President Muhammadu Buhari and Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, are currently in a closed door meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Prof Soyinka who arrived the Villa was immediately ushered into the President’s office where a meeting is currently holding.
However, the purpose of the meeting has not been made public yet.
Details later…
Eminent Nigerians, yesterday, called on President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently provide the right response to the current hardship across the country, lamenting that his ministers had performed below expectation.
They warned that if appropriate answers were not provided within the shortest possible time, the country might experience a total economic collapse.
While calling on the Presidency to review the performances of most ministers, they were ambivalent over resignation calls for those who may be found unproductive.
Those who spoke to Vanguard include, a former Minister of Transport, Chief Ebenezer Babatope; a former Chairman of Senate Committee on Oil and Gas, Sen Lee Maeba; Second Republic lawmaker, Dr. Junaid Mohammed; ex-President of Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, Chief Olisa Agbakoba,SAN; and former presidential candidate, Prof Pat Utomi.
Others are a retired Police Commissioner, Alhaji Abubakar Tsav; founder of Oodua Peoples Congress, OPC, Chief Fredrick Fahseun and Publicity Secretary of Pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Mr. Yinka Odumakin.
They spoke against the backdrop of the tackling of the ministers by Nigerians, who were irked by the prevailing economic hardship in the country at a Town Hall meeting held in Abuja last Monday.
IT SHOWS BUHARI GOVT HAS LOST CREDIBILITY — Mohammed
Mohammed said: “I am not surprised by the reactions of Nigerians against the Ministers. What I can say, with all sense of responsibility, is that majority of those ministers were not picked on merit, so how do you expect them to perform any magic? I can tell you that this is not a listening government, so they must surely come short of expectation.
WE ARE CLOSE TO WHAT IS HAPPENING IN VENEZUELA — Sen. Maeba
Also speaking, Sen Maeba said: “It is very unfortunate that this government came under the pretence of change and miracle. But I keep asking whether the spirit of change has failed them or they refused to live up to their promises. I pray that this country’s situation does not get to what is happening in Venezuela right now
BUHARI NEEDS TO EMBARK ON OVERDRIVE—Agbakoba
Agbakoba said: "So, I think the President needs to go into overdrive. Everywhere you go, there is gloom and I think that gloom was what manifested at the town hall meeting.”
THAT IS BUHARI’S PROBLEM —Babatope
Babatope reacted thus: ‘’Those are Buhari’s problems.”
NIGERIANS NEED A CLEAR PATH—Utomi
Utomi said: “We have to do something more fundamental, it is not a one day wonder. However, it is important for people to see a clear path that you are travelling, it makes it easier for them to know that they will get to their destination.”
PRESIDENCY SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT NON-PERFORMING MINISTERS —Tsav
Alhaji Abubakar Tsav, said: “People are suffering so much, salaries are being owed. Nigerians expected that they will reduce the hardship in the country but they are more interested in going about to talk. People are tired of listening to things they did not do.
A middle-aged man, Simon Akor, has told a Nyanya Customary Court, Abuja, that his wife, Patricia, demands money before allowing him to make love to her.
Simon said this when he testified in a divorce petition against his wife on Tuesday.
“My wife always says I must give her money before I enter inside her buttocks, sometimes when I have money, I give her.
“Whenever am angry about it and talk to her about it, she will say that all her friends collect money from their husbands before their husbands can get into them,” she claimed.
According to him, Patricia rubs juju on her private part before making love to me.
The petitioner said when he confronted her, Patricia said it was the native doctor that gave it to her.
“That the native doctor instructed her to always rub it before making love to me, so that even if I drive her out of my house, I will not be able to perform with another woman.
“Whenever my wife rubs that oily substance in her private part and I make love to her, my penis will become very weak. I will not be able to do anything again,” he said.
He said that his wife invited the native doctor to live with them without his permission.
Simon said Patricia told him that the native doctor saw “darkness in our home’’ and had come to dispel it.
The petitioner also told the court that his wife was into human trafficking, adding that she used to bring girls to people in Abuja.
He told the court that his wife chased him out of the house, adding that he was no longer interested in the marriage.
Patricia, a businesswoman, denied the allegations, adding that they pull resources to buy the house.
The presiding officer, Everyman Eleanya, advised the couple to reconcile.
