

Police said they had instructed the girl to tell her story to boost public awareness about those responsible for the December 10 attack.

Faced with the threat of death, Zahra’u said she finally agreed to take part in the attack but “never had any intention of doing it.”

Several days later, Zahra’u said, she and three other girls, all wearing explosives, were brought to the Kantin Kwari market by unidentified men.

Zahra’u said she was injured when one of the girls detonated her bomb and then she fled the scene, ending up at a hospital on the outskirts of Kano where she was discovered to be carrying explosives.

Boko Haram has increasingly used female suicide bombers, including teenagers, as part of their five-year insurgency.

Kano, the largest city in the mainly Muslim north, saw four such attacks in one week in July, while similar bombings have hit the states of Bauchi and Niger.

Experts say the group has used girls as bombers to demonstrate the range of tactics they have available to sow fear across Nigeria.

If confirmed, Zahra’u’s story would be the first known case of parents volunteering their daughter to take part in a deadly attack.

Violence in northern Nigeria has intensified in recent months, raising security fears ahead of February 14 elections.

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Traffic offenders may spend Christmas in jail - FRSC

The Federal Road Safety Commission says some road traffic offenders may spend the Christmas holidays in jail.

The FRSC Zonal Commander in-charge of zone 5, Mr Charles Akpabio, told the News Agency of Nigeria in Onitsha, Anambra State, that the commission would deploy mobile and magistrate courts in all road corridors.

Akpabio, who is in-charge of zone 5, comprising Anambra, Delta and Edo states, said the move would act as a deterrent to road traffic offenders and a reminder to their families and friends to keep warning them to be careful while on the road.

He said, “Now, the essence is to allow them to explain themselves to the judge or to the magistrate – like ‘no, I didn’t commit the offence; it is not true or I committed the offence, I am sorry’.

“If the magistrate decides to allow them to go free, they are free; if the magistrate decides that with the evidence available before the court and say ‘no, don’t go free, pay the fine’.

“Sometimes, in some cases, they can say ‘pay the fine and go to jail’, or ‘go to jail without option of fine’. They will show, they will be a deterrent to other road users.

“And for the numbers of years we have utilised mobile courts and magistrate courts in our operations, they have been very effective.

“So, this time around, we intend to utilise the mobile courts as well on all the (road) corridors.

“Some offenders that would be arrested for speed violation, dangerous driving, use of phone while driving, driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol and driving with expired spare tyre and overloading, may likely, by the judgment of the courts, spend the Christmas or New Year or New Year and Christmas in jail.”

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How to lose the presidential election four times - Femi Aribisala

If one were to decode the guiding principle of Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential ambitions, it would be this: “If at first you don’t succeed, don’t give up until you have failed three more times on the trot.”

Nigerians don’t want Muhammadu Buhari to be our president. We have said this repeatedly since 1999. But Buhari simply refuses to take “No” for an answer. When is he finally going to get the message that an overwhelming majority of Nigerians don’t want him?

Buhari is the last of yesterday’s men who insist that a country of 170 million people must continue to rely on the leadership of the same old and failed generation. Nigerians have already put paid to the presumptions of Olusegun Obasanjo; who wanted a fourth term; Ibrahim Babangida; who stepped aside and wanted to step back in; and Atiku Abubakar, who runs a marathon for the presidency. Buhari is the last of these recalcitrant dinosaurs. The one good thing about the coming presidential election is that it is likely to provide Nigerians with a final definitive opportunity to send him permanently into retirement.

Buhari’s repeated failure to secure a national mandate provides a textbook case of how not to run for the presidency in a plural country like Nigeria. This is a compendium of some of the reasons why the Nigerian presidency will forever elude men like Buhari, inspite of all the song and dance that attends their candidacies. If anybody would like to be a serial loser of the presidential election in Nigeria, here is a list of what he needs to do; according to the blueprint of Muhammadu Buhari.

