TheNewsGuru

Tag: PDP

  • Obaseki, Oshiomhole applaud A’Court verdict, say Edo never voted PDP

    Obaseki, Oshiomhole applaud A’Court verdict, say Edo never voted PDP

    Edo State Governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki, on Friday, praised the judgement of the Court of Appeal, which upheld his victory at the September 28, 2016 Governorship Election.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that the Court of Appeal, on Friday morning, dismissed the election petition filed by both the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, noting that the Tribunal did a painstaking job and should be commended for its judgment.

    Commending the appellate court’s verdict, the governor said that the truth would always prevail and he was prepared to appear at the Supreme Court over the case because he won the election and both God and his ancestors had reaffirmed that he won so they (PDP and Ize-Iyamu) could not change the truth.

    In addition, the governor appreciated the support of Edo citizens, assuring them that his administration was not distracted by the lingering election petition cases, that he would rededicate himself to good governance, and that he would continue the appointments of political appointees.

    Meanwhile, Oshiomhole declared that the people of Edo State never voted for PDP and that the Court of Appeal had reaffirmed the fact that they were clear on the sustenance of Governor Obaseki’s policies, who, he observed, had not been distracted from the business of good governance.

    He said: “At a time when most states cannot pay salaries, in Edo, he is paying a minimum wage even higher than what the federal government stipulated. What more can we say? Well, naturally we are excited. I am sure they also did very careful and detailed evaluation of the petitioners’ case and the response of our party as respondents.”

    He continued that this was why he concluded that the petition was of the busybody category and that the truth was clear for everyone, who followed and did detailed evaluations, to see.

    “Edo people never voted PDP,” he explained.

    “They have not forgotten in a hurry the misrule of PDP for thirteen years in this state and sixteen years at the federal level. They could not have voted PDP, so it was clear that they lost it at the ballot box,” Oshiomhole said.

  • PDP denies link with newly unveiled APDA

    PDP denies link with newly unveiled APDA

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has denied having any association with newly unveiled Advance Peoples Democratic Alliance (APDA).

    The National Caretaker Committee of the party made the clarification in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr Dayo Adeyeye, on Monday in Abuja.

    The party said that the clarification was necessary following numerous calls it had received its members, concerned citizens and well wishers soon after the new association was unveiled in Abuja on Monday.

    “For the avoidance of doubt, we reiterate once again that we are not in any way associated with the new political association in any form or guise.

    “The APDA is neither an offshoot of the PDP nor its alter ego as some are speculating.

    “This statement is made purely to set the records straight and to avoid unnecessary innuendos, speculations and ambiguity that may threaten the continued unity and solidarity of our party members,” it stated.

    The party, however, appreciated millions of well-meaning Nigerians for their concern and commitment to the defence of the country’s nascent democracy.

    It added that the democracy “cannot survive without a strong and vibrant opposition.”

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that a former chieftain of the PDP and founder of Daar Communications, Chief Raymond Dokpesi on Monday with some other politicians unveiled APDA.

     

  • Supreme Court ruling: I’ll stay in PDP regardless of who wins – Gov Udom Emmanuel

    Supreme Court ruling: I’ll stay in PDP regardless of who wins – Gov Udom Emmanuel

    Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State has said insisted he will remain in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), no matter who the Supreme Court favours between Senator Ali Modu Sheriff and Senator Ahmed Makarfi in the ongoing chairmanship tussle.

    The Governor made these remarks on Monday while speaking in Lagos at an interaction with journalists.

    The Governor said it was unthinkable, that someone like him who had benefited from PDP would quit because of an internal crisis that could still be resolved.

    He also maintained that no genuine member of the party will leave because of the Supreme Court verdict.

    “Regardless of who wins, we will stay to build the PDP. The name PDP remains. I’m PDP; PDP is in my blood. Anyhow the judgment goes, I remain in PDP. Nobody is going anywhere. All those going are looking for negotiation and we will negotiate with anyone.

    “I want people to see my children tomorrow and say, you are family of PDP. Only greedy people are jumping ship. The Supreme Court judgment won’t change the name of our party. The party will stand on the mission and vision it was founded. We will build the PDP,” he said.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that Governors Nyesom Wike and Ayodele Fayose of Rivers and Ekiti States have threatened to dump the former ruling party should the Supreme Court judgement favours Senator Ali-Modu Sheriff.

