News
Obi has conquered greed! *He’s making waves in the North – ex-IPAC Chairman
One of the biggest asset of Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election that he has conquered greed, which virtually all politicians in Nigeria today are still struggling today, Chairman of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), Peter Ameh, has said.
Ameh, told his host, while appearing on Politics Today, a public affairs programme on Channels Television on Thursday that Obi not only conquered greed, but his moral and political uprightness and discipline should be a motivation not only to Nigerians, but should be studied and adopted by other politicians.
His words: “I’ve known Peter Obi for a very long time. Peter Obi has conquered greed. He’s morally and politically upright and disciplined. How I wish many Nigerians should go to him to get mentored. The way he is pushing his one-term promise is sacrosanct. It’s not something he’s pushing in his bedroom.
“Peter Obi will not want to lose his integrity, or lose his public acceptance and appeal by saying it everywhere. These are clear statements that he’s committed to participating in governance by doing the right thing. For years is a lot of years. If you have a leader that is compassionate and committed, that sits every day and has the energy to go through the papers and go through the books, four years is a lot.
“Go and look at what is happening in Argentina. Inflation has dropped drastically, the GDP has increased, the unemployment rate has dropped drastically in just two years. It took only two years for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to bring us to this level of poor leadership.
“Two years is a lot of time to strengthen our institutional framework, to instill discipline when it comes to fiscal responsibility and how we manage our resources. The most important thing you see in our country is that there is so much waste in governance and we don’t prioritise our spending.
“That is the character that Peter Obi has that if he brings on board, he’ll be able to reengineer how government is operated in this country. Let’s not overstress this issue of four years. Four years is 365 days times four. It’s a long period of time.”
Advancing his argument further, he said Obi’s fever had actually caught up with Nigerians, saying presently, the former Governor of Anambra State was making waves in the North.
He said: “I am from northern Nigeria and we know, as I speak today, that the current available decision of our people favours Peter Obi. The north is a very diverse place and a very complex political territory. For me, I don’t think the north is as difficult as people want to make us believe.
“The northern Nigeria that you see today – Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto and all that – his (Obi’s) performance there was very clear, even in Plateau. We want a free election, that is fair and that is credible.
“The north is more politically understanding than any other region of this country. Peter Obi has made an emphatic statement and a public declaration that ‘I want to do only one term so that I don’t tilt the balance of our unwritten arrangement. We should be looking for someone who has compassion, discipline, character and competence, and not about ethnicity or religion.
“It is clear that the next election is not going to be the same thing. And that is why you see the struggle to give appointments and change certain things by the government. Even the Chief of Staff (Femi Gbajabiamila) is holding meetings with the northern House of Representatives because they know the people are not happy.
“We are going to challenge all the illegal processes that were used to undermine our voters and the outcome of the election, and we are going to put mechanisms in place to defend the popularity that Peter Obi has gotten and the acceptance he now enjoys.”
Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Governor of Oyo State, on Thursday, finally threw his hats into the ring by declaring his intention to run for president in 2027, with a message – history beckons.
The governor, whose ambition has been a matter of speculations for months now and who had teamed up with forces angling to force President Bola Tinubu, out of power, told a teeming crowd in Ibadan on Thursday that time had come to reset Nigeria.
At a mega-rally to announce the alliance between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and the Allied Peoples’ Movement, (APM), Makinde, expressed worry over the dwindling fortunes of Nigerians, vowing to engage Nigerians to end the drift.
Hear him: “Without a multi-party system, there is no democracy. Where is our multi-party? Where do we go from here? We have been pushed to the wall.
“They calculated and self-opposition cannot unite but I am here to say that the opposition is the everyday Nigerian. This is the time for all us to ensure Nigeria works for us. This is the time to confront it fears. It is time to engage as citizens and not spectators.
“For the opposition political parties, this is the time to unite and work in unity and give our nation the much reset it needs. The time to reset Nigeria is now. Ibadan is the city of warriors. The first grand alliance is formed. The PDP and APM is formed. This handshake will allow us to field candidates from presidency to state Assembly. And so, I declare my candidacy for office of the president of Nigeria.”
