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Tag: Akeredolu

  • JUST IN: Akeredolu, Sanwo-Olu, others in attendance as T.B. Joshua is laid to rest

    JUST IN: Akeredolu, Sanwo-Olu, others in attendance as T.B. Joshua is laid to rest

    Popular televangelist and founder of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), Prophet Temitope Balogun Joshua has been laid to rest at the Ikotun International headquarters of the church in Lagos.

    The laying-to-rest ceremony attracted Ondo Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu; Lagos Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu,who was represented by Commissioner for Home Affairs, Prince Olanrewaju Elegushi; and wife of Ooni of Ife, Olori Naomi Adeyeye.

    It was an emotional atmosphere as the prophet’s remains were committed to mother earth.

    TheNewsGuru.com, TNG reports Joshua died on June 5, few days before his 58th birthday.

    Other eminent personalities, including publisher Dele Momodu, International gospel singers, Shirley Murdock and Byron Cage were also in attendance.

    Meanwhile, the laying-to-rest ceremony was not opened to members of the public who thronged the church headquarters to witness the ceremony. The combined security operatives deployed to the church had a hectic moment controlling the crowd who wanted to take a final glimpse of their idol.

    Details shortly…

  • Assembly congratulates Gov Akeredolu on Appeal Court victory

    Assembly congratulates Gov Akeredolu on Appeal Court victory

    The Ondo State House of Assembly has congratulated Gov. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, on his victory at the Court of Appeal.
    This is contained in a statement signed by the Chairman House Committee on Information Youth and Sports Development, Olugbenga Omole on Thursday in Akure.
    The Ondo State House of Assembly Speaker, Bamidele Oleyelogun on behalf of 26 lawmakers , said it a victory well deserved.
    ”The people of the state unanimously renewed the mandate freely given to Gov. Akeredolu during his first tenure in the 2020 polls.
    ”The governor’s achievement cuts across every sector of the state including infrastructure development, education, health, industrial revolution among others.
    “We as a members of state assembly pledge to continue to work with the Governor towards making his dream to redeem Ondo State a reality”he said.
    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Court of Appeal sitting in Akure, dismissed the appeal filed by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the last governorship election in the state, Mr Eyitayo Jegede, against Akeredolu who was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the election.NAN reports that the state election petition tribunal had earlier stricken out the petition of the PDP candidate for lack of merit but Jegede approached the appellate court to challenge the verdict of the tribunal. 

    The appeal court, having examined the seven grounds of appeal tabled by the appellant, dismissed the appeal, saying it lacked merit

    In the judgment delivered virtually, the Justice Theresa Orji-Abadua-led five-man panel of judges said on the seven-issue of appeal, the issues one to five were resolved to favour the appellant while issue three was resolved to favour the respondent, and issue six was partly dismissed and partly allowed while issued seven favoured the respondent.

    “The appeal is partly allowed and partly dismissed and the appellant’s case is also dismissed,” the court held.

    Meanwhile, the PDP has expressed its dissatisfaction over the judgment as it declared that the appellate court verdict would be challenged at the Supreme Court,

    In a statement swiftly issued by the state Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr Kennedy Peretei.

  • Battle not over: Jegede, PDP head for S’Court to challenge Akeredolu’s victory at A’Court

    Battle not over: Jegede, PDP head for S’Court to challenge Akeredolu’s victory at A’Court

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State says it will appeal against the Appeal Court judgment dismissing the petition against the declaration of Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu as governor.

    This is contained in a statement signed by the State Publicity Secretary, Kennedy Peretei, and made available to newsmen in Akure on Wednesday.

    The party and its candidate in the Oct. 10, 2020 governorship election, Eyitayo Jegede, had approached the Court of Appeal to nullify Akeredolu’s election.

    However, the appellate court said in a unanimous judgment on Wednesday that the petition by PDP and its candidate lacked merit.

    In concluding her lead judgement, Hon. Justice Theresa Orji-Abadua, said the appeal was partially dismissed and partially allowed.

    “To the ordinary man in the street, the judgement was inconclusive and we must approach the Supreme Court to help the Appeal Court to conclude the judgement.

    “The kernel of the Eyitayo Jegede/PDP petition was whether or not a gross violation of the 1999 Constitution (as Amended) should be allowed to stay.

    “Whether or not Mai Mala Buni, as a sitting Governor of Yobe State can double as National Chairman of All Progressives Congress, to sign the nomination of Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) for the governorship election.

    “While the Court of Appeal acknowledged that it was a violation of the Constitution, it still went ahead to dismiss the appeal.

