News
Wike digs in against Atiku *Moves to fortify Damagum
Nyesom Wike: Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), seems to be leaving nothing to chances in his alleged determination to take total control of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the former Nigerian ruling party, now the main opposition.
The PUNCH is reporting that part of the plan being initiated by the former Governor of Rivers State is to fortify Umar Damagum, who has remained the Acting National Chairman of the party since the forceful exit of Iyiochia Ayu, former National Chairman, who supervised the party’s participation in the 2023 general elections.
Ayu, former Senate President and former Minister in the government of former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, was ousted from his position shortly after the election as a result of pressures from the Wike camp, which moved against him from the moment the former governor failed to secure the presidential ticket of the party at its National Convention in 2022.
Aside ensuring that Damagun consolidated his hold on the leadership of the party, the report, said the FCT Minister would move in the coming days against supporters of Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President and the PDP presidential candidate, who defeated Wike to the second position to pick the party’s ticket and with whom there has been no loves-lost.
The report, which listed Seyi Makinde, Ahmadu Fintiri, Caleb Mutfwang and Agbu Kefas, governors of Oyo, Adamawa, Plateau and (Taraba), on the sided of Wike in supporting Damagum’s retention, mentioned Bala Mohammed, Governor of Bauchi State and Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum (PDP-PGF) as leading Sim Fubara, Wike’s successor in Rivers and Ademola Adeleke, his Osun State counterpart to oppose the move.
All efforts to remove Damagun, including pushing the arguments that the North Central through which Ayu emerged, had not completed its term, in addition to bring reconciliation within the party, have remained futile.
Since the 98th edition of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party, where the first official attempt was scuttled by the Wike camp, other attempts to hold NEC meetings had failed by suffering from one postponement to the other.
From the August 15, date, it was shifted to October 24, 2024, then rescheduled for November 28, 2024, before it was suspended indefinitely, with a fresh proposal by the PDP-PGF that the NEC meeting should now be convened for latest February, 2025.
Amid all the intrigues, including the setting up a committee for reconciliation and another to look into cases of anti-party activities and punishment of erring members, set up by the Board of Trustees (BOT), the Federal High Court, Abuja also barred the PDP from taking actions to either remove Damagun or interfere with his job.
Even the attempt by the BOT headed by Adolphus Wabara, former Senate President, which had traversed the country to troubleshoot the crises, had witnessed its own hiccup including the refusal of Bode George, former PDP Deputy National Chairman (South), refusing the disciplinary committee membership on the ground of its headship by Tom Ikimi, was an insult given that the former Minister of Foreign Affairs was his junior in the PDP.
The first indication that the Wike camp meant business came with the sudden expulsion of Ikenga Ugochinyere, member representative for Ideato North/Ideato South Federal Constituency of Imo State, in the House of Representatives and a sworn political enemy of the FCT Minister, who had spared no hard words to attack him.
Ugochinyere, who accused Wike of sponsoring the crises in his home Rivers where an onslaught is threatening Fubara’s job, with 27 members of the state House of Assembly serving him an impeachment notice last year, as well as having a hand in the PDP crisis at Wadata Plaza, was sacked by the PDP executive at his local Umuopia/Umukegwu Ward chapter in Imo State on Saturday.
“There’s a deliberate plan to move against party members and even members of the public who oppose their interests. The Wike camp plans to prevent any opposition from having a voice or influence by February, the paper quoted an insider at the party as saying, adding that even some NWC members had stopped attending meetings regularly due to growing disunity within the party.
A pushback however came from the opposing camp almost immediately with Debo Ologunagba, the PDP spokesman countering, the lawmaker’s expulsion as a non-event, on the ground that party wards were not invested with powers to expel members of the National Assembly.
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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