TheNewsGuru

Tag: Interim Government

  • Interim government, mischievous, unconstitutional – Military

    Interim government, mischievous, unconstitutional – Military

    The Defence Headquarters has described the call for interim government by some persons in the country as unfortunate and unconstitutional.

    The Director, Defence Media Operations, Maj.-Gen. Musa Danmadami, said this while addressing newsmen at the bi-weekly briefing on military operations across the country on Thursday in Abuja.

    Danmadami said that those calling for interim government were just trying to be mischievous, adding that the constitution did not provide for an interim national government.

    “On the issue of interim government, it is rather unfortunate. An election has been conducted and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that is mandated has announced a president elect.

    “It is not our responsibility to speak on that issue but I know that several calls have been made from the Presidency that there is nothing like interim national government.

    “So I think people were just trying to be mischievous. It is unconstitutional and all of us know that.

    “The constitution does not provide for an interim national government and that is the point the Presidency has been hammering on and that is our stand.

    “It is unconstitutional so anything unconstitutional as far as I am concerned is not applicable,” he said.

    Danmadami said the Operation Safe Conduct which was conducted towards the successful conduct of the elections to support police and INEC was successful.

    He said that the military was also ready to provide similar support towards the conduct of the remaining election in two states, where elections were declared inconclusive.

    According to him, the military is still working round the clock to make sure there is peace and security in the country.

    “During the brief, we told you the number of people that have been kidnapped and we equally told you the efforts of the military to ensure those kidnapped victims are rescued.

    “So, we will continue to carry out our responsibility to the best of ability while calling on the civil populace to support us,” he said.

  • Sen. Nnamani berates proponents of Interim National Govt

    Sen. Nnamani berates proponents of Interim National Govt

    Sen. Chimaroke Nnamani has berated proponents of Interim National Government (ING), describing it as treasonable and an affront to sensibility of Nigerians.

    Nnamani, in a statement on Thursday in Abuja said that ING was absurd and had no place in modern day democratic rule, saying that those behind the plot were enemies of Nigeria.

    “The presidential election has been conducted and a winner has been declared.

    “Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu will be sworn in as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 29, Interim government is a needless distraction.

    “Asiwaju will be sworn in on May 29, and he will hit the ground running.’’

    Nnamani believes that Tinubu would not deviate from his avowed commitment to the programmes of social protection, national transformation and restructuring.

    He expressed optimism that a Tinubu led administration would address critical infrastructural development, youth unemployment, women empowerment and the challenges facing the girl-child.

    The former governor of Enugu state predicted that a Tinubu led administration would ensure budget enhancements needed to address complex issues in health, education, social service sectors including portable drinking water and environmental sanitation.

    He expressed optimism that the forthcoming administration would rejuvenate international recognitions and awareness that would attract other nations to invest in Nigeria and consequently turn the nation’s economy around.

    He enjoined Nigerians across the divide to support the incoming administration which he hoped would be a government of national unity where no section of Nigeria would be marginalised or shortchanged in the scheme of things.

  • Interim government: DSS and reverse psychology – By Promise Adiele

    Interim government: DSS and reverse psychology – By Promise Adiele

    Nigerian famed state security apparatus, the Department of State Services (DSS) recently nudged Nigerians, fatigued by the post-election grotesque dance of vicious malevolence, by remarking that it uncovered a plot to install an interim government in the country.

    That assertion, to a well-meaning mind, in addition to its puerile and infantile suggestiveness, echoes ill-conceived, misplaced convictions signposting reverse psychology. Indeed, there seems to be no end to multiple chicaneries in Nigeria’s current political evolution enacted by the ruling APC.

    Shockingly, DSS has staked a disingenuous claim in the entire political drama. Nigerians must be worried about it. The DSS is saddled with the onerous responsibility to secretly protect the country without Nigerians being aware.

    Therefore, one is nonplussed to hear the same DSS announce that they uncovered a plot to install an interim government in the country. If there is any iota of truth in the assertion, the DSS should quickly arrest the plotters of the national tragedy.

    Failure to do this means that the DSS has failed in its duties. Or perhaps, it is all a hoax. There is no plan to install any interim government – the DSS is slumbering in the ritual of nostalgic remembrance of the Babangida-Shonekan era.

    The DSS interim government ethico-political misadventure reminds me of a popular Igbo lore about Ofeke the drunk. The story has it that in Ofeke’s bid to acquire many jars of palm wine, he decided to steal the intoxicating liquid from palm wine tappers.