“You can’t force the court to divorce you, this is a court of justice, we are going to give you room for reconciliation.
“This is not because of you or your wife but because of your children.
“You should consider your children before you take certain decision in life,” Eleanya said.
He urged the petitioner’s sister, Mary Akor, who was also present in court to try and reconcile his brother and his wife.
He further advised her to “explore every possible means, including her church to bring peace and love between them.’’
He adjourned the case till Sept. 5, for the report of settlement (NAN)
Akwa Ibom state governor, Udom Emmanuel, speaking with State House Correspondents after his meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, said he was there to brief the President on the security situation in Akwa Ibom state.
The governor stressed that the President is father to all irrespective of party affiliations.
“I am still serving a state and the state is within the country and the president is the father of the whole country. I think it is part of my responsibility to let the president know from time to time how things are being done and how we are faring. We discussed some issues bothering on security,” he said.
When asked if he had any request to make of the president, Emmanuel said, “Not really a request, but feedback. At times, feedback could be even very effective than request. Because feedback is necessary for further actions and the rest of things you want to do.”
He continued that, “We are all running one project which is project Nigeria adding that if we are running project Nigeria, all hands must be a deck to move the country to the level we all expect and dream of and that is the essence of the whole thing.”
On the restiveness in the Niger Delta, he said, “Well, I don’t know whether you want me to redefine that word restiveness, but permit me to also say, you are still pushing me to discuss security which we don’t discuss on camera. Spare me that today, but rather than calling it restiveness, I will say everything we discussed is about the wellbeing of Nigerians.”
The Presidency through the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Ita Enang and his counterpart in the House of Representatives, Hon. Ismail Kawu, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari did not sign a padded budget.
This was disclosed after an over three-hour meeting with the APC leadership, insisting that the budget signed by the President was not a padded budget.
The SSA said: “I am here on the invitation of the leadership of the APC with my colleague to bring answers to issues raised by the party on the 2016 Appropriation and we have been with the party for a little over three hours. We have given explanations to them on every issue and told them that there was nothing, to our knowledge, like padding of the budget.
“The budget as assented to by Mr. President is the budget as passed by the National Assembly and that is the budget being executed.
“But as of now, the party is handling it as a domestic issue, and all of us are enjoined not to make public comment on the details because the matter is still under consideration.
“So, that is what we will want to say for now, we will not want to go into the details of it so that we will not breach the ethics of the party, the directives of the party or pre-empt anything or any outcome of the party investigation.”
He added that “we came here as persons who works as liaison officers on the budget because the party had questions for us and we came to make clarifications on the issues raised.
“We have made those clarifications and would not want to draw any conclusion. Please let us not go too far by mentioning any office. Let it be that the two of us appeared before the party.
“In all our years of legislative engagement, we are yet to find in the legislative lexicon the word ‘padding’. When the budget is presented before the legislature, the legislature is to consider the budget and pass as they deem fit.
“So what the legislature pass becomes the appropriation upon accent. Therefore, any word which is yet to crystallize in legislative lexicon, you cannot hear us mention it.”
The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, in a statement signed by Jomo Gbomo has said that former President Goodluck Jonathan is a grand patron of new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers.
The full text of the statement obtained by Sahara Reporters reads:
“MEND cannot hold brief for the RNDA, which pointedly accused Mr. Jonathan of complicity in fueling the ongoing Niger Delta crisis and patronising the NDA, apparently for political reasons.
“We are, however, quick to point out the fact that the RNDA has merely vindicated MEND’s belief and conviction that the former President and his cronies, who lost the 2015 presidential election, were using the illegal and treasonable NDA platform to destabilise President Buhari’s government.
“Indeed, the problem in the Niger Delta today has nothing to do with the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. Far from it! The problem is simply the failure of Mr. Jonathan to address the root issues confronting the region when he was at the helms of affairs.
”Even though he was from the impoverished region and had, by his own admission in numerous electioneering campaigns, experienced the utter poverty and abject neglect of the region foisted by successive Nigerian governments and the international oil companies since the discovery of oil in 1958 at Oloibiri (a few metres away from his native Otuoke) in Bayelsa State, Mr. Jonathan disappointingly frittered away the opportunity to rescue his people when the Nigerian Presidency fortuitously landed on his laps, virtually on a platter of gold.
