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.”
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