    However, to prepare the minds of the villagers or possibly preempt their reactions, he announced his awareness of a plan by some rascals to steal palm wine from the tappers. Many people believed him, praising him for his foresight.

    However, the town crier confronted Ofeke and admonished him thus – “Ofeke, there is no plan by any rascal to steal palm wine. If any palm wine is missing, then you stole it. You are the drunk and know where all the palm wine are kept. We are not deceived by your false alarm. If you know some rascals planning to steal palm wine from the villagers, mention their names, lead us to them quietly and they will be apprehended”.

    Ofeke, like the proverbial tortoise whose antics were exposed by the hen, quietly withdrew into oblivion, and no one heard from him again. Need I say more? It all sounds familiar.

    Before his retirement, former Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusuf Buratai woke up one morning and decided to do what the DSS has done now. Buratai announced to a bemused populace that he had uncovered plots to overthrow Buhari’s government through a coup de tat.

    He sternly warned persons involved in the putsch scheme to desist from the act because democracy has come to stay. Buratai was torn to shreds by the media, writers and columnists who accused him of plotting to overthrow the government but was only testing the waters. In the current era, we can interpret the DSS alarm of interim government in two ways which correlate with the principle of reverse psychology.

    We must, as a mark of responsibility, establish a parallel between Buratai’s reverse psychology tactics and the current DSS mind games or we infer that the DSS has unfortunately assumed the role of political characters in the hands of the ruling APC. They do this by flying a kite to have reasons to arrest persons spuriously deemed to be plotting to install an interim government. In that case, the opposition presidential candidates are their targets. It can never be far from these two scenarios.

    Obviously, the DSS is populated by distinguished people of pristine professionalism and equitable disposition. However, the state security apparatus must realize that times have changed and Nigerians are informed enough to identify subtle acts of dubiety from afar. Interim government can only be installed in any country by two sets of people – either the commander in chief, in our case, the president or military/security personnel.

    The last time Nigeria experienced an interim government, it was willfully installed by the then maximum ruler, Ibrahim Babangida. An elder statesman of blessed memory, Earnest Shonekan benefited from that political contraption. However, it did not take long before the power-hungry, desperate despot Sani Abacha sacked Shonekan in a palace coup. It is therefore, improbable that an ordinary citizen will be planning to install an interim government.

    Or is the DSS alerting Nigerians that Mr President is planning to install an interim government to protect what remains of the image of Nigeria in international politics following Bola Tinubu’s disreputable victory in the last presidential elections? The preceding analogy interfaces with a recent rumour reported in the media that Buhari confided in some people about his unwillingness to hand over power to Bola Tinubu. Although the presidency has issued a statement denouncing the rumour, Nigerians are more sensible than that.

    Some people will argue that the DSS is currently enmeshed in a double standard regarding its duties as a security outfit. Before and after the recently concluded general elections, certain persons made statements capable of throwing Nigeria into turmoil. MC Oluomo, the crude, enfant terrible of Lagos thuggery, threatened a whole ethnic group and went on to make good his threat.

    The police, in a show of gross infamy, called the threat a joke. Afterwards, some Nigerians were maimed in Lagos, and their businesses burnt to ashes. While it lasted, the DSS lulled into inexplicable inertia even as the international community condemned Oluomo’s genocidal utterances.

    Bayo Onanuga, an otherwise renowned journalist and proponent of the rule of law, turned sixty degrees and embraced the things he fought against in the past. Mr Onanuga threatened the Igbo people in Lagos, making inflammatory statements that could compromise state security, leading to the loss of lives. On that occasion, the DSS relapsed into monumental hypnosis and looked away.

    There must be something opaque about state security to laymen like us. In the same vein, the foul-mouthed, garrulous FFK, although with four children that share Igbo heritage, spewed hate and incendiary comments against the Igbo capable of provoking violence and loss of lives across the country. Yet the DSS in apparent dissociation with equitable judgment, looked away, nosing for inconsequential psychological abstractions to feather their cap as a security service sector.

    Nigeria is presently hovering on the proverbial precipice even though it appears that all is well. It is obvious that the ruling APC is leaving nothing to chance to plunge the country into chaos, exploding all barriers of state unity and oneness. The information minister Mr. Lie Mohammed, a man famed for his ability to defend the absence of water in an ocean, is currently in the US trying to convince the world to accept the last electoral charade as a democracy.