“For six whole years, Mr. Jonathan was busy drinking, making merry and generally chasing shadows at the State House. Such a fellow deserves to be ostracised from the assembly of reasonable men; because the Nigerian Presidency might never come back to the Niger Delta region as cheap as it came to Mr. Jonathan; perhaps, in the next 100 years.
“Lest we forget, MEND was at the forefront of the armed struggle back in 2006/2007 which forced the then Government of President Olusegun Obasanjo to consider the option of drafting an Ijaw into the mainstream of Nigerian politics. That was how the perpetually timid and naïve Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan became Vice-President and later, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. When he assumed the reins as President, he did the unthinkable; he tracked down perceived MEND leaders and promptly got them imprisoned on a trumped-up charge of attempt to assassinate him.
“Up until today, Mr. Jonathan is still suffering from an assassination paranoia complex.”
The group added that a substantial portion of Jonathan’s statement, “unfortunately, dwelt on judicial matters which are pending in various courts in Nigeria and South Africa.”
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday in his tribute to the deceased pioneer Director-General of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Maj.-Gen. Timothy Ogundeko, said Nigeria is in dire need of people who will render selfless service that could change the tide of the country for good.
Buhari, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, made the remark describing the deceased as a pacesetter in strategic leadership training.
According to the statement, “The President affirms that with his tireless efforts and foresight, Gen. Ogundeko transformed the Nigerian Army Education Corps for the benefit of the Service and the nation; and his legendary role in the establishment of Command Secondary Schools is well appreciated.
“President Buhari trusts that the vision of the deceased for a united and prosperous Nigeria will be honoured by all who mourn him, particularly at this critical point when the nation is in need of selfless citizens to change Nigeria for the better.
“The President extends heartfelt condolences to Gen. Ogundeko’s family, as well as the government and people of Ogun State.
“He prays that God will grant the soul of the departed eternal rest and comfort his family, friends and admirers.”
The Presidency through the Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, has reacted to the controversy in the House of Representatives over alleged N42billion constituency projects inserted into the budget at committee level after the House had passed the document.
According to him, it was only when the House of Representatives referred it to the executive that the presidency can act.
“It is a National Assembly matter, especially the House of Representatives,” he told Daily Trust.
“When it is sorted out there and referred to the Presidency, that is when the Presidency can do anything about it.
“There is the principle of separation of power,” Adesina added.
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Board of Trustees, BoT, Chairman, Senator Walid Jibrin,, has responded to the recent assertion by former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, that the party is gasping for breath, insisting that such claim existed only in the imagination of those making it.
The former president who debunked a photo news which went viral on the social media recently, had said that he left the party when it was alive and bubbling, therefore, could not have rejoined “a now divided, factionalised party gasping for breath.”
But the party's BoT chairman made a veiled reference to Obasanjo's statement while inaugurating an 18-member peace committee headed by Prof. Jerry Gana.
According to him, “Leaders who are talking in newspapers that this party is not alive, the party is alive. It is only in the imagination of those saying that this party is dead and that it will not come back.
In apparent reference to the former president, he said, “Such people should change their minds. If he comes back to this party, we are ready to receive him,” Jibrin said.
Pastor Tunde Bakare, founder of the Latter Rain Assembly, at the launch of Onyekachi Ubani Foundation in Lagos, affirmed that government officials in Nigeria have succeeded in making corrupt practices official in the country.
Bakare, who made this statement noted that: “At the twilight of the military era in Nigeria’s political trajectory, the name “Nigeria” became synonymous with a certain word, a word that elicits the image of a cesspool running over corruption.
“At that time, precisely in 1999, Transparency International rated Nigeria the second most corrupt country in the world in terms of perception, second only to her eastern neighbour, Cameroon.
“For instance, given the unbridled looting of the treasury at the time, reportedly to the tune of over 1billion dollars as was subsequently uncovered following the exit of the military, it was obvious that the abnormal had become the norm, the illegal had become legal, the outrageous had become banal and the aberrant had become the gold standard.
“Despite the emergence of a new government on the heels of a strong anti-corruption campaign, despite the credence lent to this anti-corruption promise by the antecedents of President Muhammadu Buhari, and despite global acknowledgment that Nigeria has taken shovel loads off the peak of this mountain of filth,” he added.