Be an enemy of democracy
Claim you are anti-corruption but steal the presidency of the entire country through an illegal and fraudulent military coup. Claim you are a democrat after you overthrew a democratically elected government in 1983 and made yourself Head of State without the consent of the people of Nigeria. As military Head of State, refuse to entertain any plan for a return to civilian rule. Tell Nigerians that anyone who discusses a return to civil rule would be arrested.

Overthrow a government, but be more against the opposition than the government in power. Establish manhunts for key politicians in the length and breadth of the country. Nevertheless, allow key elements of the ruling NPN to escape out of the country, including party chairman, Richard Akinloye; legal counsel, Richard Akinjide; and Minister of Transport, Umaru Dikko. Allow the Secretary-General of the party, Uba Ahmed, to escape abroad, even after he had mistakenly returned to the country and was arrested and jailed.

Violate human rights: Promulgate the infamous Decree 2 that makes even the reporting of the truth a punishable offence. Use it to imprison Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabo, two journalists from the South, for reporting stories that were factually true. Then tell Nigerian journalists: “It does not matter whether the story reported was true or not, if my regime does not like it, the writer would go to jail.”
Try Nigerian civilians in military tribunals as opposed to regular courts of law in violation of internationally acceptable legal norms. Create a secret police, the National Security Organization (NSO) for the first time in Nigeria’s history under infamous Lawal Rafindadi to harass and imprison without trial Nigerian citizens in clear violation of their human rights.

Publicly murder three Nigerians; Lawal Ojuolape (30), Bernard Ogedengbe (29) and Bartholomew Owoh (26): two from the South-West and one from the South East, under the dubious Decree 20 for drug-related offences. Ignore the fact that, at the time they committed their crimes, their offences were not punishable by the death sentences.

Nevertheless, maliciously backdate the death-sentence with illegal retroactive decrees that violate every international norm of due process and human rights just in order to kill these three hapless young men. In spite of widespread international condemnation for this, refuse to show any remorse or contrition or to apologise for this judicial murder till date.

When asked to appear before the Justice Oputa “Truth and Reconciliation Panel” in order to answer for a litany of abuses of power and violation of human rights while in power as Nigeria’s military Head of State, refuse to appear showing your contempt for Nigerians.

Discriminate against the South: Balance a Northern Fulani
Head of State with another Northern Fulani deputy. Conduct a coup d’état, ostensibly to overthrow a corrupt Nigerian government. However, be so ethnically chauvinistic that you put Dr. Alex Ekwueme, the vice-president who took none of the decisions under lock-and-key in jail in Kirikiri because he is Igbo and Christian. At the same time, put Alhaji Shehu Shagari, the president who was the person in charge under house arrest in a palatial mansion in Ikoyi, Lagos because he happens to be the same as you: Fulani and Muslim.

Make Northern politicians sacred cows and untouchable. Fail to arrest and prosecute none of the prominent Hausa/Fulani politicians who were the principal actors in the government you overthrew; including Adamu Ciroma, Suleiman Takuma, Aliu Gusau, Lawal Kaita, Barkin Zuwo, Shehu Kangiwa and Awwal Ibrahim.

Southern politicians
At the same time, jail Southern politicians, including Bisi Onabanjo, Ambrose Alli, Lateef Jakande, Jim Nwobodo, and others on trumped up charges that could not be substantiated in any court of law. Try octogenarian Michael Ajasin of the South-West before a tribunal. When he is discharged and acquitted; try him again. When he is discharged and acquitted again, try him a third time. When he is discharged and acquitted yet again, keep him in indefinite detention without just cause.

Maltreat Southern leaders: Send a team of soldiers to ransack the Park Lane, Apapa residence of elder Southern statesman, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Give no reason whatsoever for this blatant violation of the old man’s privacy. Seize his international passport for no just cause. Later, try to pull the wool over the eyes of the Yorubas by choosing a man married to Awolowo’s grand-daughter as your vice-presidential running-mate.