    He has, while reincarnating treachery, accused Peter Obi and Datti Ahmed, both presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the Labour Party of treason. However, he failed woefully to explain the treasonable contents and how these two gentlemen are culpable. It is either because Mr Lie Mohammed does not understand the meaning of treason or he was in a hurry to redeem a globally acclaimed flawed electoral process that has exposed Nigeria to ridicule across the world. Security agencies in Nigeria should live up to their responsibilities and not become pawns on the chessboard of desperate politicians.

    History never forgets. The DSS, Military, Police and other affiliate security apparatuses should be professional and act in the interest of all Nigerians. The APC slide to an Orwellian, atavistic dominion of Nigerians using every underhand, conniving means will only provoke retaliatory vengeance the geography of victims, no one can decipher.

     

    Promise Adiele PhD
    Mountain Top University
    Promee01@yahoo.com
    Twitter: @Drpee4

  • Interim govt planners, DSS and Nigeria at the precipice – By Godwin Etakibuebu

    Interim govt planners, DSS and Nigeria at the precipice – By Godwin Etakibuebu

    I have been saying it, in all my media platforms, for a long time now, and this could not have be less than 6 months, at least, that any call for interim government, under whatever guise, is seditious and treasonable. It is a crime that carries the maximum penalty, in the land – so says the law of our land. And this shall remain my stand until otherwise dictated by our laws.

    The first call for Interim Government under this Fourth Republic came from a very senior Statesman, a legal Icon and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Pa Afe Babalola. He made the call on April 18, 2022, at Ado Ekiti. He probable pulled from his legal opinion, in realisation of the fact that the current Nigerian 1999 Constitution [as amended] might not be an answer to our problems.

    Pa Afe Babalola, the founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, made it very clear why his call for Interim Government was inevitable, even as he developed his thought through the instrumentality of the Law, in concluding that such “government should be in office for six months to chart a new course for Nigeria” and stressing that, “the 2023 elections should be suspended until Nigeria has “a new-look peoples’ Constitution which should provide for part-time legislators and non-executive president’’.

    Afe Babalola said members of the interim government should be drawn from all living former presidents and vice-presidents, some selected ministers and governors and delegates of prominent professional associations. The professional associations could be the Nigeria Medical Association, Nigeria Bar Association, Nigeria Labour Congress, Nigeria Union of Journalists, Academic Staff Union of Universities and Civil Society Organisations. The elder statesman noted that such delegates should be elected on zero party basis.

    He said it was regrettable that the current 1999 Constitution, foisted on Nigerians by the military was no longer in tune with the realities of the day.

    Then came the second call for interim government, under this Fourth Republic. And this came from the Founder of House of God Church; Pastor Chris Okotie, on June 17, 2022, and he tagged his proposed Interim Government as the “Government of reconciliation and reconstruction”.

    He did not arrive at that thought without a cogent reason, in his own mind anyway. Whatever was the reason of justifying such thought in his mind, couldn’t be said to make the opinion right and desirable. But it was his right, either degradingly or otherwise. Let us look at the reason why the man of God; the first pastor in Nigerian history that hung Double Barrel Gun [12 bore short gun] on his back for self-protection, advanced the proposal.

    Chris stated that the government [his proposed Interim government] would eliminate the legislative arm of government in the tripartite concept of a presidential system of government and empower the various voluntary Organisations. The Clergyman explained that the professional associations would be enabled constitutionally, to acquire legislative powers as a replacement for the removal of the legislature from the country’s political system.

    “The presidential system has failed this country and we need to do something before the country goes extinct. We need to do away with the Legislature. It costs us billions to maintain that structure. There are 469 people in the lower and upper chambers representing the whole of Nigeria. Expunge the legislature from our constitution and empower the Unions like the NUT, ASUU, NMA others to participate in the legislative process”, Pastor Chris Okotie said.

    If there were to be nothing else, in Chris Okotie’s proposal, the mere fact that he proposed “eliminating the legislative arm of government in the tripartite concept of a presidential system of government” spoke in volumes that such thought is waxed with enough treasons in jeopardising democracy. 

    But a few days before the 2023 General Election, accusations from top leaders of the Ruling Political Party [APC], targeted against “Leadership, Power-that-be, Cabals in the Presidency and Cabals in the Villa, broke out voluminously. And the whole world heard it loud and clearly. Nigerians heard it very clearly – in midst of confusion and embarrassment though. 

    The first person to tell the story of an existence of a Cabal operating in the Aso Rock Villa, with intention of working towards enforcing an Interim Government, was the Executive Governor of Kaduna State – Malam Nasir El-Rufia. 

