Family Feud in All Progressives Congress: Oyegun Replies Tinubu

• The story started when President Muhammadu Buhari invited a chieftain and main founder of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Ahmed Bola Tinubu to embark on party-wide reconciliation mission. Then, Tinubu held a meeting with the Chairman of the party, John Odigie-Oyegun to solicit his support for the peace mission. Oyegun was said to have assured Tinubu of his unalloyed support in getting the job done. The twist to the assurance was a 7-page letter which Tinubu wrote to Oyegun alleging that the party Chairman was undermining his peace process and he gave vivid account on some of the subsequent actions of the Chairman that suggested that he was not keeping to his words. President Buhari met Oyegun after Tinubu’s complaint. After the meeting, Oyegun replied Tinubu’s letter and re-assured the leader of the party that he would cooperate with him to enable him to achieve the objectives of his peace mission.

List of abducted girls by Boko Haram in Yobe State School now Out

• Recently, the Nigerian Army issued a statement that Boko Haram insurgents had been defeated and that their leader, Abubakar Shakau was on the run, wearing in a woman’s dress and concealed his face with hijab. A ransom of N3 million was placed as reward for anyone who can give information that will lead to his apprehension. While the Nigerian military was basking in that euphoria, the ‘impossible’ happened. Boko Haram went to Dapchi Girls Science and Technical College, Yobe State in Chibok kidnap style and went away with a number of the girls. There are about 1,000 students in the school. Many of the girls were said to have taken to the bush and later appeared in neighbouring towns and communities. Meanwhile, the State Government issued conflicting statements about the rescue of the girls, saying that 76 of them had been found and 51 were missing with fears that two of the girls had been killed. The Government then apologized that the statement was untrue, that none of the abducted girls had been rescued. Five days after the incident, it is now crystal clear that 105 girls from the school had been taken away by the insurgents and the search for their where about is still underway. Meanwhile, 82 of close to 300 Chibok girls taken away from their school in Borno State by the insurgents over two years ago have not been found.

Trade Union President Urges Governors owing Workers Arrears of Salaries to Resign

• President of Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUCN, Bobboi Kaigama has asked Governors who are incapable of handling workers’ problems in their States to resign. He was addressing the National Executive Committee of the Nigerian Union of Journalist at its meeting in Lagos. He said that the workers could no longer take the excuse of lack of funds as reason for non-payment of their salaries. Kaigama said that with the exception of Lagos State, all the other States in the Federation have one issue or another over their workers’ salaries. In his opinion, corruption is behind the irregular payment of salaries, pension and gratuities. There are 36 States in Nigeria. Despite remittance of various sums of money over-deducted from Paris Club debt repayments at least on three occasions, many of States still owe their workers arrears of salaries for more than one year or have been paying less than the amounts due to the workers. Even the advice by President Muhammadu Buhari that the refunds running into billions of Naira should largely be used to settle outstanding workers entitlements has been ignored by a good number of the State Governors. A portion of the money in question that had been channeled to some so-called consultants is being recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.

National Assembly Cannot Reorder Sequence of General Election, Femi Falana

• Fiery Civil Rights Lawyer, Femi Falana kicks against the decision of the National Assembly to reorder the sequence of next year’s general election. Falana says that the move breached several provisions of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution. He advised the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to ignore the decision of the National Assembly on the matter. According to him, the Supreme Court has made pronouncement on rights of INEC to organize election and therefore, the National Assembly cannot take that right away from it by Act of Parliament. You may recall that the former Chairman of INEC, Professor Attahiru Jega said recently that the Federal Government and INEC should go to court to test the constitutionality of the steps being taken by the National Assembly to reorder the sequence of the general election.

Road Safety Commission Clarifies Issue of Data Capture for Renewal of Driver’s Licence

• Up till now, it is the practice for applicants for renewal of driver’s licence to visit the offices of the Federal Road Safety Corps for data capture, regardless of the fact that the exercise had taken place during previous renewal processes. Now, the Lagos State Sector Commander of the Corps, Hyginus Omeje says there is no longer any need for data capturing for renewal of driver’s licence. He said: “I want to use this opportunity to tell motorists that they can renew their licence without going through capture. The choice of coming to capture is yours, as long as we have your data base at the initial stage and its already in the system, you don’t really need to be captured any longer.” (nationonline)