Nigeria Now

Happy Sunday

What do you need?

The Recent developments in our nation continue to raise serious concerns about the direction we are headed as a democracy. The tension in the land aggravated by hardship is being needlessly fueled by our attitude to the rule of law and human rights.

The arrest of Martin Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), though perhaps within the legal rights of security agencies, was carried out in a manner that left many Nigerians unsettled.

The display of force, lacking in transparency and civility, closely resembled an abduction, a disturbing method that not only creates fear but also risks being mimicked by criminal elements. If Nigerians begin to struggle to distinguish between legitimate arrests and unlawful abductions, we will lose a vital layer of national security and accountability.

This trend is not new. We must recall that even our esteemed judges, the last line of defence for justice, have suffered similar indignities in recent years. When those who interpret the law are treated with such disregard, it is difficult to expect that ordinary citizens will feel protected under the law.

Moreover, these methods are beginning to affect our economy and business environment. The backlash directed at GTBank, allegedly linked to the circumstances surrounding Mr. Otse’s arrest, has had serious reputational consequences. At a time when investor confidence is already fragile, we must do all we can to avoid actions that tarnish institutions or undermine the trust of both citizens and the international community.

One cannot help but ask: was it impossible to invite Mr. Otse in a civil, transparent, and legal manner? Would that not have spared Nigerians, GTBank, and our national image the unnecessary shame and losses we now witness?

Similarly troubling are allegations surrounding the so-called adoption of the NANS President If true, it raises critical questions about the independence of student leadership and the subtle erosion of young voices in our democracy. Nigeria’s youth should not feel coerced, silenced, or absorbed into political agendas that do not reflect their will. The oppression of young voices, whether through force, patronage, or intimidation, is a dangerous path that we must not normalize.

We must return to a Nigeria where justice is done and is seen to be done without theatrics or abuse. A country where youth can speak freely, judges can serve with dignity, and institutions act responsibly. That is the Nigeria we must rebuild.

A new Nigeria is POssible!

- PO

Shugaban Najeriya, Bola Tinubu ya bayyana farin cikin da ya shiga a lokacin liyafar cin abincin dare da gwamnatin jihar Katsina ta shirya masa yayin da yake ziyara a jihar.

A lokacin ziyarar, shugaban ƙasar ya ƙaddamar da wasu ayyuka da gwamnatin jihar ta kammala.

No instrument of terrorism found on Nnamdi Kanu, DSS witness tells court .

BREAKING!!
Nigeria Police Force Arrest Verydarkblackman (VDM) In Abuja

BREAKING: DSS WITNESS LINKING MAZI NNAMDI KANU AGITATION TO SIMON EKPA

Cross examination begins

Gabi: Did you take my clients statement with or without his lawyer?

Witness: His statement was taken without his lawyer

Agabi: from the video evidence, were you the person interrogating him?

Witness; I was among
Agabi: did you appear in the video?

Witness: No

Agabi; What was your assessment specifically?

Witness; To arrest Nnamdi Kanu and bring him to Abuja and interview him

Agabi; Apart from the defendant, did you obtain statements from others?

Witness Personally No

Agabi; At the time of arrest you withdrew from him all the items presented in court?

Witness: Yes

Where those all his personal properties?

Yes

Agabi;Are there other items that haven’t been presented? Items considered offensive?

Witness: My lord the items might not be offensive but the action behind it

Agabi; No, answer me correctly.
Did you analyze the items?

Witness; My task wasn’t to analyze the items.

Agabi; So you didn’t analyze it?

Witness; I didn’t , except his fone.

Agabi; Is the fone analysis in evidence?

Witness; stutters…. mo because it was considered immaterial

Agabi; Do yiu agree most of the items have lost their use fuven its over 10yrs

Witness: yes

Agabi; in 10yrs since you first arrested him, have you seen anyone who claims he committed a crime?

Witness; i didnt

Agabi; you said you found him wit someonee, did you fibd any incriminating on the person?

Witness; No

Agabi; did you confirm the person as a facillitator of terrorism?

Witness; No

Agabi; did you find any instrument of violence on my defendant?

Witness; none

Did you contact any of the persons the defendant named in his statement as working with him?

Witness; He didn’t name any body

Agabi; Is it only one statement that was obtained from him

Witness; In Lagos, yes but in Abuja other statements weee obtained.
Agabi: part from the defendant, is there any other person standing in trial with him?

Witness; I don’t know

Agabi; I put it to you that in the entire nation, this defendant is the only person standing trial for the agitation of Biafra

Witness; I don’t have Information to that, all I know is I did the arrest in Lagos

Agabi; from your knowledge, the agitation does not have any other person apart from the defendant

Witness; certainly not correct

Agabi; so who are the rest

Witness; from the news on social media I know Simon Ekpa

Agabi: Witness so because of what you red from social media, you want my defendant to be sentenced to death.