    He – El Rufai, made the allegation first before Ahmed Bola Tinubu; then the APC presidential flagbearer, in a shocking revelation, made in Abeokuta; Capital of Ogun State, alluded to the fact that Powers-that-be were trying to sabotage his presidential ambition by “gbe epo pamo” [hiding petroleum products], “won gbe owo pamo” [hiding money].

    Back to when Nasir El-Rufai made the allegations, the Presidency responded violently – countering the governor, asking him to name his “suspect in the Presidency” that he meant as the Cabal.

    Malam Nasir El-Rufai; a man well-known never being kind with those who dare his thoughts, replied Garba Shehu; Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, by telling him that his allegation referred to a Cabal in the Aso Rock Villa and not to the Presidency. 

    The Kaduna State Governor took the analysis full length from the initial introduction point; so it looked, when he started. He narrated the details of the arrangement for Interim Government be proposed at the Villa, by revealing that there was a retired General of the Nigerian Army listed [as of the time he spoke and that was weeks before the general election] as Head of the Interim Government. 

    The question that everyone now asks is this: where was the Directorate of State Security [DSS] when all these discussions were holding? Was the DSS not supposed to have known about this notorious, subversive and treasonable felony, ab initio, before people like Malam El-Rufai stubble into it? Or, is the DSS coming to convince us – Nigerians, that they could not investigate then because the alleged planners of Interim Government, as it were then were members of the ruling class that employ them?

    Fellow Nigerians, let the truth be told, today’s DSS, like other segments of our endangered country, has been over-compromised, probably. If integrity is vanishing away from the Nigerian Judiciary – as current events are revealing, and same [integrity] has taken flight out the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC], as attested to by all International Observers that oversaw the 2023 general elections, can the DSS remain the only holy Nigerian Institution that will be standing?

    It is therefore not the challenge of DSS, nor Malam Nasir El-Rufai – that has the details of the whole alleged wicked pending project; as he analysed it with perfect masterpiece, and not even that of President Muhammadu Buhari; who is the Commander-in-Chief of “all of them”. But it is a challenge and problem of a country that has been demonically over-compromised.

    Nevertheless, I am not losing hope as there is still a window of deliverance – the Almighty God remains, still, our deliverer!

     

    Godwin Etakibuebu; a veteran Journalist, wrote from Lagos.

    Contact:

    Website: www.godwintheguru.com

    You Tube Channel: Godwin The  Guru

    Twitter: @godwin_buebu

    Facebook: Godwin Etakibuebu

    Facebook Page: Veteran Column

    Telegram: @friendsoftheguru

    WhatsApp: @friendsoftheguru

    Phone: +234-906-887-0014 – short messages only. 

    You can also listen to this author [Godwin Etakibuebu] every Monday; 9:30 – 11am on Lagos Talk 91.3 FM live, in a weekly review of topical issues, presented by The News Guru [TNG].

  • Another Interim Government plot by Military apologists – By Ehichioya Ezomon

    Another Interim Government plot by Military apologists – By Ehichioya Ezomon

    Military apologists – in and outside of Government – are conniving to take advantage of fallouts from the February and March Federal and State elections – to foist an illegal contraption of an Interim National Government on Nigeria.

    This comes barely 56 days to the May 29, 2023, swearing in of President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, to replace outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari.

    In attempting to abort and supplant an elected government, the anti-democratic elements plan to undermine the amended 1999 Constitution, which’s foundational to existence of Nigeria as a Nation.

    Section 1(2) of the Constitution states, unambiguously, that: “The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed, nor shall any person or group of persons take control of the Government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this Constitution.”

    For good measure, section 1(1) states that: “This Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

    And section 1(3), reinforcing section 1(1), states that: “If any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void.”

    As interim government is unknown to law, its planners will have to suspend section 1(1)-(3) of the Constitution for a soft and safe landing, to impose themselves and their will on Nigerians.

    In the February 25 presidential election, Tinubu, a former Lagos State Governor, defeated 17 contestants, including three leading opposition candidates.

    They’re former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of Peoples Democratic Party, former Anambra State Governor Peter Obi of Labour Party, and former Kano State Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of New Nigeria Peoples Party.

    But Atiku and Obi claim they each won the poll, and should’ve been declared President-elect, instead of Tinubu, who won in 12 states, scored 8,794,726 votes and secured one-quarter (25%) spread in 27 states.