Lock Emeka Ojukwu, an Igbo man from the South, in prison in Kirikiri with the politicians of the Second Republic, in spite of the fact that he committed no crime and held no public office in the Second Republic. Moreover, after Ojukwu returned to Nigeria after 13 years of exile, he received a full pardon from the president of Nigeria for his activities as leader of the secessionist government of Biafra. Provide Nigerians with no explanation whatsoever for the exact offence that led to Ojukwu’s arrest and incarceration.

Get booted out of office by your own clique in the army. Have your colleague, Ibrahim Babangida, give this testimony about you: “regrettably it turned out that (he) was too rigid and uncompromising in his attitudes to issues of national significance. Efforts to make him understand that a diverse polity like Nigeria required recognition and appreciation of differences in both cultural and individual perceptions only served to aggravate the attitudes.”

Corrupt practices: Prohibit the importation of naira into the country during a much ballyhooed currency exchange programme. Then contravene your own policy by having your ADC, Colonel Mustapha Jokolo, allow his father, the Emir of Gwandu from the North, to smuggle into the country through Muritala Muhammed International Airport 53 suitcases which the then Area Administrator of the Lagos Airport Customs Command, Atiku Abubakar, was not allowed to search.

At the same time, sentence Afrobeat musician, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, a Yoruba man from the South-West, to 20 months in jail for being in possession of foreign-exchange he had legitimately procured for the upkeep of his band on a foreign trip. Because Fela mocked you in his songs for being unable to address the problems of Nigeria, declare to Nigerians that: “I decided to deal with this Fela problem once and for all.” Face public embarrassment because the judge who pronounced the sentence on Fela later confessed that he was ordered to jail him.

Disregard for Nigeria’s secularity:As military Head of State, contravene the country’s secularity by having Nigeria apply to join the Organisation of Islamic States (OIC). The application finally came through in 1986 and divided the country acrimoniously along Muslim/Christian lines.

Tell Muslims not to vote for Christians. Reveal to Nigerians that you are a religious bigot by declaring in Kaduna in 2001 that: “I will continue to show openly and inside me the total commitment to the Sharia movement that is sweeping all over Nigeria. God willing, we will not stop the agitation for the total implementation of the Sharia in the country.” Say this, in spite of the fact that declaring some states as sharia states is in clear violation of the secularity of Nigeria’s federalism, as contained in section 10 of the Constitution of Nigeria

Anti-corruption contradictions
Claim to be an anti-corruption crusader; nevertheless, agree to serve under Sani Abacha, one of the most corrupt Heads-of-State ever in the history of Nigeria. On the 10th anniversary of General Abacha’s demise, tell incredulous Nigerians that Abacha did not steal anything while he was Nigeria’s Head of State. Describe all the allegations of looting the treasury leveled against Abacha as “baseless.” Maintain that: “ten years after Abacha, those allegations remain unproven because of lack of facts.”

Hold this position in spite of the millions of dollars of Abacha’s loot recovered from banks around the world, and in spite of the fact that the Abacha’s family signed a formal agreement to return over $1 billion to the Nigerian government.

As chairman of the juiciest portfolio of all under Sani Abacha’s government; the Petroleum Trust Fund with a budget of 181 billion naira between 1994 and 1999, fail woefully to curb the rampant corruption in the organisation. When in 2000, President Obasanjo set up an Interim Management Committee to look into the affairs of the PTF under the chairmanship of Haroun Adamu, it was discovered that over 25 billion naira was stolen under your watch.

Claim to be an anti-corruption crusader, but Group Captain Usman Jibrin, a board member of PTF, resigned from the organization in protest over the blatant irregularities in your appointment of consultants.

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Jonathan, a highly-focused Ph.D holder is set to contest against a semi-literate candidate – PDP

The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party has said that its presidential candidate in the forthcoming election, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, will be contesting against a semi-literate candidate.