    “We are still studying the details of the judgement, by virtue of the fact that it was delivered via Zoom. But we have sufficient grounds to appeal the decision of the court.

    “We are confident the Supreme Court, which is the highest court in the land, will do justice,” the statement added.

  • JUST IN: Appeal court upholds gov Akeredolu’s election

    JUST IN: Appeal court upholds gov Akeredolu’s election

    The Akure division of Appeal Court sitting in Akure, the Ondo state capital, on Wednesday dismissed an appeal filed by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Eyitayo Jegede, on the reelection of Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    The panel of Justices led by Justice Theresa Ngolika Orji-Abadua held that the appeal of the PDP candidate lacked merit.

    Details Later…

  • ‘Interpretative error’, Akeredolu denies calling for scrapping of Nigerian senate

    ‘Interpretative error’, Akeredolu denies calling for scrapping of Nigerian senate

    Ondo Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has denied calling for the scrapping of the Senate in the review of the 1999 constitution being undertaken by the National Assembly.

    Akeredolu was represented by his Deputy, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, at the House of Representatives public hearing on the review of the 1999 constitution.

    Akeredolu described the report quoting him as calling for the scrapping of the Senate as an “interpretative error.”

    The Ondo Governor, who spoke in statement by his Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Donald Ojogo, said he had, like many other well-meaning Nigerians, identified Nigeria’s Bicameral Legislature and its full-time status as plausibly reducible weights to cut cost.

    He said: “Succinctly, Governor Akeredolu’s view, which is the official position of the Ondo State Government is that, adoption of the Unicameral Legislature, and making it part-time would not only cut cost of governance but has the potentials of enhanced performance and altruistic services to Nigerians.

    “Therefore, ascribing or misinterpreting this proposal to isolatedly, depict a call for the scraping of the Nigerian Senate is erroneous. The call for a part-time Unicameral Federal Parliament remains and shall be pursued with all vigour.”

  • Ondo Gov. Akeredolu wants senate scrapped

    Ondo Gov. Akeredolu wants senate scrapped

    Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State has called for a unicameral legislature for the country.

    Speaking at the Akure Centre of the South-West Zonal Public Hearing on the constitution review, on Tuesday, the governor said the upper chamber of the National Assembly should be scrapped to reduce the cost of governance.

    He also said the National Assembly should function on a part-time basis

    The governor was represented by his deputy, Lucky Aiyedatiwa.

    “The position of the Ondo State Government has been made public. We advocate for a Federal Government largely reduced in size and scope of engagement. We want to see a Constitution that will enhance the performance of public office holders at all levels.

    “It is possible to have a government that will serve the people in deed and truth. The law of the land must aid this realistic expectation. We must reduce the cost of governance and shift attention to service delivery in this trying period.

    “The country may consider dropping the current bicameral structure of the National Assembly and adopt a unicameral legislature. The membership of the Assembly should be part-time. No member should earn allowances not known to the Revenue Mobilisation and Allocation Committee and, more importantly, people they claim to serve.

    “Legislators should earn under a uniform salary structure. Allowance peculiarities must not be about obscenity. The Senate should be scrapped. The House of Representatives too should not be unwieldy. A maximum of four representatives should come from each zone.

    “The states must have a judicial system which conforms with its aspirations to develop an effective and efficient judicial system should be anchored on the peculiarities of a State and the quest to maintain law and order. The hierarchy of courts should be about satisfying the need to dispense justice among the people.

    “The courts must represent the readiness of the people to submit themselves to the rule of law. The system must not be withdrawn and oppressive as the current composition suggests. Zones should have their own Courts of Appeal.”

    There are currently 469 federal lawmakers in Nigeria, out of which 109 are of the senate.

  • Garba Shehu’s condemnation of open grazing shows he’s working for interests outside presidency – Akeredolu

    Garba Shehu’s condemnation of open grazing shows he’s working for interests outside presidency – Akeredolu

    Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu says the statement made by Garba Shehu, presidential spokesperson, on open grazing ban does not represent the interest of the presidency.

    On Monday, Shehu said the southern governors’ proposed plan to enforce the ban on open grazing is of “questionable legality” and a show of power.

    The southern governors, after a meeting in Asaba, Delta state, had said the decision was taken as a part of efforts to improve security in the region.

    In a statement on Tuesday by Doyin Odebowale, Akeredolu’s aide, the Ondo governor said Shehu is a messenger who works for an interest outside the presidency.

