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BREAKING: Biden bows to pressure, ends presidential bid
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden announced Sunday that he will end his presidential re-election campaign, bringing an abrupt and humbling conclusion to his half-century-long political career and scrambling the race for the White House just four months before Election Day.
Biden, 81, could not reverse growing sentiment within his party that he was too frail to serve and destined to lose to Donald Trump in November.
“While it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote in a letter posted on X. “I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.”
Biden thanked Vice President Kamala Harris for “being an extraordinary partner” but did not endorse her to be his replacement as the Democratic Party presidential nominee in his letter.
His withdrawal caps a singular national political career, bookended by Richard Nixon’s fall and Trump’s rise. He mounted four presidential bids. He spent 36 years in the U.S. Senate representing tiny Delaware. He rose to the chairmanships of the powerful Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees. And he served eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president.
Biden’s decision to exit the race less than a month before his party’s convention and a few months before voters head to the polls is unprecedented in the modern political era. The last sitting president to abandon a re-election bid was Lyndon Johnson, whose expansion of the Vietnam War in the 1960s split the Democratic Party. But Johnson’s announcement came in March 1968 — eight months before that election.
“We’re in uncharted waters,” said Barbara Perry, a presidential studies professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “No president has dropped out or died this close to the convention.”
Replacing Biden atop the Democratic ticket is likely to set off internal Democratic tremors as ambitious officials maneuver to become his successor. Factions have already formed around Harris and prominent governors, including Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer and California’s Gavin Newsom.
Harris would seem to be the heir apparent. She broke a barrier as the first female vice president. A woman of color, she enjoys strong support among African Americans, a loyal piece of the Democratic coalition. Overall, though, Harris’ approval rating stood at only 32% in an NBC News poll released earlier this month.
“There’s no one you can name right now who is an obvious substitute,” Perry said. “That’s what makes this so uncertain and chaotic.”
The mechanics of putting a new name on ballots also gives rise to myriad legal questions. Republicans could work to throw obstacles in the nominee’s path by mounting legal challenges aimed at keeping that person off the ballot.
Questions about Biden’s capacities dogged him throughout his presidency, but peaked following his debate with Trump on June 27. Combined with his flagging poll numbers, his listless performance sparked a panic among his own party that he couldn’t win in November.
With 51 million people watching, Biden spoke in a raspy voice and often failed to complete thoughts or deliver a cogent explanation of why voters should choose him over Trump. He later attributed his poor performance to exhaustion and a cold. He implored the country not to let one bad night overshadow his accomplishments in office.
Unpersuaded, Democratic lawmakers began calling on him to step aside, a rebellion that started slowly but grew steadily in size and intensity. They appealed to Biden’s patriotism, arguing that if he sincerely believed Trump is a threat to democracy, he needed to put his country first and stand down.
Biden fought back. He held numerous calls and meetings with Democratic officials at all levels to shore up support inside the party — to no avail.
Looking to blunt concerns about his acuity, he gave interviews and held press conferences to prove to voters that he could still think on his feet. But the gaffes kept coming and his poll numbers remained stagnant.
In another bit of bad fortune and timing, Biden tested positive for Covid-19 on July 17, forcing him off the campaign trail.
For Democrats, Biden’s illness created an unwanted contrast. While Trump delivered a triumphal speech accepting the Republican nomination in Milwaukee on July 18, five days after surviving an assassination attempt, Biden was in self-isolation back home.
Biden’s departure is the latest in a series of jarring developments that has made the 2024 presidential race the most chaotic in living memory. Trump easily won the Republican presidential nomination despite splitting his time between the campaign trail and various courtrooms where he was a defendant in criminal and civil cases. In May, a jury in Manhattan convicted him on 34 felony counts related to hush money payments to a porn star.
Then, in short order, Trump rebounded. The Supreme Court issued a much-anticipated ruling on July 1 that immunized Trump from official conduct when he was president, impeding special counsel Jack Smith’s efforts to prosecute Trump for interfering in the 2020 election.
Trump nearly died on July 13 as he appeared at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A gunman lying on a roof 130 yards away fired a bullet that grazed his ear. Trump dropped to the ground in self-defense. Then, his face smeared with blood, he rose and defiantly pumped his fist, yelling “Fight!”
Another fortuitous development came two days later, coinciding with the opening of the Republican convention in Milwaukee that certified Trump’s nomination. Federal judge Aileen Cannon in Florida dismissed a separate case brought by Smith alleging that Trump improperly retained classified documents that he took home with him when he left the White House in 2021. Cannon, who had been appointed by Trump, ruled that Smith’s appointment was illegal. Smith quickly appealed her ruling.
The rolling streak of news gave Trump a jolt of momentum, allowing Republicans to present an energized and unified at this month’s convention.
Biden seldom sparked any such enthusiasm. HIs primary campaign was mostly a coronation. He faced token opposition as party leaders cleared the field, betting that having beaten Trump once before, Biden was best positioned to do it again. But poll after poll confirmed that voters harbored doubts about him, believing he was too old and infirm to serve another term.
Read Biden’s resignation:
Culled from NBC NEWS
Chidi Odinkalu, Nigeria’s fiery lawyer, law teacher and former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), is emphatic that President Bola Tinubu is pushing to perpetuate himself in office, beginning with gaming the electoral process in 2027.