    Atiku, who won in 12 states, polled 6,984,520 votes, and secured 25% in 17 states; and Obi, who claimed 11 states, scored 6,101,533 votes, and secured 25% in 15 states, disagreed with INEC’s returns.

    They argue in their petitions to the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) that Tinubu didn’t meet the requirements of the law, viz: the 1999 Constitution and Electoral Act 2022.

    While they’re in court, Atiku and Obi’s supporters and members of their parties have found their ways into the streets, and laid siege to the offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Abuja, and several States, in attempts to reverse the declaration of Tinubu, and cancel or annul the poll.

    The other day, members of the PDP, led by its “stepped-aside” National Chairman Iyorcha Ayu, and the party candidate, Atiku, protested to the INEC office in Abuja, demanding cancellation of the election, and a second exercise organised “that will be credible and acceptable to Nigerians and the international community.”

    Members of ObIdients Movement – supporters of Labour’s Obi – also stormed Abuja streets, with a call to annul the poll.

    They pleaded with Buhari to practically breach the Constitution by declining to hand over to Tinubu on May 29, but to form an illegal Inerim National Government – made famous in 1993, after the Military regime of retired Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida annulled the June 12, 1993, poll won by Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola.

    Due to intense pressure, both home and abroad, Babangida decided to “step aside” on August 26, 1993, but not before he empanelled an Interim National Government headed by boardroom great, Chief Ernest Shonekan, who lasted only 82 days in power.

    Then Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Sani Abacha, took advantage of a November 10, 1993, ruling of a Lagos High Court Judge, the late Dolapo Akinsanya, that illegled the Interim National Goverment.

    Justice Akinsanya said: “President Babangida has no legitimate power to sign a decree after August 26, 1993, after his exit, so the decree is void and of no effect.”

    Abacha then sacked Shonekan, and established a draconian regime that hunted and eliminated many pro-democracy activists, including Abiola’s wife, Kudirat, gunned down on June 4, 1996, by Abacha’s goons in Lagos.

    And five years after annulment of June 12 on June 23, 1993, Abiola died in mysterious circumstances in detention on July 7, 1998, as he strugged to regain his mandate that Justice Akinsanya’s ruling had literally restored in November 1993 sans Abacha’s seizure of power.

    It’s President Buhari, who posthumously recognised Abiola on June 12, 2018, as the legitimate winner of June 12, and awarded him the highest National Honour of Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR) – as an attestation of Abiola as President-elect, though not sworn-in accordingly.

    Among those that survived the Abacha killing spree is President-elect Tinubu, who escaped into exile on the Intel that he was marked for elimination by the Abacha hit squad.

    Tinubu returned to the country following the political transition programme that retired Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar’s regime initiated to usher in the Fourth Republic in 1999. He vied for and won election as Governor of Lagos, and was re-elected, and served out his eight-year tenure in 2007.

    The foregoing are the tales and horrors that signposted Nigeria’s first Inerim National Government – birthed from a duly appointed and conducted election – but hijacked by the very Military that ordred the election in the first place.

    Save Military apologists parading as pseudo-democrats, Nigerians – including Individuals, Ethnic Nationalities, National Association of Nigerian Students, Civil Society Organisations, the 36 State Governors and Senior Lawyers versed in constitutional matters – are genuinely alarmed by the unfolding development.

    Amid the economic and social dislocations in the society, can Nigerians face another apparatus imposed this time through the machinations of politicians and supporters that lost elections, in cahoots with cliques within and outside the government?

    Can Nigeria withstand aftermaths of annulment of Tinubu’s election, as happened to Abiola of the same ethnic stock 30 years ago?

    On the back of uninterrupted 24 years of democratic practice since the return of civilian governance in 1999, Nigerians have delivered a resounding and an unequivocal no to the crusaders and purveyors of an interim government.

    And they demand that the Department of State Services (DSS) that blew the whistle on the plot should expose, arrest and prosecute the plotters and backers of the illegal scheme, no matter how highly placed, and wherever they are.

     

    *Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.

  • “Arrest and prosecuted for treason those plotting interim govt” -ACF tells FG

    “Arrest and prosecuted for treason those plotting interim govt” -ACF tells FG

    A leader of the Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, on Saturday, called on the Federal Government to arrest and prosecute proponents of an interim national government.

    He said the agitation, in some quarters, to foist interim government on Nigerians, after Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress had been declared President-elect, was the height of unpatriotism for the country.