    “Anyone who has been following the utterances of this man, as well as his fellow travellers on the self-deluding, mendacious but potentially dangerous itinerary to anarchy, cannot but conclude that he works, assiduously, for extraneous interests whose game plan stands at variance with the expectations of genuine lovers of peaceful coexistence among all the peoples whose ethnic extractions are indigenous to Nigeria,” Akeredolu said.

    “Mr Garba must disclose, this day, the real motive(s) of those he serves, definitely not the President. He cannot continue to hide under some opaque, omnibus, and dubious directives to create confusion in the polity. The easy recourse to mendacious uppity in pushing a barely disguised pernicious agendum is well understood.

    “The declaration that the recommendations of the Minister of Agriculture, Alhaji Sabo Nanono, a mere political appointee like Garba Shehu, are now the “lasting solutions” which eluded all the elected representatives of the people of the Southern part of the country, exposes this man as a pitiable messenger who does not seem to understand the limits of his relevance and charge.

    “Mr Garba contends that “their announcement is of questionable legality”, referring to the 17 Governors of the Southern States, but the decision of certain elements to take the ancestral lands of other people to settle their kinsmen, including the “gun-wielding “killer herdsmen” and their families, and provide “veterinary clinics, water points for animals, and facilities for herders and their families including schooling through these rehabilitated reserves” for which “the Federal Government is making far-reaching and practical changes allowing for different communities to co-exist side-by-side”, does not appear to him as a comprehensive plan for land grabbing, a precursor to internal colonialism.

    “He wants to “revive forest reserves” but seems particularly uninterested in the current position of the same law, that he and his cohorts often misinterpret to serve parochialism and greed. Governors no longer have powers over the lands in their territories. They must take instructions from appointees of the Federal Government on such matters.

    “There has never been any contention on this provision. It is clear that Mr Garba seems to have issues understanding the difference between licentious criminality and qualified rights under our law. It is our duty to continually nudge him off his current state of cognitive dissonance. His pronouncement betrays dubiety and mischief.”

    Akeredolu said the governors have the constitutional mandate to protect their people from invaders.

  • Akeredolu carpets Buhari’s minister again, insists Southern Governors ban on open grazing, others irreversible

    Akeredolu carpets Buhari’s minister again, insists Southern Governors ban on open grazing, others irreversible

    Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu on Monday reiterated that the ban on open grazing by Southern state governors is irreversible.

    He said all governors were in agreement on full autonomy for the Judiciary and Local Governments administration.

    He spoke at the 2021 Nigerian Bar Association (NBA-SPIDEL) annual conference in Ibadan.

    “The southern governors at our meeting in Asaba took a decision. We want to say that the decision is irreversible and we are maintaining it.

    “Although for one reason or the other, I couldn’t attend the All Progressive Congress (APC) Southwest leaders forum meeting, I am happy that meeting supported our position in that respect.

    “The response of Attorney General of the Federation Abubakar Malami in an interview, for me is most uncalled for. That has shown his own mind set.

    “We call on the federal government to come out and assist people in so many fields. Animal husbandry is another form of farming. If you are spending money on those who are involved in rice cultivation, why can’t we spend money on those who are involved in animal husbandry.

    “The only way we can do that is to take them off this anachronistic way of having to herd cows from Kaura-Namoda to Lagos. It does not make sense. Not in this century.

    “It is for us to encourage ranching. The federal government should assist those who want to establish ranches, so that all these animals you want to ranch would come in trains and you bring them to ranch where they would be better fed and people would go there to buy.

    “Ondo state would do ranching. The National Livestock programme is so important. States that are interested let them be involved in ranching and the federal government should support it.

    “Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State has been very forthright in the matter saying that he also supports the ban on open grazing in many ways without mincing words.

    “You see a herder and how poor he looks and his herds is worth millions. Then there are some problems. He remains poor and herding animals that are worth millions. Which means he is being used by other people. It means the cows don’t belong to him. If they belong to him, he is a millionaire.

    “It is time they found a new way of rearing these animals so that nobody starts trekking from Sokoto to Lagos looking for food”, he emphasized.

    He said Malami’s comparison of spare parts selling with cattle rearing is most unfortunate.

    “All these people, all the Bororos, we are not asking them to leave. What we are saying is that we are opposed to criminality and we would fight it with what we have. People would enter our forest, they would kidnap our people and we would just keep quiet? We would not accept it.”

    On Judicial autonomy, Akeredolu said all of them in the Governors Forum, in their various discussions, believed in judicial autonomy and local government autonomy.