Odinkalu, Professor of Practice in International Human Rights Law at the Fletcher School, told his host Naija Unfiltered, a popular Nigerian podcast programme, that he was as sure as death that the President would not exit office in 2031, if he succeeded with his current gambit to remain in power beyond next year.
Hear him: “Yes. But as I said, let me repeat myself. There’ll be a third term. President Tinubu has not done all of this just for another four years. There will be a third term. And anybody who is doing, ‘it is not our portion,’ is not reading the evidence.”
To achieve this aim, the activist, who was also emphatic that the National Assembly, would play a role, added: “The current National Assembly is anything but national or an assembly. And if it’s an assembly, it’s not a parliamentary one. Many people have called it a rubber stamp, but I think that is actually abusive of rubber stamps. I think this National Assembly is a disgrace.
Citing how bizarre and completely compliant the national legislature had become to Tinubu, the ex-NHRC’s boss, stated: “If you can change your national anthem in less than 24 hours with no public hearing, no public consultation, no public involvement, it tells you you don’t have a country because a national anthem is fundamental to the construction of a national identity.”
Also referring to the current move by the President to introduce state police, Odinkalu, wondered how the Nigerian Senate would introduce the bill to that effect and proceed towards the first and second readings, as well as committee stage and passage in less than two hours, questioning how that was possible in normal clime.
Hear him: “Once we finish our elections, we’re going to amend our Constitution, introduce a single six-year presidential term. The current incumbent will be elected until 2031. In 2031, what will happen? The question will be, will he be entitled to run on the six-year term or will he not?
“You will then get the best Senior Advocates in Nigeria telling you the law is not retrospective. That is why the administration is supporting the litigation over President Jonathan’s tenure—not because the Constitution is not clear, but because they will say there is precedent. There will be a third term, and I’m prepared to bet on it.”
“If we continue to pay ransom, we are encouraging these criminals to kidnap more people. The cycle will only continue unless we stop rewarding criminality,” were the words of Dauda Lawal, Governor of Zamfara State, with which he blamed those in the habit of paying ransoms as the major factor fuelling the current wave of kidnapping incidents across the country.
Lawal, on Thursday at the ARISE News/THISDAY Town Hall Conference on State Police and National Security in Abuja, told his audience how he flatly refused to pay a ₦300 million ransom demanded by kidnappers who abducted his brothers in 2019.
Reiterating his opposition to negotiating with bandits and renewed his support for the establishment of state police, Lawal, while recounting the incident, said: “My own brothers were kidnapped in 2019, and the kidnappers demanded about ₦300 million. I told them I was not going to pay a dime. If they wanted to kill them, they could go ahead.”
Stating that his brothers were eventually released without any ransom being paid, he argued that paying ransom usually emboldened criminal groups by providing financial incentives for further kidnappings.
He added: “My position on ransom payments remains unchanged. I will not negotiate, and I will not pay ransom to any criminal, no matter what happens.”
Endorsing the move for the establishment of state police, to enable governors have greater operational authority over security within their states, he regretted that the current constitutional arrangement left governors with responsibility for security without corresponding powers to direct security agencies.
His words: “In as much as I am called the chief security officer of the state, I do not have the command-and-control authority to direct the operations of the security agencies. I’m prepared to support the funding of state police if the proposed policing structure is established. I’m confident that decentralised policing will improve intelligence gathering, response time and the overall fight against insecurity.”
Exactly seven years, two months and four days after he forced Walter Onnoghen, the 16th Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) out of office, Danladi Umar, former Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), on Thursday, found himself in Kuje prison.
Justice Peter Kekemeke, of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), sitting in Maitama, handed the ex-CCT boss the unwelcome package on Thursday, following his arraignment by the Federal Government on a four-count corruption charge.
Umar’s ordeal began after an investigations revealed that he abused his official position by conferring an undue advantage on himself while serving as head of the tribunal, having in 2021, reportedly using his wife’s bank account to collect the sum of N5.5 million from a contractor engaged to paint the headquarters of the CCT in Abuja.
He was also accuse of using the same account to collect another N6million on January 25, 2024, from a contractor who handled the digitisation of the CCT’s records and yet another N2.43 million a contractor paid as tuition fee of his daughter at Baze University, Abuja.
After pleading not guilty to offences, said to be punishable under section 19 of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000, Christopher Mshelia, lawyer to the FG, prosecuting the matter, applied for his remand in a correctional facility, while urging the court to set a date for the commencement of trial.
His pleas to be freed on bail pending the determination of the case, was opposed by the prosecution, which drew the court’s attention to the fact that it had just been served with the bail application, saying it needed time to respond to it, forcing Kekemeke to adjourn the case till July 15 for hearing while the former CCT boss remained behind bars.
Umar, had as CCT Chairman, on January 23, 2019, issued a controversial ex parte order that led to the removal of a serving Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen.
Following the ex parte order, the late President Muhammadu Buhari, on January 25, swore in the next most senior jurist of the Supreme Court, Justice Tanko Muhammad, to take over the leadership of the judiciary as Acting CJN.
Even though Onnoghen later voluntarily resigned his position as CJN on April 4, Umar went ahead and convicted him on April 18, 2019, on the federal government’s allegation that he had failed to properly declare his assets as required by law.
He gave the federal government the go-ahead to confiscate all monies in five accounts belonging to the former CJN, and also removed him as Chairman of both the NJC and the Federal Judiciary Service Commission (FJSC).
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