    The chairman, Kwara State chapter of ACF, Dr Mohammed Ghali-Alaaya, who made the call, while addressing journalists at the Annual Weekend Ramadan Lecture of Kwara State Television Authority, which held in Ilorin, on Saturday, insisted that Nigerians chose their preferred candidate among the array of presidential flag-bearers during the general elections.

    He, therefore, wondered why those canvassing an interim government were yet to come to terms with the reality of that choice.

    Ghali-Alaaya explained that it was the resolve of stakeholders in the North, particularly governors from the region, for power to shift to the South, since President Muhammadu Buhari, who is from the North, is rounding off his second term of office.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports that the ACF chairman, who is an associate of the state governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, observed that the call for a power shift gathered momentum to allay the fear that the country was on the brink of breaking up, should the Northern region continue to hold on to power.

    He maintained that the fact that the President-elect, pulled the majority of his votes from the North, reflected the commitment of the region for power rotation.

    Nigerians have spoken, and we have done so loudly. It is so sad for anybody now to say that anyway, anybody, however highly placed found advocating or supporting any interim government in any guise will be met with very stiff opposition

    Ghali-Alaaya remarked, “The Northern governors, when they spoke, they did so, bearing in mind that, the trouble and expectation of this country is so clear; that governance must shift from the North to the South. That is not far-fetched. There have been insinuations that Nigeria will break up and everybody is afraid in the country.

    “That decision (power shift) was made purely on a very good platform. They (governors) had a very good intention and everybody fell in love with that decision. We have seen that since 2019, and you can see the preparation of the people, including those in the diaspora. Every stakeholder in this country wanted the governance to shift from the North to the South, so that, this country will remain.

    “It is very fortunate that in the beginning of the elections, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu won in the primary. It is marvellous and a clean slate which was unexpected. I think everybody should be convinced that when the real election came, this man (Tinubu) won convincingly, and most of the votes he garnered were even from the North.

    “It is very surprising that anybody will contest elections and win in other regions other than his own, to that extent, so comfortably.

    “Nigerians have spoken, and we have done so loudly. It is so sad for anybody now to say that anyway, anybody, however highly placed found advocating or supporting any interim government in any guise will be met with very stiff opposition. Anybody who does that should be arrested and prosecuted for treason because this is the height of unpatrotism for the country,” the ACF leader advised.

  • NANS kicks against purported interim government plot

    NANS kicks against purported interim government plot

    The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) has rejected the purported interim government plot.

    The student body also frowned at any move intended to truncate the nation’s democratic process. It warned against any bid to stop the President-Elect’s inauguration.

    A statement by its Vice President (External Affairs) Akinteye Babatunde Afeez said: “Following the recent reports coming from the quarters of the Nigerian DSS that there are frantic efforts and devilish plots by some scrupulous elements in the Nigerian political space to truncate the Nigerian political system by stopping the inauguration of Sen. Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the president-elect with an illegal installation of an interim government; the Nigerian Students considers this as a SHAM and we say in all factual senses that it cannot work.

    “It is laughable in all ramifications that an election was organized by INEC and the result of the presidential election produced a PRESIDENT-ELECT and this winner was announced by the same body – INEC that conducted the election then a group of sycophants would come together to plan to shortchange the fragile peace of the nation for their selfish interests.

    “This will be totally unacceptable by all and sundry. The entire Nigerian students would go against this with every power within and without. Gone is the era of June 12, 1993 when Nigeria was still in a dark age and most Nigerians didn’t know their rights and privileges as citizens.

    “Gone is such an era of militarization and affront impunity, where someone or a group of few people can just come up with plans and actualize them against the will of the people. Gone is the era where the Nigerian Students and youth would sit and watch some people decide for us to our detriment as citizens and as a nation. We are all wiser now. This will not work.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports that NANS advised candidates who are not satisfied with the outcome of the presidential election to seek redress in the court of law.

    We will stand firm against every form of oppression and intimidation from any quarters

    “As a matter of urgency, I hereby call upon the Nigerian Students, the Nigerian youth and the entire citizens of Nigeria to be ready to resist every form of oppression or manipulation that would send Nigeria backwards in the comity of nations and any installation that would tamper with the peace and tranquility that Nigeria is enjoying in recent times after the heat of the just concluded election.

    “In the capacity of the leadership of the Nigerian Students, I want to emphatically say that the Nigerian Students shall fight back venomously any form of unnecessary interim government installation or every plot to stop the inauguration of the president-elect come May 29, 2023.