Jude Tabai, a key actor in the Niger Delta region, has casted doubts in the ongoing negotiation between the federal government and militants from the region, saying he was unaware of any discussion between both parties.
The claim by Tabai, who described himself as a major stakeholder in the Niger Delta crisis, ran contrary to the position of President Muhammadu Buhari last week, that the government was discussing Niger Delta peace with militants.
Tabai, who led Sports and Youths Development Minister, Solomon Lalong, to a failed peace parley with Niger Delta Avengers lately, said that the government might have been discussing with fifth columnists, who were merely keen on reaping pecuniary gains, adding that there was no credible dialogue currently going on between the government and the real ‘stakeholders’ in the Niger Delta crisis.
An Ijaw leader who spoke on condition of anonymity to our reporter on phone lamented: “It is unfortunate that they have penetrated our boys with money and they are now using them to fight themselves. This is bad for the struggle.”
Spokesperson of NDA, self-styled Brig-General Mudoch Agbinibo, had told Vanguard that the group was intact and in a subsequent statement, accused a top government official, a former governor and ex-militant leaders hiding under the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, of announcing the purported split.
“It is quite unfortunate that Cynthia Whyte and Jomo Gbomo of defunct Joint Revolutionary Council and MEND, respectively are the spokespersons of the Nigerian intelligentsia community because of some political interest and a government that has abdicated power to clansmen and tribal lords.
“The fact checks about Cynthia Whyte and her sponsors should be laid bare before the public now that the Nigerian security and intelligent community have turned the Niger Delta genuine struggle to a tool of political patronage and money making machine for miscreants and conflict merchants,” NDA said.
Similarly, the Adaka Boro Avengers, ADA, which recently dumped its threat to declare a Republic of Niger Delta, yesterday, said that President Buhari was not ready for dialogue as it ordered oil companies to stop further repairs on pipelines and vandalised oil installations in their own interest.
Meanwhile, Delta activist and Itsekiri leader, Chief Ayiri Emami, yesterday, urged President Buhari to investigate the 22 alleged sponsors, members and sympathizers of the Avengers, revealed on Saturday by a splinter faction, RNDA.
The All Progressives Congress, APC, stalwart in Delta State, in a statement, said: “The revelation by the splinter group of Avengers about the sponsors of NDA has vindicated my earlier position that some corrupt politicians running away from justice are the brains behind the criminal group.
“Nigerians should not take the report by the online medium lightly and President Buhari should ensure that the fresh revelation is properly investigated with a view to bringing all those behind the economic and political sabotage to book.”
Meanwhile, national president of Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Mr. Udengs Eradiri, who RNDA listed as one of the operatives of Avengers, reacted yesterday, saying: “I have no business whatsoever with the Niger Delta Avengers. I am the President of IYC, the largest youth organisation in the Niger Delta region and not spokesman of Avengers.”
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ekiti State has described the purported visit of Nigeria's First Lady, Mrs Aisha Buhari to the United States of America (USA) as a ruse, saying; “Even the Presidency has not told anyone that wife of the President travelled to the USA and in official communications, only ignorant and mischief makers in the APC will believe that a trip to the USA will be made by Mrs Buhari and Nigerians will only get to know about it through online media.”
The PDP, lambasting ignorant APC, added that, “it is only in the world of the APC that wife of the President of Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world would travel to the USA, ostensibly to debunk her involvement in a major scam and no television station will report her departure and arrival. The question is, did she travel to USA or Qatar?”
Mr Jackson Adebayo, the State Publicity Secretary of the PDP, in a statement issued on behalf of the party, said; “If the Presidency has not been bold enough to tell Nigerians that Mrs Aisha Buhari travelled to the USA on official visit, only a party of scammers like the APC will go on the rooftops to celebrate photoshoped pictures as evidence of visit to USA.”
The party said “it is strange that wife of the President of Nigeria could travel to the USA and purportedly attended events there without international television stations like CNN, Al jazeera, BBC, Sky News etc and local stations like Channels TV, NTA, AIT and others reporting it. Or are they still ‘editing’ the video clips?”