  • PDP commiserates with Obanikoro over mother’s death

    PDP commiserates with Obanikoro over mother’s death

    The Lagos State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday condoled with the former Minister of State for Defence, Sen. Musiliu Obanikoro, over the death of his mother, Alhaja Wosilat Obanikoro.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Alhaja Obanikoro died at the age 95 years on Saturday at her residence in Lagos.

    She was buried same day at the Ikoyi Cemetery according to Islamic rites.

    Mr Taofik Gani, the state’s Publicity Secretary of the party, said in Lagos that the party shared in the grief of the Obanikoros at this point in time.

    He said the family was important to the party because the former minister was a chieftain of the party, who had held many political offices on the party’s platform.

    “We commiserate with him as a chieftain of our party and one who has held several privileged political offices using our platform, PDP.

    “The Obanikoro family is important to us and we use this period to implore him to increase his dedication to sincere public service.

    “May the soul of late Madam Obanikoro rest in peace and may God grant the family the fortitude to bear the loss,’’ he said.

  • Insurgency: PDP slams APC, says ‘Jonathan bought weapons Buhari uses in fighting Boko Haram’

    Insurgency: PDP slams APC, says ‘Jonathan bought weapons Buhari uses in fighting Boko Haram’

    The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has blasted the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, saying it fought insurgency with more tactics and manpower than the incumbent administration of the APC is currently doing.

    The party noted specifically that the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration is fighting Boko Haram with weapons bought by former President Goodluck Jonathan who served under its platform.

    This was stated in a statement signed and issued by the Publicity Secretary of the Party’s National Caretaker Committee (NCC), Dayo Adeyeye.

    The party maintained that if the APC had maintained the success achieved during the 2015 Elections in the North-East Region, the deadly group would not have regrouped.

    According to the PDP, the prolonged herdsmen attacks on innocent and harmless citizens across the country has worsened the security situation in the country within the past two years than in the 16 years it held sway at the centre.

    The statement reads in part: “The Security Situation in the Country today has worsened with the rampaging herdsmen’s attacks killing innocent and harmless people unabated and sacking communities.

    “The scourge of herdsmen attack across the Country under the APC is more than the activities of Boko Haram in the North East.

    “The efforts of the PDP in fighting Boko Haram activities still speak volume of its sensitivity towards preservation of citizens’ lives and properties; and if the APC had maintained the success achieved during the 2015 Elections in the North-East Region, the deadly Group wouldn’t have regrouped.

    “It is also on record that it was the same weapons bought by previous PDP administration that the present government is still using to prosecute the war on insurgency in the Northeast.”

  • Former PDP chieftain, Onitiri delivers ‘letter of quick recovery’ to Buhari in London

    A Nigerian man and former chieftain of the Peoples Democracy Party, PDP, Chief Sunbo Onitiri on Monday May 29th, 2017 visited the Abuja house in London, United Kingdom to deliver a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that May 29th marked the return to democracy from military rule in 1999. The date also marked the second anniversary of the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

    According to him, his letter was to ‘pray for quick recovery’ of the president, but also to highlight some of the issues being faced by the common man in Nigeria at present.

    He also called on the youths to wrestle power from the elders for the leadership of our country as they have run out of ideas, adding that “the solutions to the problems of our country and the future are all in the hands of our youths”.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that in 2015, Chief Sunbo Onitri was part of the top PDP campaigners rooting for former President Goodluck Jonathan to retain the seat of the presidency during the election period.

  • PDP is for ‘the old school’ – Tonye Princewill explains why he opted for APC

    PDP is for ‘the old school’ – Tonye Princewill explains why he opted for APC

    Tonye Princewill, Labour Party gubernatorial candidate in Rivers State during the 2015 general elections has defected to the All Progressives Congress, APC.

    Princewill had penultimate week formally tendered his resignation from LP, explaining that he did so because he wanted to make more impact in the lives of his people.

    Confirming his new move in a statement made available to journalists on Friday, the former guber candidate said after a careful study of the Nigerian political terrain, he decided to pitch his tent with the APC because of the pragmatic leadership style of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government.

    Princewill said he also had the choice of joining the former ruling PDP but it was for the old school and had no space for the young minds like him.

    He explained that, “PDP, especially in Rivers state, is for the old school, analog, very well seasoned politicians who have been in charge in one form or the other since 1999. Their top is too heavy.”

    The politician also announced that he will no longer run for the position of Governor of Rivers state, but would be rededicating his time and energy to ensuring youth involvement in politics from within the APC.

    He said, “After my recent resignation from the Labour Party, the path has been made clear for me to chart a new course for me and those who respect the politics that I preach. I have come to realize that no party is perfect and only we as Nigerians can solve our own problems.