    “We will let these selfish and egocentric leaders know that their times are gone and that we are in the era of Nigerians, most especially Nigerian Students taking their destinies in their hands and holding their stakes firmly in the way their country is run and directed.

    “We will stand firm against every form of oppression and intimidation from any quarters and make sure that the right things are done at every point in time in our dear nation, Nigeria.

    “I strongly advise that any candidate or any political party who is not satisfied with the outcome of the presidential election should seek redress in the court of law and desist from inciting violence of any form in any way so that Nigeria can move forward.”

  • Just In: Calls for an interim govt, shoddy elections protest rocks Abuja

    Just In: Calls for an interim govt, shoddy elections protest rocks Abuja

    Fresh protests, on Thursday, rocked the nation’s capital, Abuja, over the just concluded elections, with protesters kicking against the May 29 inauguration of the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and instead demanding the invocation of an Interim National Government, ING.
    They asked Presidential Muhammadu Buhari to put the ING in place before he leaves office on May 29.
    The angry Nigerians, who protested on the platform of the National Youth League for the Defence of Democracy, NYLDD, also demanded the immediate sack and arrest of the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu by the Department Security Services, DSS.
    Armed with various placards with different inscriptions, they also asked several foreign embassies in Nigeria to immediately revoke the visas of 15 INEC Resident Electoral Commissioners RECs.
    The RECs they want to be sanctioned are those of Lagos, Rivers, Borno, Zamfara, Niger, Jigawa, Kano and Imo. Others are Ebonyi, Ekiti, Ogun, Oyo, Cross River, Katsina and Edo States.
    Addressing journalists at the Unity Fountain, where the protest started, one of the leaders of the group, Dr Moses Paul, said the interim government is expected to appoint a new INEC chairman and conduct a fresh election that will produce a befitting President for Nigeria.
    He said; “We are citizens of Nigeria, lovers of Nigeria, standing on the path of our constitution and citizens’ rights.
    “We are here particularly to address the greatest crime that has happened in the history of the world and in Nigeria.
    “People were burnt in Kano, people were shot in Rivers, and we have seen the greatest inhumanity happen in Lagos state in the course of this election.
    “Two demands we are making; we are asking the President of this country to immediately arrest and prosecute the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who has committed the greatest fraud in the history of humanity.
    “We need him arrested and prosecuted.
    “Our number two demand is that we are asking that an interim government be put in place. We are saying that, because we do not want President Muhammadu Buhari to continue, his tenure is ending, so as a father he should put in place an interim government so that the interim government will now appoint another INEC chairman who will conduct a free and credible election and produce a befitting President for our country.”
    When asked to provide other options if the two demands were not met, one of the co-conveners, Anngu Orngu, said they are harmless Nigerians “but we will use every other civil and lawful means to make sure that our demands are met”.
    “We are here as frustrated Nigerians and the fundamental rights of Nigerians have been trampled upon by Mahmood Yakubu-led INEC and we are here calling for his immediate resignation.
    “We have also requested that DSS should arrest him, and he should be prosecuted by the EFCC.
    “We have been to the US Embassy, we have been to the British Council in Nigeria, and we have also submitted a letter to the French Embassy, calling on them to advise the Nigerian government that the Nigerian people are not happy.
    “We the young people of this country are not happy over what is happening in our country. We may be peaceful now but when you push even a goat to the wall, the goat may bite,” he added.
    In one of the letters made available to journalists and addressed to the to the United States Embassy, the protesters called for sanctions against the INEC Chairman.
  • Stop joke about interim government, election will hold – Presidency

    Stop joke about interim government, election will hold – Presidency

    Presidency says there is no truth to the claim that President Muhammadu Buhari is working towards an interim government or the truncation of democracy, saying elections will hold as scheduled.

    A statement by Malam Garba Shehu, the President’s spokesman on Friday in Abuja, said the president would never be a party to the truncation of democracy that he had helped to keep alive not only here at home, in West Africa but throughout the continent.

    According to him, talk of interim government and truncation of democracy is way off the mark and those peddling it stand to gain nothing- ”nothing at all -but the creation of panic and the incitement of the public against the federal government.”

    The statement read in part: ”Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda Chief of Adolf Hitler said ‘‘Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth’’. This was in the 1930s, before the internet was birthed.

    ”Let us clearly, specifically and emphatically state that there is absolutely no truth to the claim that President Muhammadu Buhari is working towards an interim government or even worse, the truncation of democracy- democracy that he has helped to keep alive not only here at home, in West Africa but throughout the continent.