While casting doubt at the purported trip, the PDP said: “Even if Mrs Aisha Buhari actually travelled to the USA, does that erase the fact that in the judgment delivered by the United States District Court, Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, USA, in criminal No 1: 07CR209, that indicted the USA Congressman, Williams Jefferson, it was mentioned that $170,000 was transferred from account in Nigeria in the name of Aisha Buhari to an account in the name of The ANJ Group, LLC, identifying William Jefferson as beneficiary?”
The statement reads further, “As a party of responsible and discerning minds, the PDP in Ekiti State would have elected to ignore the APC and allow the party the freedom to advertise it idiocy. This is more so that the matter is now a subject of litigation and the no one has denied the existence of the judgment that indicted Williams Jefferson and featured conspicuously at page 22, the name of Aisha Buhari as having transferred $170,000 from account in Nigeria to William Jefferson.
“Most importantly, Nigerians have witnessed more heinous forgeries from the APC, one of them being pictorial claim that President Buhari (as APC presidential candidate then) had an interview with Kemi Fadojutimi on ‘All Eyes on Africa’ TV show in London, whereas the interview was held in Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.
“However, it is important to point out that from all evidences, the pictures circulated as arrival of President Buhari’s wife at Dulles International Airport, Washington DC could have been taken at the Doha International Airport, Qatar. Even on the official website of George Mason University and US Institute of Peace, USA where the president’s was said to have attended events, there is nothing to show that she attended any event in the two institutions.
“We have seen pictures of Wife of the Senate President, Toyin Saraki with President Barrack Obama’s wife, Michelle. We also saw pictures of Mrs Patience Jonathan with Michelle Obama when she visited the USA.
Where are Aisha Buhari’s pictures with the First Lady of USA and major government officials from the country? Or could she have arrived and departed from the USA like a spirit?”
“It is even more important that nothing official has been said about the purported trip. Not from the President’s spokespersons.”
Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, the immediate past governor of Delta State, at the weekend in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, at the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE conference, called on the Federal Government to involve governors from the Niger Delta in the efforts to resolve the crisis the Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, has caused the region and the nation’s economy.
According to him, “The Amnesty did not achieve what it was to achieve because the governors were not involved. The states should be involved. The biggest threat in Niger Delta is that our land is seriously polluted, especially the water. In those days, you could see the sand under the water. We used it to wash our teeth. But it is not so anymore.
“Niger Delta Avengers are busting our pipelines for whatever reasons; anger. Nigerians are looking at it as something just affecting only the economy; it goes beyond that. Our environment is being ruined.
“Dealing with the Niger Delta challenge should be a carrot-and-stick approach: engagement first and force, where necessary. Engagements should be deepened. The governors should be part of it.
“I want to appeal to our brothers in Niger Delta Avengers that what they are doing is not just damaging the economy but the waters. I appeal to them to stop. The media should also help to appeal to them to stop it,” the ex-Delta governor said.
Dangote Industries Limited has announced the commencement of the construction of concrete roads in various states across the country, particularly in Lagos, Bauchi, Kogi, Kaduna and Ogun states.
“We are very happy at the moment. We can categorically state that we are in more than five states across the country already constructing roads. The reception has been wonderful. State governments are beginning to see the need to embrace concrete roads and we are very happy at the way things are currently going,” the company said.
The African richest man and Chairman, Dangote Cement Plc, Aliko Dangote, said it would be to the benefit of Nigerians if the Federal Government embraced the option of using concrete for roads in the country, adding that aside from being cheap, concrete roads were more durable, with near zero maintenance cost.
“We are pushing for Nigeria to do concrete roads. It is cheaper to do a concrete road that will last 50 years than to do a bitumen road. It will also help in eliminating corruption because if you go and build a bitumen road, it will have to be adequately maintained unlike a concrete road that is very durable,” Dangote added.
Ghali Umar Na’aba, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, has said that former President, Olusegun Obasanjo remains the most corrupt Nigerian leader, adding that he had no moral right to criticize anyone assumed to be corrupt.
“I don’t think there is anybody more corrupt in this country like the former President. As the Speaker, I took Obasanjo on several issues of expenditure offences which he committed and could not show remorse.
“So, I don’t think he has the integrity to call anybody in the NASS corrupt. This is the man who became President with nothing and today he is one of the richest Nigerians, let him explain to Nigerians how he acquired the money.