Witness; I have said what I know, Simon Ekpa is working with him.

Agabi; is the Simon Ekpa standing trial with my defendant?

Witness; I know he was arrested

Agabi; but is he standing trial with my defendant?

Witness; I don’t know

Agabi; we are keeping counts of your I don’t know

Agabi; is the defendant charged with damaging properties of people or govt?

Witness; wat I know is he is charged with terrorism (goes aheaad to define terrorism )

Agabi; but is he chargeded with damaging anyone’s ptoperty?

Witnessss; maybe not personal but remotely. He instructed people to destroy govt properties .

Agabi; do you know a single person who damaged any properties according to my defendants instruction .

Witness; it’s not my duty ti answer that wuestion. He turns to the judge and asks if he can be limited to the questions he answers, the judge says no.

Agabi; did my defendabt say the nation is sufferingering from corruption ?

Witness; icant remember

Agabi; he saud the nation is suffering from corruption true or fales?

Witness; that question should not be put to me

The judge to the witness ; you dont dictate the questions that should be asked, just answer yes or no..

Agabi; do you remember my defendant said the country lacks infrastructures ?

Witness; i cant remember but he called the country a zoo

Agabi; can you remember if he apologized for the uncompleme tary remarks he made about the president and igbo leaders

Witness i cant remember

Agabi; you wint remember if he descried ipob as a volu tary org?

Witness: i cant remember

Agabi; Do you remember he said ipob doesn not engage in arms struggle

Witness; I cant remember

Agabi; you know theres been k1llings in the country , in kaduna state?

Witness; yes

Agabi; the k1llings is it from agitation of seperation of states?

Witness; no

Agabi; Do you say IPOB was proscribed?

Witnes Yes

Agabi; Who were the parties to the action in which IPOB was proscribed?

Witness; the federal govt

Agabi; Do you know if the application was exparte?

Witness; No

Agabi; Since the proscription of IPOB, do you know any IPOB member that has been prosecuted?

Witness; No

Do you know any IPOB member?

No but I have seen him during broadcast issuing directives to IPOB members

Have you seen any IPOB member being prosecuted?

No

Is it a crime to propagate ideologies?

No

Agabi; Which are the states to which IPOB message is directed to?

Witness: Majorly south east and south south states

Agabi; Name them

Witness; He names the south eastern states.

Agabi; These states have lawmakers governors etc being represented nationally

Witness Yes

Agabi And they are constitutionallyy established

Witness Yes

Agabi These states have the security personnels and they receive federal allocation

Witness Yes

Agabi Every niegrian lives in all the states you mentioned

Witness Yes

Agabi So does it mean the people of these states tou mentioned dont carry out their supoosed leaders orders?

Witness There are people in that state who carry out his instructions

Agabi Do you have evidences ?

Witness No

Agabi Are you aware even the court apologized to my defendant for some of the wrongs done to him

Witness I wasnt in court that day

Agabi Are you aware the people of the south east are in the dss airforce millitary etc

Witness Im aware

Agabi A former inspector general of the police and others are from the south east

Witness; Yes

Agabi in line with all these offices mentioned, nobody from that region is guilty of the accusations you made against them.

Agabi; we have mentioned states where theres unrest and the south east isnt part of them.

Witness; we have videos were miscreants commit attrocities and mention nnamdi kanu as their leader and he sent them to do it.

Agabi; do you have evidence to that?

Witness; personally, no but the service has

Atiku, Not Tinubu, Is the Wrecking Ball
By Azu Ishiekwene

There’s a concern that Nigeria could soon become a one-party state, not by law, like in China, but through subterfuge – or in legal terms, de facto – similar to Cameroon, Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, or even Rwanda, where the ruling parties are inflicting a slow, painful death on the opposition.

Those who express this concern have given many reasons. The clearest and most troubling, it seems, is the wave of defections to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) that has depleted the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

Wave after wave

Apart from Federal lawmakers from Osun to Kaduna and Niger States who have defected, as of April 25, Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State and his predecessor, Ifeanyi Okowa and the entire Delta PDP structure defected to the APC, with more defections still anticipated nationwide. It’s likely that soon, five of the six South-South states, which have been the bastion of the PDP since 1999, may fall.

Concerned persons, mainly those in the PDP and civil society, have said these are not defections. Instead, they argue that they are negotiated exits by politicians to evade trial by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) or for the personal political gain of the governors and other defectors. They have blamed the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for instigating the defections out of a desperation to win the 2027 presidential election because his record in office cannot save him.