    ”The talk of interim government and truncation of democracy is way off the mark. Those who peddle it stand to gain nothing- nothing at all -but the creation of panic and the incitement of the public against the federal government.

    ”It is another dangerous dimension by people who are afraid that they may lose their elections.

    ”Everybody is aware that there is a lot of pressure on everyone-all of us- the party, its elected officials, its candidates and law enforcement agencies following the way the currency swap has gone but the way to go is not to panic.”

    The presidential aide acknowledged that the country was facing socio-economic challenges occasioned by the ongoing currency swap policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

    He, however, maintained that the solution to the problem was not sending the citizens into confusion as the president had since opened several avenues for consultation with leaders and groups across the country.

    ”There is indeed a problem and nobody will pretend that it doesn’t exist.

    ”It is precisely because the President is concerned with this problem that he opened several avenues for consultation with leaders and groups across the country, culminating in his broadcast to the nation on Thursday morning.

    ”In line with the speech, his clear and unequivocal directive is that the problem of cash supply must be addressed without delay.

    ”While this is being done, there is no need to panic. We need to work together as leaders; as a people and as one nation. When panic hits, people go into overdrive. Shouting helps no one because no one can listen.

    ”The solution to the problem is not in sending Nigerians into confusion.”

    He said elections, just a week ahead, would hold and Nigerians will vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC), and any others if they so wish, on the basis of their choice.

    According to him, people want progress, good governance, law and order and will not be swayed by the negative energy that is being expended against a well-meaning currency change.

    Shehu also dismissed the assertion in some quarters that the CBN currency swap policy was targeted at the APC presidential candidate, Sen. Bola Tinubu.

    He said: ”Finally, to state that: the President clearly has a favoured successor in Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is not in doubt.

    ”The fact that Tinubu has been opposed to the speed and timing of the Naira swap timetable does not mean he is against the idea of Nigeria becoming a cashless society.

    ”Of course, Tinubu does support a cashless society: for he is a man of the future.

    ”What should be made crystal clear to the doubters and the speculators and the untruth-tellers is that in no way was the naira swap “engineered” to keep the President in office beyond May 29. Nothing could be further from the truth.

    ”The President looks forward to handing over the reins of power to his elected successor. This will happen on May 29 as the Constitution requires it.

    ”The days of unelected Nigerian leaders, and those who outstay their welcome by unconstitutionally extending it, have gone.”

  • Suspend 2023 elections, install interim government after Buhari’s tenure – Afe Babalola

    Suspend 2023 elections, install interim government after Buhari’s tenure – Afe Babalola

    Legal icon and elder statesman, Chief Afe Babalola, says an interim government should replace the current administration at the expiration of President Muhammadu Buhari tenure in 2023.

    Babalola told a news conference in Ado-Ekiti on Monday that the interim government should be in office for six months to chart a new course for Nigeria.

    He stressed that the 2023 elections should be suspended until Nigeria has “a new-look peoples’ Constitution which should provide for part-time legislators and non-executive president’’.

    Babalola said that members of the interim government should be drawn from all living former presidents and vice-presidents; some selected ministers and governors and delegates of prominent professional associations.

    The professional associations could be the Nigeria Medical Association, Nigeria Bar Association, Nigeria Labour Congress, Nigeria Union of Journalists, Academic Staff Union of Universities and Civil Society Organisations.

    The elder statesman noted that such delegates should be elected on zero party bases.

    He said it was regrettable that the current 1999 Constitution, foisted on Nigerians by the military was no longer in tune with realities of the day.

    “The same Constitution has made politics become not only very attractive, but the only lucrative business in Nigeria today.

    “What this means is that any election that holds under the present scenario will end up producing transactional and recycled leaders, with no ability to turn things around,’’ he said.

    The university proprietor advised that the new Constitution which should be coordinated by the interim government, should spell out rules and regulations on improved qualifications of those contesting elections.

    He added that the new Constitution should provide for part-time legislators and not full-time legislators, considering the attendant waste of resources.

    “The new Constitution should also provide that there shall be no salary, but sitting allowances only for lawmakers.

    “It should provide a true federal system of government, instead of the expensive presidential system of government. I suggest a parliamentary system of government, with a unicameral legislature.

    “The new Constitution should also provide a body at the local, state and federal levels to screen all aspirants on the sources of their wealth and means of livelihood, criminal record which includes pending suits,’’ he said.

    The legal luminary added that any person that would become the president of Nigeria should not be older than 60 years of age and must have a varsity degree.