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2027: Grand conspiracy against Tinubu will fail in N’Delta – Akpabio
If the words of Godswill Akpabio, Senate President, indicate the true feelings of the people of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu will make a clean sweep of the votes available in their land in 2027, should he decide to go for re-election.
Akpabio, a day after assuring of the votes of his native Akwa Ibom for the President, during a stakeholders meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC), upped the ante on Saturday, with the assurance that the people of the oil-rich region, had also signed in to the Tinubu re-election project, because of the goodies the President had brought to the people.
At the grand finale of the 25th anniversary of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State as part of the activities to round off the week-long celebration, he told his audience that the people had decided to support Tinubu to continue in office beyond 2027 because of the projects that the administration had brought to the zone.
In the audience were Goodluck Jonathan, former President, George Akume, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), who represented Tinubu, Ibok-Ette Ibas, Administrator of Rivers State, lawmakers, traditional rulers, ministers, and key figures from across the Niger Delta.
Anietie Ekong, his spokesman quoted the former Governor of Akwa Ibom State and currently Chairman of the National Assembly, as recalling how the region was handed the short end of the stick in the affairs of the country, despite being the major revenue earner and how Tinubu had redeemed the ugly situation in the last two years, hence the resolve to pay him back handsomely with their votes in 2027.
Hear him: “In the past the Niger Delta was used as the goose that produced the golden egg with nothing to show for it. Today President Tinubu has set up an Environmental Sciences University in Ogoni land to take care of the environment which had been degraded as a result of oil pollution.
“He has also set up a Maritime University, signed it into an Act of Parliament in Okerenkoko in Delta State. He has given us several tertiary institutions in Agriculture, Technology and lots of others. So, it is not only in terms of appointments but various projects. This is the region that produces the wealth of the nation. We have the right to choose who manages our resources. So, people should not think that anybody can just come and become the President without consultation with the people of the Niger Delta.
“We the people of the Niger Delta have assessed President Tinubu and have found him fit to continue in office beyond 2027. So let the people who are conspiring against President Tinubu hear this. They did it before and conspired to remove our son, President Goodluck Jonathan. This time around the entire Niger Delta region has decided to speak with one voice. And we are telling the President ‘on your mandate we stand.’ No conspiracy formed against this Government that has recognised the Niger Delta shall prosper.”
Akpabio, however, decried the high turnover of management team of the NDDC which he said had slowed the pace of development of the oil-rich region, stressing that the outcome, also created endless cycles where new leaders were removed before finishing projects, leaving thousands of initiatives abandoned and wasting billions meant for development
He however extolled the present team led by the Managing Director, Dr Samuel Ogbuku, for adhering to the vision of the founding fathers of the interventionist agency by embarking on projects that had impacted positively on the lives of the people of the region.
His words: “There were many reasons we have had so much problems in NDDC. Part of it was leadership tussle. In the Niger Delta region, we have what we call ‘periwinkle politics.’ This is politics where everybody bears the same head. Nobody wants to wait for his turn. Everybody feels that he should be there and not the other person.
“So there was always this conspiratorial situation. Each management in the NDDC would conspire against themselves and ofcourse the staff will assist them to quarrel and shortly after they will sack the management. And one of them would become the acting Managing Director.”
Akpabio, who was also the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, at a point, which oversaw the commission recounted how for over 20 years it could not complete its headquarters building until he took charge of the Ministry and gave a marching order to its leadership to complete the hitherto long abandoned project.
Recalling also how the Commission left behind over 14,700 abandoned projects because regime change brought with it new projects, he explained that having discovered such a lapse and how it retarded growth Tinubu found it worthy to allow Ogboku complete his tenure.
“I salute the present management,” he said, particularly enthusing on how Ogbuku, and his team brought stability to the commission, while urging it to break away from endless cycles of sabotage and focus on continuity so that development projects can be completed.
Jonathan, who also commended Tinubu for continuing with the present board of the commission, noting that development would engender sustainable development of the region, which he acknowledged, remained pivotal to the region’s economic growth and material well-being of the people.
Justice Muhammad Nuraddeen Bello of High Court sitting in Sokoto State has sentenced three men, including a foreign national, to death by hanging, after convicting them on charges bordering on terrorism and arms proliferation.
The convicts, Yusuf Muhammad (alias Sallau), a Nigerien; Jabbi Alhaji Yalle; and Kabiru Muhammad, were apprehended on 13th June, 2025, by the Department of State Services (DSS) Counter Terrorism Unit in connection with cross-border criminal activities bordering on arms trafficking and terrorism.
Bello, who found all three defendants guilty as charged and sentenced them to death by hanging, while also ordering the forfeiture of all monetary exhibits recovered from the convicts to the Federal Government, said: “The conviction is the latest in a series of successful prosecutions by the DSS in its sustained operations against terrorism and organised cross-border criminal networks across Nigeria.”