”On his planned tenure elongation, I am aware that some monies was given to the national assembly members both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
“It was alleged that the Senators got 50 million each while 40 million was given to the House of Representatives members, some collected and some did not collect. But I am aware that money was distributed by Obasanjo,” he stated.
“For some weeks now, there has been controversy over what is called padding. As far as I am concerned, the National Assembly has the responsibility to pass the budget, approve it and allow the executive arm to execute it.
“According to my understanding, where the issue being referred to as padding comes into play is a situation where some members go behind and add items of expenditure to what has already been agreed upon, for either stealing the funds or doing whatever they feel like doing with it.
“But, this stealing of fund cannot be possible without the active connivance with some members of the executive arm.
“So far, accusations are being traded amongst members of the House. No investigation has been conducted.
“On the call for the resignation of the Speaker, the question is, what has the Speaker done to warrant his resignation?” He queried.
On whether padding was an offence, he said, “It all depends from what angle you look at it, I just told you that the responsibility of appropriation belongs to the national assembly.
“If padding is seen as an offence, it is when some members of the National Assembly decide to add items of expenditure through the back door after the budget has been passed by both houses. It, therefore, behoves on Nigerians to decide who represents them in the national assembly”.
Chief Raymond Dokpesi, DAAR Communications founder, and aspiring national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has denied links with resurgent militant group, Niger Delta Avengers.
Recall that the Reformed Niger Delta Avengers, RNDA, had issued a statement through its spokesperson, Cynthia Whyte on Saturday, claiming that the business mogul was part of those sponsoring the rampaging group that has claimed responsibility for several attacks on oil installations in the oil rich region.
But speaking with the Punch, the Edo High Chief insisted he had no “connection” with the separatist group.
He said, “I don’t know who is giving that report; I don’t have any idea; I have never met any Avenger in my life I have no connection, association and I don’t know who they are. I have been committed to strengthening the unity and stability of the country.
“I don’t k know anything pertaining to any Avenger, I don’t know anything about any militant group. I have no connection, no association with any militant group, either on earth or anywhere in the world.”
Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State through his media aide, Lere Olayinka, finally reacted to the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari’s wife, Aisha to the United States.
The governor had in the past insinuated that Mrs. Aisha Buhari cannot visit the US because of her involvement in the William Jefferson’s bribery scandal.
Fayose in a statement via his twitter account said, Mrs. Buhari’s trip to the US did not exonerate her from the bribery scandal.
“Has traveling to the US invalidated the judgment that said Aisha Buhari transferred $170,000 to Jefferson’s account?
“Has traveling to the US erased the fact that Aisha Buhari transferred $170,000 to Williams Jefferson?
“Their only defence is: it was another Aisha Buhari that was involved. But I have the Aisha Buhari on tape where she denied.
“If they are claiming that another Aisha Buhari was the one involved, shouldn’t they just unravel this mysterious Aisha Buhari?”
Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka, the controversial Enugu Catholic Priest, has once again hit out at former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, describing his days in office as full of mess and cancerous to the economic life of the nation.
His recent declaration entitled: “FR MBAKA’S ASSERTION ‘THERE IS HUNGER IN NIGERIA’, NOT AN ATTACK ON PRESIDENT BUHARI”, came as a reaction to recent media reports where he was quoted to have bashed President Muhammadu Buhari over the level of suffering in the country.
In a statement he issued through his spokesman, Barr Maximus Ike Ugwuoke, the cleric said he observed with keen concern the news trending some sections of the media that he “attacked” President Muhammadu Buhari.
Mbaka maintained that he didn’t attack Buhari but told him the situation of things in the country and as well suggested ways out.
He stated that “the news headline is not only sensational but also a censorious media colouration and hype of the message of the cleric titled ‘Bless and Be Blessed’ for whatever ends.”
While admitting that he lamented the level of hunger and suffering in the country, the fiery priest said it was followed by another message where he explained that Buhari was not responsible for the situation but the previous administration.
He declared that the “Bless and Be Blessed” message that was misunderstood was followed by a message titled “Mega Change of Conditions”.