Ostensibly referring to the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), the party also said the election would be between Jonathan and “a military jackboot.”


Buhari, a former head of state, is the only presidential candidate who has a military background .


Section 131(d) of the 1999 Constitution allows anyone with school certificate qualification to contest any elective office in the country.

The PDP, through its National Secretary, Dr. Wale Oladipo, said when some leaders of the PDP in the Diaspora visited its national secretariat in Abuja on Monday that there was no way the President would not win the election.

It said, “The next election is going to be between darkness and light. It is going to be between a cosmopolitan highly-focused Ph.D holder and a semi-literate jackboot.

“Our candidate is a man who believes in integrating the economy of Nigeria into the world economic order. He is a man who believes that the power sector should continue to be reformed so that we will attain the level of power generation and distribution that is commensurate with our aspiration in terms of industrial development. Nigeria cannot afford to go back. We will continue to move forward.”

The party said having won three presidential elections in which Buhari ran on the platforms of different political parties, there was no way it would not floor the APC which had decided to field the former military leader as its presidential candidate.

Describing the APC as a party not ready to offer alternatives, the party advised Nigerians to remain with it.

It said, “Even though we are not a perfect party, our mission is perfect.

“We do not belong to any religious organisation and we don’t belong to any ethnic group. In preparing for the next election, which is not going to be like previous ones because for the first time, the opposition has coupled together a contraption that is called the APC.

“They have passed through the motion and endorsed their perennial candidate. We have beaten him three times, we are going to beat him once again.

“The APC is not a political party that is ready to offer an alternative to the teeming masses of this country. The only agenda they seem to have is to see our back.”

The PDP said that God had decided that Nigeria would not only continue to wax stronger, he had also “decided that this country will not go back to 1983 when we had to start doing trade-by-barter with Brazil; when we went back 500 years to start practising what our ancestors practised when there was no currency in this country.”

“God has decried it that we will continue to pilot the affairs of this country and continue to implement the transformation agenda,” the PDP added.

But the Director of Publicity of the Buhari 2015 Support Group Centre, Dr. Chidia Maduekwe, expressed shock about the PDP comments, saying they showed the depth of their understanding of Buhari.

He said, “How can the PDP refer to a man who had his initial military training in Nigeria and the best officer cadet training institutions in the world as semi-literate. They are so lazy that they can not check Gen. Buhari’s profile in this internet age.The general went to the Military Training College in Kaduna; the Mons Officer Cadet School in the United Kingdom; the Defence Services College in India and the Army War College in the United States. The certificates given by these institutions are equivalent to university degrees.

“If they want a copy of the general’s CV(Curriculum Vitae), they are welcome to have one.”

The BSGC boss advised that it would better serve public interest if the record of performance of Buhari was put side-by-side that of Jonathan.

According to him, it was pedestrian for the PDP to reduce the issues at stake to educational qualification.

Maduekwe said, “Buhari had the opportunity to govern this nation in the past and his records are there for all to see.

“He managed our economy very well and paid up our debts and built up our foreign reserves. This was a man who was in charge when our refineries were built; this was a man who was in charge of the PTF(Petroleum Trust Fund) and left an enviable record.

“Contrast him with our Ph.D holder (Jonathan) who has run our economy aground and our foreign reserves depleted and we are today raking up debts.

“Under this Ph.D holder, Nigeria has come last among nations in the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals with a 2015 deadline. Nigeria came last because; we have a PDP government which is visionless. Nigerians certainly do not want a continuity of this suffering.”

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Only Chadian government can resolve Boko Haram insurgency – Modu Sheriff

Former Borno State governor, Ali Modu Sheriff, has shed more light on the Boko Haram militancy currently plaguing some parts of the country, stressing that only the neighbouring Republic of Chad could help solve the menace.