Chasing shadows

I think it’s nonsense. And though he did not use these words, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, out of self-interest, put it more elegantly when he said he believed that defections are a fact of Nigerian politics and defectors are merely exercising their freedom of association under the law.

A serial defector himself, and sixth-time contender for the presidency, it would have been a surprise if he said anything else. The problem, according to Atiku, is not the defections but the two-year record of performance that, all things being equal, cannot return the president to office.

However, if the worst fear of Atiku and the opposition comes through, as is likely, and President Tinubu returns to office in 2027, as is probable, it would not be because of the defections; it would be because Atiku paved the way for the destruction of the PDP. He has proved to be the party’s undertaker-in-chief, something not often said, because it is convenient to blame Tinubu.

Best chance lost

For example, Sule Lamido, a leading member of the PDP, reportedly said on Tuesday that “the President should be fair” and save the opposition from being crushed. I’m unsure how much Lamido will pay Tinubu for self-sabotage. It’s surprising that one of the PDP’s founders does not know that a few of the founders ruined the PDP, and no one but its remnant can save it.

The party’s best chance since it lost power 10 years ago was in 2023 when the APC was at its most vulnerable. The government of President Muhammadu Buhari would have viewed a hostile takeover by the opposition PDP as mercy killing, if not as an act of charity. Lamido knows, more than anyone else, that Atiku stood in the way.

Rolling stone, no moss

After contesting and losing the APC primaries to Buhari in 2014, Atiku defected again to PDP in 2017 and contested the PDP primaries in 2019. At that time, the PDP was recovering from the catastrophic defeat of 2015, during which it lost nine of its 22 states and 93 seats in the National Assembly. In the winner-takes-all creed of the presidential system, the PDP faced a long harmattan of recriminations and decay while Atiku was away.

However, the party was gradually rebuilt, primarily through the efforts of Nyesom Wike, the Rivers State Governor at the time. When Atiku returned, the party was not what it was in its heyday. Still, it was not the ramshackle he had abandoned.

The calamitous record of the APC under President Buhari, the party’s division leading up to the 2023 election, and the overall mood in the country at that time indicated that Nigeria was vulnerable to a hostile takeover. The country was fed up with the APC.

Marabout’s prophecy

But Atiku, being Atiku, felt obliged to live up to the marabout’s prediction in 1998 that he would one day be Nigeria’s president. It was this pursuit of prophecy that got him into trouble with President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003; it was the blind pursuit of it that drove him from the PDP to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and later to the APC. The obsession with this prophecy finally brought him back to the PDP. He just had to run.

But it shouldn’t have happened in 2023. While the odds favoured another party to succeed the exhausted APC, it certainly did not favour a northerner to run. Not after eight years of Buhari, a Northerner, not after Tinubu had wrested the flag of the APC, and certainly not when the convention in the PDP favoured rotation.

Atiku cast aside the odds, defied the restraints of common sense, ignored the party’s convention and a last-minute understanding after a key London meeting, and subverted the primaries to carry the flag. Things, quite naturally, fell apart.

Looking for a scapegoat

The rest is history. The PDP lost. The party that boasted that it was Africa’s largest party, destined to rule for 60 years, lost its way, leaving its members desperately searching for shelter and rehabilitation, and looking for rest wherever it may be found.

How can that be Tinubu’s problem when Atiku, the wrecking ball, still sits pretty? I understand the hysteria in the opposition, but it does not have to waste its current misery looking for scapegoats outside. Two years is still a reasonably long time to rebuild. The rise of Peter Obi nine months to the last general election and the impact the Labour Party made show that voters will reward a viable alternative platform.

The word here is viable. Not a party led by opportunists who have made a life career of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Say what you like about Tinubu, he has stood with his progressive brand of politics for nearly 30 years, even standing alone against all odds and at significant personal and reputational costs.

Go, Atiku, go

If the PDP is serious about a future, and Atiku cares about it, he must immediately drop his ambition to run again. This ambition is at the heart of the current turmoil in the party; it was why the PDP broke into three factions on the eve of the last election; it was why he has been unable to rebuild the ruins two years later. And it is why he is arguably the first Nigerian presidential aspirant to lose two running mates to defections.

There’s no point blaming Tinubu for the wreckage, or getting angry with Okowa for sexifying his incredible opportunism as the beginning of a movement. PDP will get a fresh start on life when Atiku, the main obstacle, steps down. Everything else is a waste of time.

My administration has paid off N72 billion inherited debt in Abia state.
- Governor Alex Otti

And he has increased the salaries of all health care workers in the state and 15% of the state budget will be used in the health care sector.💪🏼