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Stormy Rivers! Put Wike on a leash to avoid trouble, Clark warns Tinubu

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Again, Siminalayi Fubara, Rivers State Governor, received the backing of elder statesman, Edwin Clark, who on Tuesday, fired another letter to President Bola Tinubu calling the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, to order.

In an open letter to the President on Monday, the leader of the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) said Wike is just one of the 48 ministers in the President’s cabinet and he should be called to face his job as FCT minister and not insist on controlling the political structure in his home state, Rivers State.

He said: “As a member of your cabinet, you may need to call this minister to order to face the work in the quietness which is demanded of him. He should focus on his office and know that he is just one among a cabinet of 48 persons, besides the Vice President and yourself.

“The country has enough problems which your government must sit down to solve. The FCT itself is full of challenges all over and he has more than he can chew and therefore avoid these distractions.”

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Clark said if all former governors insist on controlling their successors, there will be chaos in the country.

The PANDEF leader was reacting to a fresh political crisis in the oil-rich South-South state as 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly on Monday defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The 27 members were said to be loyal to Martins Amaewhule, who is an ally of Wike, a former governor of the state till May 29, 2023.

For weeks, Amaewhule and another member, Edison Ehie, have been embroiled in a Speakership tussle. Ehie is known to be in the camp of Governor Siminalayi Fubara.

The Assembly under Amaewhule had in October served an impeachment notice on the governor and removed Ehie as the House leader. However, some members of the Assembly loyal to Fubara immediately impeached Amaewhule and made Ehie the new Speaker.

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The crisis in the 32-member Assembly had begun as a result of a rift between Fubara and his predecessor, Wike.

The President had in October met with both Wike and Fubara to resolve the crisis. Though the two politicians have both attended same public events in the last few weeks and all seemed to have been settled but with Monday’s defection of 27 lawmakers from the PDP to the APC, more drama might unfold in the state’s political arena.

The PANDEF leader, in his letter to the President said the situation was not yet over and things seem to be degenerating by the day, adding that Rivers State was very important to the stability of the Niger Delta and the overall national economy and any breakdown of law and order will not be in the overall interest of all.

Expressing surprise that Wike would be pushing on despite Fubara’s apology to him, Clark said: “On one occasion, he stated that ‘impeachment is not a military coup,” ‘a total outrage when all hands are on deck to consolidate this democracy under your leadership. In fact, in his recent interview held on Friday, 24th November, 2023, the Minister charged to one of his group of guests that the Governor is ungrateful, concluding that ‘I cannot stand ingrates’.

“He continued stating how he had helped the Governor to become what he had become today and threatening publicly that he would continue the fight if the Governor ‘changes the structures which I left in the state.’”

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Clark who wondered why Wike would be keeping structures and for what purpose, he recalled that Wike had attacked the concept of godfatherism as totally unacceptable and this made him to fall out with his predecessor, RotimiAmaechi.

“So, what purpose are the structures supposed to serve when there is a governor in place? This is a question that he owes you and all Nigerians. If all governors who as a matter of right, insist on allowing their favoured candidates as successor, insist on controlling them, insist on controlling the State Assemblies, insist on controlling the structure which they left behind, what manner of confusion will we have in Nigeria?”

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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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