The ex-governor accused of being a sponsor of the terrorist sect while being interviewed on BBC Hausa Service programme (Gane Mini Hanya) on Saturday and monitored in Abuja, denied allegations that Boko Haram started during his tenure as governor between 2003 and 2011, saying the radical islamist sect actually started in Yobe State in 1992.

Sheriff, who said he was passionate about restoring peace to Borno, maintained that his resolve to find a lasting solution to insurgency in the region has seen him holding talks with the Chadian government.

The governor, who would not say how Chad could possibly help in resolving the crisis, noted that as one of the few politicians to have benefitted greatly from the kindness of Borno State, he is doing whatever it is to help solve the insurgency.

His words, “Nothing preoccupies my mind in Nigeria presently like the return of peace in Borno. When Borno State was peaceful, there was no place I cherished to stay in the world like Maiduguri. I, my friends, my confidants, my parents and all the schools I attended are in Maiduguri.

“Therefore, I am more concerned than anybody in this country, because what Borno State did for me has not been done to any other indigene. You know, in Borno State, a governor has never been re-elected apart from me; in Borno State, no senator has ever been elected thrice apart from me. So, Borno people have done everything for me, and there is no one in this world that I know other than Chad, which I think could help Borno,” he posited.

Restating that claims of him being behind Boko Haram remains a frame up, Sheriff said: “They defamed my character, and when they started it, I once told journalists that it was plotted in Maiduguri. We know the plotters, their motives, and that by the grace of God, the truth will prevail; and now, the arrested impostors have said it all to the world.”

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FG withdraws N310bn from Excess Crude Account in six months

The Federal Government withdrew a total sum of N310.05bn from the Excess Crude Account within the first six months of this year, a document obtained from the Budget Office of the Federation showed.


The 2014 second quarter budget implementation report jointly signed by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and the Director-General, BOF, Dr Bright Okogu, stated that the amount was used to settle various obligations of the Federal Government due to its inability to meet its revenue targets.

A copy of the report obtained by our correspondent on Sunday stated that the withdrawals for the first half of this year was significantly lower than the N1.257tn taken from the account within the first six months of 2013.

The ECA was set up in 2004 to serve as a stabilisation and savings account to protect planned budgets against revenue shortfalls due to volatility in crude oil prices.

By isolating government expenditures from oil revenues, the ECA aims to insulate the Nigerian economy from external shocks.

Shortly after the account was set, there was an increase in crude oil prices, which led to the balance in the ECA increasing from $5.1bn to over $20bn by November 2008.

But owing to declining oil revenue, which was caused by pipeline vandalism, oil theft and production shut-ins, the account recorded massive withdrawals, with the balance moving from $20bn in 2008 to $11.5bn at the end of 2012, and $2.5bn in January this year.

The drop in the account had led to disagreements between the federal and state governments, with the latter complaining about the way the account was managed.

But the budget monitoring report stated that while N310.05bn was the total outflows from the ECA, the government was able to ensure that within the period, the sum of N389.72bn was transferred into the account.

A breakdown of the inflow showed that the sum of N158.45bn was transferred into the account in the first quarter, while N231.27bn was paid into the ECA in the second quarter of 2014

The report stated, “The ECA was set up to serve as a stabilisation and savings account. Inflows into the ECA in the second quarter of 2014 amounted to N231.27bn.

“The inflow in the second quarter of 2014 was N72.82bn or 45.96 per cent higher than N158.45bn and N41.88bn or 15.33 per cent lower than the N273.15bn recorded in the first quarter of 2014 and second quarter of 2013, respectively.

“A total of N155.17bn was withdrawn from the account in the second quarter of 2014.”

A breakdown of the outflows of N310.05bn showed that a huge chunk of N213.3bn was used to augment monthly revenue distribution among the three tiers of government, while N93.2bn was withdrawn to pay for petroleum products’ subsidy.

The balance of N3.55bn, according to the report, was transferred into the Special Intervention Fund.

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