Eyo Ekpe, a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), on Wednesday, gave a detailed account on how operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) manhandled him on Monday.
He told reporters that he was at sea on why he should fall victim to the assault against his person and eventually arrested given that was not right person directly involved in the information the agency sought.
Some operatives of the EFCC who invaded the hospital, had whisked Ekpe away after firing teargas to scare away the workers, patients and visitors to the hospital, following what appeared like a fracas the ensued over what it claimed was a routine duty in the facility.
Ekpe, Deputy Chairman of the hospital’s Medical Advisory Committee (MAC), described how an operative had first entered his office to make inquiries on why the hospital was yet to give a response to an EFCC inquiry over a medical report linked to a suspect facing trial.
He detailed how he briefed the operative that the said response was being prepared and even went ahead to show him the draft of a letter in that regard, which needed to go through the gamut of official endorsement before being released.
Hear him: “The head of that internal medicine department looked at the report and also discovered that the name of the doctor that signed the report is not a member of staff of that department.
“I had prepared prepared a response to the EFCC on Monday, May 11, 2026, based on the findings. When the EFCC operative visited my office the next morning to collect the document, I told him that the response was ready in draft. I even showed him the draft, but told him that the document still needed approval from the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital before it could be officially signed and released.
“He pretended to have accepted that. He left, but later later returned with another armed operative and informed me that I was under arrest. I asked him why. I was not the one that issued the medical report. My name is not on the medical report. The report was not issued from my unit.
“But he said I would get the answer when I get to their office. I then asked him to at least wait for my staff member who I sent on an errand before joining them. But they refused.
“They started pushing me. They dragged me out of the office. Then I began to cry while they were dragging me. They had warned me not to speak. They had taken my phone. My cry as they were dragging me, attracted the workers to the scene, who enquired what was going on, but because they ordered me not to speak, I couldn’t say anything. They had their guns.
The members of staff of the hospital initially blocked them from taking me away. They then made a call. After that I saw many masked and armed men came violently, broke the protector, threatening the people that were around and people ran away.
“They picked some staff that were still by me. they dragged me and other staff, five of us into their van downstairs. By that time they discovered that the gate of the hospital were locked. So, they drove towards the gate and packed and the commotion continued. We were inside the van.
“I was so emotionally and psychologically traumatised that I couldn’t even look out of the vehicle to see what was happening outside. But I know that teargas and live bullets were shot. That’s all I can say for now.”
Joyce Abdulmalik, of the Federal High Court, Abuja, heard on Wednesday, how Zenith Bank raised alarm over the huge transaction in one of its branches by Abubakar Malami, former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF-MoJ).
The bank said it immediately filed a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) in respect to the transactions, during its appearance in the ongoing trial of Malami, his wife, and son over allegation of massive looting of funds belonging to the Federal Government during his tenure.
Mashelia Bata, a compliance officer with the bank, who appeared as witness in the case, where Malami, et al, are facing a 16-count charge bordering on alleged money laundering to the tune of N8.7 billion, to which they pleaded not guilty, gave the testimony while being questioned on the bank’s roles in the matter.
Details of the testimony conveyed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), stated how the compliance officer who was cross-examined by Adebayo Adedeji, lawyer to the defendants admitted that the deposits in the account statements complied with the guidelines of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Arguments had stretched when Adedeji, opposed Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), lawyer to the EFCC, who had asked the witness to explain the meaning of a suspicious transaction report, stressing that there was no ambiguity in the term.
However, Okutepa, in response, maintained that section 215(3) of the Evidence Act did not preclude him from re-examining the witness while urging the court to allow the question for proper explanation.
After Abdulmalik, agreed and overruled Adedeji, the witness told the court that banks were required to alert the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) about fund deposits coming in a repetitive pattern, adding: “Any deposition of funds seen in a pattern or repetitive, you must escalate it to the NFIU.”
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