According to him, the second message, where he absorbed the President of blames over the hunger situation in the country read:
“There is sword that is moving about in the country. People are dying like flies. The sword of Hunger is eating the land. And as I have told you this is just the beginning. If anybody is telling you it is going to be well very soon that person is deceiving you. This is because many of us were among those that were alive during the years of the past government. The past PDP government was a grasshopper and locus to Nigerian. The past Government was a disaster to the land of Nigeria; the past government was cancer to this country. There is no need trying to cover their incalculable and iniquitous mess. If you don’t feel it now, you will feel it later.
“The impact of their horrific mess is yet to be felt. It was a regime where hooliganism became a political slogan; where looting became the order of the day; where the neglect of youths became a pattern of administration. The result is what we are passing through now. Hunger is everywhere; the hunger was created before this new government came in. Buhari is not the maker of the hunger.
“The hunger was created during the Jonathan PDP administration but Buhari should abate the long procrastination, bureaucracy and slow methods in tackling it.
“Understand it very well. People will know the truth and the truth will set us free. Buhari is just an agent of change. The money in our treasury was nothing to write home about before this new regime came. The country was in an embarrassing mess.
“Apart from the petroleum that we sell and get money, what other means of foreign exchange do we have? The foundation of the Nigerian economy is oil which has now collapsed and the foundation once destroyed what will the just man do? Psalm 11:3. The past administration did not prepare this administration for this season. That is why the sword has risen. Many will die by this sword but there will be survivors.
“That is why I have been saying and I keep on saying that the past administration should publicly come to apologize to the Nigerians.
They should not be foolhardy. They should not continue to perpetrate this type of iniquitous attitude planning about 2019 election for them to continue from where they stopped. All these years of Jonathan, nothing happened in Niger-Delta specifically to be recorded in the annals of history. What a shame? What an embarrassment. The place where the oil has been coming from remained underdeveloped under a man from the same soil. If you go to Niger Delta today you will cry. But what worries me is that our people are good in shifting blames.
“Somebody entered your kitchen carried your pot of soup, enter your store and farm raked everything in the store and farm and ran away. And another person enters the kitchen where there is no pot at all and you want the person to turn the kitchen into a magical kitchen that will produce a magical pot and a magical soup, which soup?
“I am just telling president Buhari that people are hungry because he cannot not come to the street like me and notice people’s feelings. But Buhari is not the author of the hunger. The past government planted the tree of hunger and they want to come back to water it. If it is in a developed country by now from the Senatorial to the reps to the governors, all who participated in the last administration should have resigned with apologies to our youths, otherwise the youths one day will begin to stone them.
“They will soon confuse you that present governments don’t want to feed you, feed you with what? It will surprise the whole Nigerians to know that even after Buhari was a petroleum minister and a military president of the country, he had no oil bloc. Is it not a shock? Don’t you hear the quantum of money that is being recovered from one person? Buhari just came as a redeemer. I don’t know if the people of this country are hypnotized.
“How can we be fighting somebody who is fighting for us? Apart from this Buhari, how can somebody talk to these political juggernauts and tell them to bring back what they have stolen? it is only a Beniah personality like Buhari that can enter into the cave and catch a lion and kill a lion in a snow season and come out. The president needs support. He doesn’t know where to begin because there are many holes dug for him by the past administration, and they carried the sand away expecting him to cover the holes with what?”.
“He, therefore maintained that contrary to the media report Fr. Mbaka “merely reinstated the obvious sufferings that Nigerian are facing (which even the president himself had at points acknowledged and sued for patience and perseverance) and advised the president on the ways to tackle it i.e by engaging economic gurus and listening to good advisers.
“We wonder which portion of the message could be viewed as “an attack” or” bombing” of Mr President as twisted in the media. The acclaimed message of the cleric to Mr President to us is rather a further demonstration the cleric’s love to see that the president succeeds in his messianic rescue operation mission in Nigeria and that is why it is devoid of hypocrisy.
“It is obvious that those who are arm-twisting the said message of the cleric to Mr President as an attack on Mr President are those who want the president to fail or be blindfolded so as to use the obvious hardship Nigerians are facing as a weak point of his administration to ride onto power mindless of the fact that Mr President has done so well in fighting corruption and insurgency in the country, which are mega achievements that scores him above average in just few months of his administration.