    “Judiciary must be autonomous. Local governments in Ondo state cannot complain. I don’t even know how much they earn or how they spend their money. They have their JAC and I am not interested in how they spend their money”, he said.

  • Fayemi, Akeredolu speak on absence at South-West APC leaders’ meeting

    Fayemi, Akeredolu speak on absence at South-West APC leaders’ meeting

    Governors Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (Ondo State) and Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti State) have explained their absence at Sunday’s meeting of the All Progressives Congress Southwest Leaders’ meeting held in Lagos State.

    Governor Akeredolu who said he supported the resolutions reached at the meeting attributed his absence to lack of timely communication.

    Akeredolu spoke in a statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Richard Olatunde.

    He described the parley as ‘commendable and timely.

    According to the statement, “Governor Akeredolu would have loved to be present at the meeting for several reasons. Far more important, the issues distilled bordered on the Southern Governors’ Asaba Declaration. However, a slight mix-up and communication gap had caused his unintended absence even as an earlier engagement had been fixed for Ibadan weeks before the meeting.

    “Nonetheless, the resolutions reached by the revered leaders at the Lagos meeting are quite commendable and timely; the issues discussed are germane, and are clear indications that men of goodwill are working together to solve the Nation’s current challenges.

    “As one of the leaders of the APC in the Southwest, and more so that, he presided over the Asaba meeting of the Southern Governors, nothing could be more spirit-lifting than the outcome of the Lagos meeting on Sunday. He, therefore, endorses all the resolutions reached by the leaders who attended the meeting.”

    In a simililar reaction, the Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, said his absence was a result of a mix up in the invitation sent out for the meeting.

    Fayemi’s reaction was containted in a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Yinka Oyebode.

    Fayemi claimed that the invitation for the meeting which was said to have been sent via Whatsapp by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s aide, Tunde Rahman, never got to him.

    The statement reads in part, “Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, wholeheartedly supports the stance of the All Progressives Party (APC) Southwest leaders at their meeting that took place in Lagos on Sunday, May 23rd, 2021 despite his absence at the meeting.

    “Dr. Fayemi’s absence at the meeting was a result of a mix up in the invitation sent out for the meeting.

    “For clarity, the invitation for the meeting which was said to have been sent via Whatsapp by Mr. Tunde Rahman, an aide to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu never got to Governor Fayemi.

    “The absence of an invitation for the Southwest APC leaders meeting prevented the Governor from attending the meeting, as he was not aware.

    “Governor Fayemi however sent an apology to the meeting through former Ekiti State Governor and Minister of Industries, Trade and Investments, Otunba Niyi Adebayo; as he was already scheduled to attend another engagement at the time he came to learn of the meeting.

    “Governor Fayemi, as a true democrat and Southwest leader who is committed to the welfare of the people, is however in total support of the decisions reached by the Southwest leaders at the meeting which include an endorsement of the positions earlier adopted by the Southern Governors’ Forum on the ban on open grazing and the need for true federalism, among others,” the statement added.

  • Yoruba Nation: Don’t drag me into your secessionist agenda, Akeredolu warns Sunday Igboho

    Yoruba Nation: Don’t drag me into your secessionist agenda, Akeredolu warns Sunday Igboho

    Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State has dismissed the claim making the rounds of his alleged support for the agitation for Yoruba nation.

    Akeredolu, who stated that agitators of Yoruba nation are on their own, emphasized that he would never be in support of secessionists.

    The Governor was reacting to the comment made by Yoruba activist, Sunday Adeyemo, popularly known as Sunday Igboho, that the agitation for a Yoruba nation was being backed by South-West Governors.

    Igboho had stated this on Saturday at the palace of the Deji of Akure, Oba Aladetoyinbo Aladelusi, where he said Akeredolu gave the nod for the rally for the actualization of Yoruba nation to hold in Akure, the state capital.

    In a statement issued by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Richard Olatunde, it was disclosed that the rally which was allowed to hold was due to the Akeredolu’s recognition of the right of individuals and groups to hold peaceful rallies, adding the move “must not be misconstrued to mean support for secessionist agenda and or balkanization of the nation. Far from it.”

    While stressing that he believed in a united and indivisible Nigeria, Akeredolu maintained that the zeal, leadership and candour displayed by him was for a just and fair Nigeria which according to him is altruistic and borne out of patriotism for the Nation as well as love for his people, the Yoruba ethnic nationality.

    He added that “it is important, therefore, to state without any equivocation that the Yoruba Nation secessionist promoters do not enjoy any lending hand in Governor Akeredolu.”