    “So instead of waiting for our people to wake up, we have to work with those we can see. I have been critical of both parties but in my search for alternatives, it is clear to me now, that Nigerians are the same as our politicians. All parties reflect us, the very subtle difference is in he who leads and the ideology they preach.

    “In the choice between a Buhari or Osibanjo and a Fayose or Wike, my choice remains the duo of the APC every single day. But all politics is local and the affairs in my state need to be foremost in my mind too. Here the choice is between the leadership of Wike and that of Amaechi.

    “Again, my choice is Amaechi without hesitation. The past two years has allowed the dust settle and given the chance for governance to take hold. Compared to the first two years Amaechi was in office, I see a different mood in Rivers state.

    “Like an umbrella. Nothing comes down and since there is no vacancy at the top, there is no chance for young, fresh faces to grow. I don’t belong there and neither do you. Wike is trying his best in some areas, but the Governor’s best is clearly not good enough. If his few projects executed could feed the people and genuinely reduce the high rate of youth unemployment, it would have been better. My recent tour of the state has revealed that many of those who were angry with Amaechi in 2015, have cut their noses to spite their faces,” Princewill said.

    He also lambasted the current governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike for his leadership style, describing him as an old wine repackaged in an old bottle.

    His words, “There is nothing new about Nyesom E. Wike. It’s old wine in an old bottle forced on you to drink because of your anger with Amaechi. If I can reconcile with Amaechi, so can you. Now we have a chance to build a party of patriots. Come and help us. We need you.

    “Wike is doing the best he can. He and his team are simply not built for governance. They lack the capacity. You do not expect a mango tree to produce oranges. We have had a good 18 years of different kind of projects. What we need in Rivers state now is Mr. Jobs.”

    “As I have repeatedly said, I am no longer running for the position of Governor of Rivers state, but would be rededicating my time and my energy to ensuring youth involvement in politics from within the APC, where I feel I can make more impact. In 2007, I and Amaechi were fighting for the same position so when we decided to work together, we did so as partners. Now it is different.”

  • Democracy Day: You have nothing to celebrate, PDP blasts APC

    Opposition party, People’s Democratic Party, PDP, has lambasted the President Muhammadu Buhari led All Progressives Congress, APC, insisting it has nothing to celebrate after two years the party took over the mantle of leadership in the country.

    The National Publicity Secretary of the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led National Working Committee, Mr. Dayo Adeyeye, in a statement on Sunday claimed that the APC-led Government was marked by highhandedness, crass ineptitude and lack of tolerance for the opposition.

    He said the APC had endangered democratic foundation laid by the PDP which enabled the opposition to win elections.

    Adeyeye said that the activities of the ruling APC were suggestive of a bleak democratic outing for the country in the 2019 elections.

    He lamented that Nigerians had nothing to celebrate as the APC “has plunged the vast majority of the people into this two years of despondency, ambiguity, repressed and depressed condition.”

    He said, “Beginning with the issue of corruption in this discussion is critical in line with the APC/President Buhari’s ‘Change Agenda’ and ‘hype in corruption chase’ which has left sour taste given the dishonesty and charade that have characterised the actions of this government so far.

    “For the record, ‘corruption’ is endemic in our system since the military era and using it to whip up citizens’ sentiments is absurd while playing ignorant of honest achievements made by the PDP government to combat this alarming menace.

    “The question is what has the APC done to fight corruption? Nothing! Yes indeed nothing except noise, hounding, torturing, flouting of court orders and vilification of opposition leaders and members in and out of courts; incarcerations without proving anything; harassments, intimidation, indiscriminate arrests and detention of judges in order to cow them to desecrate the judiciary and deny the people justice; promote gestapo state and by extension, kill democracy.”

    He added that Nigerians and the international community had lost confidence in the Independent National Electoral Commission as the APC allegedly prevented it from performing its electoral responsibilities without interference.

    On the economy, Adeyeye said that President Buhari’s utterances during his visits to foreign nations scared away investors who had withdrawn their money from the country which had earlier attracted $20bn worth of investors in three years.

     

  • Nigerians must reject Buhari, APC, PDP in 2019 – Sheikh Gumi

    Sheikh (Dr) Ahmad Abubakar Gumi has advised Nigerians to reject President Muhammadu Buhari, his party, All Progressives Congress, APC, and opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, insisting that the masses are suffering despite the promise of change by the president and his party.