“In the background of the message, Fr Mbaka encouraged the gallant warrior, President Buhari, to continue his battle against corruption and insurgency asserting that if not a man like President Buhari, by now people may have stopped going to church and mosques. Boko Haram might have wrecked this country. People might have equally stopped going to schools, markets etc. Kudos to Buhari .Fr Mbaka revealed that corruption, insurgency and poor governance by past governments gave birth to three horrible children (1) Hunger (2) Anger (3) Danger.
“He asserted that Buhari is not the cause of corruption and insurgency yet he is fighting them frontally and enjoined the president to extend same to hunger even though he is not the cause. He pleaded the President to begin a War against Hunger, as many are dying hopelessly. He stressed that if the hunger, anger and danger continue, Nigerians may not vote for him again, as they would mistake him for the cause of these maladies while in fact he is a solution.
“Fr Mbaka equally advised the President on being careful about how he appoints people to prominent positions, so that no region will appear marginalized- as happened in NNPC board and charged the President to make sure that those around him are not misguiding him. He advised the President on human empowerment and making sure that those who worked for him (Buhari) during the election ought to be empowered –as one good turn deserves another.
“For the purpose of clarity, granted that Fr Mbaka stated the obvious , that there is hunger in the land, he never attributed the cause of the hunger and economic hardship bedeviling the nation to Buhari rather he attributed it to the offshoot of the actions and inactions of the past administrations of this country.
“We recall that earlier this year, Fr Mbaka had during his New Year message predicted that hunger and hardship will come upon the country this year and so we wonder why this message should make a headline at this point of the year.”
A full truck of relief materials sent to Taraba state for distribution to the Internal Displaced Persons IDPs by President Muhamadu Buhari have been declared missing by the permanent secretary Taraba state Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), vanguard reports.
The permanent secretary Mr Nuvalga Dan-Habu disclosed this while conducting journalists round the venue where the relief materials were stored for self keeping in Jalingo Taraba state capital.
The Presidential relief materials sent to Taraba state for IDPs have recently generated controversy and war of wards between the minister for women and social development Sen. Aisha Arhasan and Taraba state government when the permanent secretary refused to release the materials to the minister for distribution.
Aisha was in the state to flag off the distribution of the materials to IDPs while on her five days official visit in the state, the state government refused to release materials to her, she also accused the state government of inflicting unnecessary hardship on the IDPs by holding on the materials.
Nuvalga stated that few weeks ago he received a phone call from the National Emergency Management Agency NEMA North East zonal office Gombe, he was informed that twenty (20) trucks of relieve materials (Maize) were been sent by President Muhamadu Buhari for IDPs in Taraba state and the materials were on the way from Abuja to Taraba state.
He said the NEMA zonal office directed that the Taraba state Emergency Agency should take the stock of the materials for self keeping for letter distribution to the IDPs.
Nuvalga further disclosed that a truck of the relieve materials loaded six hundred (600) bags of Maize in each. He stated that instead of the twenty trucks as directed and informed by the Gombe zonal office of NEMA, only nineteen (19) trucks of the materials arrived Jalingo.
He said when the nineteen trucks arrived Jalingo he called the zonal office and informed them of the details of the stuck the Agency received in Jalingo. While stating up till the time of briefing journalist the remaining truck was yet to arrived.
"Instead of receiving 12,000 bags of Maize as we were informed by NEMA, only 11,400 reached us, a truck loaded 600 bags and it was only 19 trucks that reached to us although I informed NEMA promptly on the development"
When asked why the State refused to release the materials to the minister for distribution, the permanent secretary said Sen. Aisha did not follow the Normal procedures on how to get the materials been released to her for distribution to the IDPs.
"When I was contacted that materials were on the way, I briefed my boss who is the governor of Taraba state, who am answerable to, when the minister came into the state she called me, directing me to release the materials to her for onward distribution to IDPs then I told her that NEMA did not direct me to handover the materials to her and she should contact my boss to smoothen the process but she refused"
Aisha Buhari, wife to President Muhammadu Buhari has faulted Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State by going to the United States of America.
The Governor had earlier accused Mrs Buhari of being the Aisha Buhari indicted in the Haliburton fraud years back and dared her to step foot in the United States.
Below are pictures of Aisha in Washington DC, US:
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