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How Obi committed treason – FG *Insists 2023 polls best in Nigeria’s history

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For not cautioning Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, his running mate Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), committed treason by association, Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information, explained on Wednesday.

A guest of Politics Today, a current affairs programme on Channels Television, Baba-Ahmed, told his host on March 22, that any attempt to swear in Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu into office on May 29, 2023, would amount to “end of democracy,” insisting that by not winning 25 per cent of the votes in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, had not met the constitutional requirement to be declared President by the Independent National Electoral Commission on March 1.

The Minister, who had been tackled for making a sweeping statement when he told foreign journalists during a trip to the US, recently in which he accused Obi and his running mate of having committed treason, told State House Correspondents on Wednesday that nobody had the right to call for insurrection in the country.

“I said Obi has every right to seek redress in court like Labour Party but nobody has the right to call for insurrection or to threaten to say that if the president-elect is sworn-in, that would be the end of democracy.

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“And that was precisely what Obi’s running mate said on live television and I have not heard Obi rein him in or correct him. So, if your running mate says something, of course, he was saying on behalf of the party and on behalf of the candidate.

“That is why I said that was treason. For anybody to say that if a duly elected president in Nigeria is sworn in, that will be the end of democracy is treason. For anybody to say if you swear in a duly elected President, you are swearing the military, it is treason. So, I don’t see anything controversy in that.”

Explaining the rationale for his recent trip to the US and the UK, which he said was necessitated by the need to tell the world the true story of what transpired during the 2023 general elections, he stressed how President Muhammadu Buhari was very neutral during the exercise and how he did not confer any advantage on the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

“I went to the US to balance the skewed report about the just concluded elections; and everywhere I went, I said very unambiguously that the last general elections in Nigeria are the most transparent. It was the freest and the most authentic Nigeria had ever held, and that is despite the effort of the opposition to delegitimise the election.

“And I put forward my position there that the two reasons the election was the best was one. That the introduction of technology especially, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System(BVAS), made it pretty difficult for anybody to do the usual things before like over-voting, stuffing of ballot boxes and the likes because once it takes your biometrics; you cannot vote twice.

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“The first instance was that the president did not confer any advantage on his ruling party; and that as far as he was concerned, he would rather lose the election than win at all cost; and the result showed it.”

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BREAKING: Death penalty for fake drugs! *NAFDAC to push new law at NASS

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Those peddling fake and substandard drugs in Nigeria should be ready for the hangman’s noose, if the thinking of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), becomes the new law.

Mojisola Adeyeye, Director General of the body, who said on Friday that no other form of punishment is fitting enough, gave instances of where the application of such dangerous substances in form of health drugs, had led to fatalities.

Advocating that only stiff penalties would deter peddlers especially when deaths of children became involved, the NAFDAC boss, who appeared as a guest on The Morning Brief, a breakfast programme on Channels Television, said: “Somebody bought children’s medicine for N13,000 or something like that, another person was selling about N3,000 in the same mall. 

“That raised an alarm. Guess what? There was nothing inside that medicine when we tested it in our Kaduna lab. So, I want the death penalty. Because you don’t need to put a gun on the head of a child before you kill that child. Just give that child bad medicine.”

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Advocating that the National Assembly and the judiciary to make the proposal a reality, adding that the agency was open to partnering with lawmakers and other stakeholders on the matter, she added: “You cannot fight substandard, falsified medicine in isolation. The agency can do as much as it can but if there is no deterrent, there’s going to be a problem.

“Somebody brought in 225mg of Tramadol that can kill anybody, fry the brain and you give a judgment of five years in prison or N250,000. Who doesn’t know that that person will go to the ATM and get N250,000? That is part of our problem.

“There are no strict measures to deter [people] from repeating the same thing. We can do as much as we can but if our law is not strong enough, or the judiciary is not strong enough to stand up, we’re going to have a problem.

“So, our judiciary system must be strong enough. But we are working with the National Assembly to make our penalties very stiff.  But if you kill a child by bad medicine, you deserve to die. We have a lot on our plate in stemming drug peddling.

“Withe about 2,000 staff members nationwide and limited funding, NAFDAC is constrained in carrying out its activities. So, when it comes to staffing, you’re right on the point. We are short-staffed and I am hoping things will be better.”

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Give us electoral offences tribunal to take care of heist – INEC  

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Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Friday, made a fresh push for the creation of an electoral offences tribunal, to curb the cases of attacks on the Nigerian democratic system.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chairman, told reporters at the commission’s first regular quarterly consultative meeting with the media that the tribunal had become important owing to the backlog of electoral offence cases.

He said: “A major obstacle to the speedy dispensation of justice in this regard is that electoral offences are not time-bound as is the case with post-election offences through the tribunals. Furthermore, they are solely prosecuted by the Magistrate and State High Courts in the jurisdiction where the alleged offences are committed,” the INEC chief told the gathering.

“No priority attention is given to such cases as the courts deal with a variety of other cases. Consequently, electoral offences are carried over from one General Election to another which may sometimes affect the diligent prosecution of the cases. It is therefore imperative to renew our call for the creation of the Electoral Offences Tribunal that have a specific jurisdiction and limited timeframe for the speedy dispensation of cases.”

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Bemoaning the delay in the justice delivery system, citing the conviction of a returning officer in Akwa Ibom after six years in court, the INEC boss, said: “The recent successful prosecution of a Returning Officer in Akwa Ibom State is a case in point.

“The Commission has been diligently pursuing the case which arose from the 2019 General Election. In this particular case, it took nearly six years to achieve the successful prosecution at the trial court.

“Through our collaboration with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) cases involving 774 alleged offenders from the 2023 General Election are being prosecuted. So far, successful prosecutions have been recorded in Kebbi and Kogi States while our collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on vote-buying has yielded similar results in Lagos, Kwara, and Gombe States. Yet, many cases are still pending.”

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Again, terrorists attack Sokoto, kidnap 10 worshippers at a mosque

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A mosque in Bushe community, Sabon Birni Local Government Area of Sokoto State, fell into the hands of bandits on Friday, after which 10 worshippers including the Imam were spirited away, adding to growing cases of terrorist attacks.

Channels Television reports that the gunmen invaded the mosque on Thursday while worshippers were performing their early morning Subhi prayer, quoting residents as saying that the gunmen had been molesting the people of the community for some time now, even with the presence of security agents.

Ahmed Rufai, spokesman of the Sokoto State Police Command, who confirmed the attack on Friday, said the police authorities were working with other security agencies to rescue the abducted victims.

A member of the Sokoto State House of Assembly, representing the Sabon Birni B state Constituency who also confirmed the attack, commended the security agencies for their timely intervention.

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