    The Islamic scholar said this in his assessment of Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last two years.

    He noted that the general assessment of government’s performance was below the expectation of Nigerians, and urged Nigerians to reject both the APC and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) if they really desire a new lease of life.

    His words: “The problem is that no matter how good you are as a leader, you should have a team. If you put Maradona in a bad team, no one will pass the ball to him in order to score a goal. The APC government has failed for lack of a team”.

    “Every failure has reasons. When a patient dies in the hospital, there is usually a post mortem examination to determine the direct cause of death. We have symptoms but they may not be the cause of death.

    “The widespread suffering in the country is a symptom of an underlying disease afflicting the nation that needs to be tackled. But if the government has been listening all along, it could have alleviated the problem or it could have done more than it is doing.

    “I can imagine somebody who has nothing. How is he surviving? How is he paying his children’s school fees? How can he treat his children when they are sick? How can he feed? So, when you look at all these indices, you will know that it is a miracle that we are still existing.

    “So, if we want to do a post mortem on this government, you have to look far beyond the inception of the administration. Like I said, they inherited some of the defects and the solution would have been to manage Nigeria as a critically ill patient”.

    Gumi, a medical doctor, also stated that Nigeria is not united. He said the APC took over a divided country and that what political scientists needed to do at that time was to design a template without dividing Nigeria.

    “Now, there is too much hostility and bad blood in the country. All I know is that all Nigerians are one. What we need was someone to correct us”, he told New Telegraph.

    “This is the time to bring people together, the kind of leader that Nigeria needs at this critical time is the one that can pacify. Not one that will show that he is clean and the other person is dirty. No. He should show that we are all dirty, let us all come and clean ourselves.

    “So, the so-called clean party which has the broom, who is it trying to sweep? It is so antagonistic. It is so provocative that it has divided the country. If your house is also dirty, you cannot clean someone’s house. People thought that change is coming when it was not possible to effect that change.

    Gumi fumed that top officials were getting away with stealing and corruption and cited examples.

    “The allegations of corruption are already been made against the (suspended) Secretary to the Government of the Federation, of a government that is fighting corruption. And the government cannot do anything besides suspension.

    “The present administration came to rule Nigeria using the slogan of war against corruption and this is disrupting the unity of the country. The unity of the country is more important than the money that people stole; more important than the current underdevelopment that we are witnessing”.

    Asked the way out of Nigeria’s problems, Sheikh Gumi advised that before 2019, politics has to change completely and drastically.

    “No more APC or PDP”, he declared, adding that “once they continue, Nigeria’s problems will continue. What I am saying is that they should metamorphose, they should change. When you see a butterfly, there was a time when it was a larva.

    “The parties have to change; PDP has to change, APC has to change or it will break because it is an alloy which is not well moulded. We want these parties to change because of the future of our children.

    “The major defect of APC is that it is a party which was grown by the power of individuals; Buhari in the North and Tinubu in the South West. And there is danger in this kind of politics. Look at Mugabe now, he has suppressed and pinned down everybody in Zimbabwe and he has been winning elections in quote.

    “If we continue along this path, Nigeria will be like that. When we have somebody who feels that he is the Messiah, then we are in trouble because as I am speaking to you now, not everybody in the North can speak to you like this.”

  • N2bn Ecological Fund: ACN, APGA, ANPP got nothing from Jonathan – El-Rufai

    Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State has alleged that former President Goodluck Jonathan gave the two billion naira ecological fund to each state under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and ignored states under the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA and All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP in 2013.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that the ACN, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) have since merged, to form the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    The fund, which is for solving emergency problems like natural disasters, is statutory.

    Speaking with State House correspondents after the National Economic Council meeting (NEC) in Abuja on Thursday, El-Rufai said: “The committee established beyond all doubts that in 2013, the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan gave N2bn to certain states of the federation but excluded other states.

    “The states that got it were all PDP states and states of other parties that were sympathetic to the PDP like Labour Party in Ondo and APGA in Anambra state. 19 states and the FCT did not get the N2bn from the ecological fund. These states are Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Borno, Edo, Ekiti, Imo, Jigawa, Kano, Kwara and Lagos.

    “Others are Nassarawa, Niger, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Rivers, Sokoto, Yobe, Zamfara and the federal capital territory.

    “So, essentially what President Goodluck Jonathan did was to take N2bn each from the ecological fund and give to some PDP states.

    “Any PDP state that was not his friend like Kano and Kwara didn’t get it. And all the other opposition party, like ACN state got nothing… no ANPP state got anything.”