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Tinubu’s men to Atiku: Remember you still have many past unanswered questions

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Atiku Abubakar, was on Tuesday reminded of his days in office as Vice President between 1999 and 2007 and the fact that he still has too many questions to answer over some shady deals associated with his name, thus he was in no position to throw jabs at President Bola Tinubu’s handling of the affairs of the country.

Coming from Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI), a group that prides itself as a body of independent policy analysts, the body railed against the former VP over his recent series of attacks on Tinubu, insisting he had no moral right to do so, considering that he also had eight years to fix the county, but failed.

In a statement, signed by Niyi Akinsiju, its President, the group, while reminding him of his past record, particularly the too many unanswered questions, said: “Among these is the lingering allegation that Waziri Abubakar provided the $20million to secure Globacom telecommunication license in August 2002 and that he has a front representing his shareholding interest in the company.

“This is more galling when considered against the background of the fight between him and Obasanjo, his boss, over who will take control of the national telecommunications company, NITEL. After many rigmaroles, the two leaders left the company commercially asphyxiated without any value left in it.

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“It is today a shadow of its old self with implications for national development. We find this conduct inappropriate and a shameful exhibition of conflict of interest for the man who was the chief superintendent of the sale of national assets.

“Under the same privatisation exercise that Waziri Abubakar supervised, the Kaduna refinery was concessioned to a consortium of companies, the Blue Star. The allegation still subsists concerning the consortium’s claim that it paid $250 million for the purchase of the refinery through the National Council on Privatisation (NCP). The CBN Governor at that time declared that the money never got into the federation account.

“There was also a report of the Nigerian Senate in 2007 accusing Abubakar of diverting $145 million from the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) to private companies. We expect the former Vice President to be more decorous and truthful in his approach to national issues even as a member of the opposition.”

Picking holes into what the termed Atiku’s recent moves at demonising President Bola Tinubu’s policies through deceptive generalisations, the statement argued that criticisms were mostly borne out of grudges against the President rather than reality.

Akinsiju further maintained that the recent media outings of the former VP showed an uncharacteristic poor understanding of issues by an individual who was once a Vice President, listed some of them, thus: “In one of the statements, Waziri Abubakar sought an explanation on the conditions precedent to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) securing a $3.3billion loan from the African Export-Import Bank (Afrexim Bank), and had gone ahead to make irreverent and commonplace imputations and conclusions that we considered as belittling his station.

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“The second statement queried why the President directed the NNPCL to commence payment of crude oil receipts to the federation account domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). We find this rather perplexing knowing that Waziri Abubakar had once occupied the second highest office in the land and thus, should understand the basic nuances of the corporate power structure and decision-making process. We also find it perplexing as Atiku in his rejected “Covenant with Nigerians”, supported “transparency and accountability in the operation of NNPC Limited and associated enterprises”.

“The NNPCL had come to the public space to clarify the fact that in compliance with the Petroleum Industry Act that set it up, decided to collaborate with the CBN as its revenue receiving authority and there are indeed enough provisions of the Act to back its position.

“To our minds, a neophyte business administrator will know that a company’s board of directors has proprietary rights over the company and, by extension, its management. Such decision can be made at the level of the board of directors without much ceremony, especially in consideration of the fact that the CBN is the federal government’s banker. We wonder which bank can better receive NNPCL’s revenue than the CBN? The Waziri is intentional about mudslinging in this circumstance.

“The third in the series of grudge statements poignantly accused President Tinubu of police misbehaviour. We find that rather pedantic. In 1999 when Waziri Abubakar was sworn into office as Vice President and supposed head of the economic team, the inflation rate was 6.9 percent but by 2000, that is a year after, it had risen to 17.8 percent. That was about an 11 percent increase. We noted that there was no policy on fuel subsidy removal at this time that could have possibly triggered this rapid increase in the inflation rate.

“We contrasted this to the 22.41 percent inflation figure in May 2023 when President Tinubu was sworn in. The latest inflation figure is for December 2023 with the figure stated at 28.92 percent showing about a 6 percent increase. This is despite the twin policies of subsidy removal, the floating of the Naira, and the large population the current administration has had to manage.

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“In addition, Waziri Abubakar had the added advantage of higher revenue to spend to ameliorate the economic conditions of Nigerians in that year, with earned revenue from mostly crude oil up to $15.81billion but did not reflect in the inflation figure of that year.

“In contrast, the President Tinubu-led administration has not generated up to $4 billion from crude oil sales from June 2023 to January 2024, yet the administration has been managing the fallouts of the removal of fuel subsidy and floating of the Naira against the background of a large population.

“While we do not contend that this is an exhaustive leadership comparative analysis template, it, however, enabled us to have a snapshot, in time, about the managerial and policy-making skills of the two personalities at issue here. We conclude that Waziri Atiku Abubakar under-performed in office despite the resources available to him to manage. And that he cannot manage a resource-shortfall economy.

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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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