The sentencing is coming about two weeks after the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja sentenced each of the five suspects arrested on May 31, 2026, by the DSS for their involvement in the November 21, 2025, attack on St Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, Niger State, to 25 years’ imprisonment.
Justice Binta Nyako, had handed down the judgment after the men, including two Nigeriens, pleaded guilty to all four terrorism-related charges, bordering on support for the commission of an act of terrorism, breaching both Section 16 of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022, and the Firearms Act, were pressed against them.
According to Count One, the men were accused of jointly conspiring to assist a terrorist by agreeing and intentionally playing various roles towards conveying 15 AK 103 rifles as well as about 1,434 rounds of 7.62mm live ammunition from the Diffa region, Republic of Niger, to one Malam Ahmad, a member of the Boko Haram terrorist group based in Borgu, Niger State, and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 26(1) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.
Primate Elijah Ayodele, is on the verge of coughing out a whopping N10billion, if he fails to offer unrestrained apology to Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, former Governor of Kano State within the next 24 hours, and retract his claim that the former Minister of Defence is bidding his time to betray Peter Obi, to whom he is to contest the 2027 presidential election as a running mate.
Without doing so, the controversial cleric, should be ready for a major court battle with the vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the platform on which the pair is to contest the election.
In a letter indicating a legal action against Ayodele of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church over defamatory remarks, Kwankwaso, through Magaji Mato Ibrahim, SAN & Co., his lawyers demanded an immediate retraction and apology from the cleric over the allegations.
Details of the letter, dated June 11, and unveiled through the X platform of the legal team, was based on a viral video recorded during a live-streamed church service, where the preacher made allegations targeting Kwankwaso’s integrity as Peter Obi’s running mate under the NDC.
Quoting the cleric as stating: “KWANKWASO IS A FAKE TO OBI, KWANKWASO WILL BETRAY YOU. KWANKWASO HAS BEEN PAID TO BE VICE PRESIDENT TO OBI AMONG OTHER LIBELOUS COMMENTS WHILE PRETENDING TO BE A PREACHER,” the former governor said the comments were unprovoked, grossly unfounded, and carefully designed to create a rift within the ranks of the political party and its supporters.
Handing Ayodele a 24-hour ultimatum to publish a full and unequivocal retraction across all social media platforms and news outlets with the same prominence as the original video, they also demanded a written undertaking that he would cease and desist from making any further malicious statements against their client, warning that failure to comply, would lead to full legal actions.
The letter stated: “We shall claim substantial damages to the tune of Ten Billion Naira and cost of the action on a full indemnity basis amongst other reliefs.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday demanded the immediate end to the exportation of minerals from countries in Africa in their raw forms, which he said had led to massive exploitation of the continent.
The President, told member countries of the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG), a forum of Ministers in charge of Mining and Solid Minerals on the continent to speak with one voice to promote, collective interests, ensure value addition, and prevent the continent from becoming merely a source of raw materials for the rest of the world.
As the Grand Patron of the group, chaired by Dele Alake, Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, gave the charge while receiving a delegation of AMSG in the State House, Tinubu told the delegation that the group had a critical role to play in strengthening Africa’s bargaining power in the global mineral market and ensuring that the continent derives maximum value from its natural resources.
His words: “ What we should do is avoid bureaucracy and deceit; we must put an end to exploitation. The rest of the world won’t mind if your country is a cesspit of dams and rubbish and excavates your raw materials without giving value.
“It is our responsibility to collaborate and cooperate to ensure that these metals and minerals bring value to us, bring technology to us, and we can do it. It is how much each country will put into the research, development and refinery. I don’t see reasons we cannot demand centralisation of that conversation somewhere on the continent. So why not utilise that in our research and development and knowledge-based economy to enhance the quality of life and bring prosperity to our people.”
Emphasising that Africa possessed enormous mineral wealth that should be strategically harnessed to drive industrialisation, create jobs and accelerate economic transformation across the continent, the President, said the era of exporting raw minerals without local processing and beneficiation must give way to a new model that encourages investment in local industries, technology transfer and the development of value chains that retain wealth within Africa.
Alake, who had earlier expressed gratitude to the President for his exemplary leadership under the Renewed Hope Agenda, said the gesture had shown support for Nigeria’s mineral sector, especially in the local value-addition and economic diversification drive, where artisanal miners are empowered.
He told the President: “You encouraged us to look at the focal point of the establishment of this group, which is to ensure that the African natural resources, especially with regards to minerals, critical matters, are localised, the beneficiation coming directly to Africans generally.
“You charged us that we should set our sails very high and ensure that local value addition is a pivot around which all the objectives of this organisation should revolve.
“So, sir, we have gone implemented your charge and we are quitted that today local value addition is reverberating all over Africa.”
He added that some member countries have gone ahead to ban the export of raw minerals.
He explained members of the body were in Abuja for the Fifth edition of the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit (AFNIS 2026), to push for a new continental approach to resource management and industrial development.
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