by Admin | Apr 28, 2017 | Blog |
Follow @NigeriaPI ormer president Olusegun Obasanjo has disclosed why he opposed the re-election of immediate past president, Mr. Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 presidential election. Mr. Obasanjo’s reasons are contained in a book, Against the Run of Play, written by Mr. Segun Adeniyi, Chairman of the Editorial Board of ThisDay Newspapers. The book, an account of what happened in the 2015 presidential election, is due for public presentation in Lagos on Friday. The relationship between the former presidents, noted the author, had soured long before the election. Mr. Jonathan, whose political rise is widely credited to Mr. Obasanjo’s influence, had sought to make up with his presumed benefactor and keep him on his side for re-election. He arranged for a meeting with Mr. Obasanjo in his Abeokuta home. Before leaving for the Ogun State leg of his campaign in January 2015 wrote the author, Mr. Jonathan had concluded plans to visit Mr. Obasanjo, who had agreed to meet him. Mr. Obasanjo, however, gave a condition: Jonathan must come along with someone of sufficient credibility to act as a witness at the meeting. Mr. Jonathan agreed to bring one along. He approached the hugely influential General Overseer (GO) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor EA Adeboye, who accepted to play the role of a witness. But on the evening of 12 January 2015, the agreed date of the meeting scheduled for Mr. Obasanjo’s Hilltop residence in Abeokuta, Pastor Adeboye arrived in the company of Bishop David Oyedepo of Winners Chapel. “It was only Pastor Adeboye that Jonathan told me was coming with him, but Bishop Oyedepo is a...
by Admin | Apr 27, 2017 | Blog |
Follow @NigeriaPI The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago has upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss Nigerian Senator Buruji Kashamu’s lawsuit against the U.S. government, the Chicago Tribune reported yesterday. The American government is attempting to have Mr. Kashamu extradited from Nigeria to the U.S. in order to prosecute him for drug trafficking. Mr. Kashamu was indicted in 1998 for running a heroin syndicate in Chicago. He then fled the country and proceeded to successfully run for Senate in 2015. Mr. Kashamu currently represents Ogun State East in the National Assembly’s upper chamber. In 2015, the senator filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice in an attempt to prevent U.S. law enforcement from “abducting” him in Nigeria. He alleged that the U.S. was conspiring with his political enemies in Nigeria to have him abducted. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) collaborated with the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) in Nigeria to raid Mr. Kashamu’s Lagos home and abduct him in order to extradite him to the U.S. A Nigerian court, however, order the DEA to leave, saying it was illegal for the agency to arrest him on Nigerian soil. In Monday’s court ruling, Judge Richard Posner ruled that no law prevents U.S. law enforcement agents from “ being present when foreign officers are effecting an arrest or from assisting foreign officers who are effecting an arrest,” the Chicago Tribune reports. Mr. Kashamu is depicted in the popular American Netflix series, “Orange Is The New Black,” which centers on Piper Kerman, who was tried for money laundering alongside the Ogun East...
by Admin | Apr 27, 2017 | Blog |
Follow @NigeriaPI A Minna High Court on Tuesday ordered that former Governor of Niger state, Babangida Aliyu, alongside the Peoples Democratic Party governorship candidate in the 2015 election, Umar Mohammed Nasko, be remanded in Minna medium Prisons pending a ruling on bail application on May 3rd, 2017. According to the presiding Judge, Justice Aliyu Mayaki, the case is to be opened on June 12, 2017 and to be held day by day till June 16. The ruling on their bail application is to be delivered on 3rd May, 2017. They are to be remanded in Medium Security prisons in Minna. Lead Counsel for the EFCC, Gbolahan Latona, had levelled six charges against Aliyu. When the charges were read to them (Aliyu and Nasko) by Justice Mayaki, they pleaded not guilty. Source: Today...
by Admin | Apr 27, 2017 | Blog |
Follow @NigeriaPI A National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has alleged that Senate President Bukola Saraki and the Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, worked against the plan to make him President Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate in the 2015 presidential election. Tinubu stated that Saraki, El-Rufai and other stalwarts of the Peoples Democratic Party, who defected to the APC in the build-up to the 2015 elections, instigated Buhari and some APC chieftains not to pick him as the would-be Vice-President. The APC leader’s comments were contained in a book titled ‘Against the Run of Play,’ written by the Chairman, Editorial Board of ThisDay, Olusegun Adeniyi. Tinubu, the former governor of Lagos State, said his opponents persuaded Buhari to look for another running mate on the grounds that Christians in the North would not embrace a Muslim-Muslim ticket, and as such, could jeopardise the party’s victory. The former governor said the arguments put forward by the party members were not genuine, adding that El-Rufai had the intention to ensure the emergence of the Serving Overseer of The Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare, Buhari’s running mate. Tinubu added, “What they (Saraki and others from the PDP) did behind my back was wrong. We always do things as a group. By the time they joined, we were already too far ahead in our processes but we accommodated them. “We agreed to take their state structures and subsume them into the part and they all had their opportunity to nominate the candidates of their choices for different political offices. “But they went behind to instigate Buhari and some...
by Admin | Apr 27, 2017 | Blog |
Follow @NigeriaPI The Peoples Democratic Party and Civil Liberties Organisation have criticised President Muhammdu Buhari’s decision to perform his official roles from home. Buhari was absent from a meeting of the Federal Executive Council inside the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Wednesday. READ: If Buhari dies, I promise to kill 200 people – Police officer Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo presided over the meeting. Buhari did not also attend the FEC meeting last week, with the Presidency attributing his absence to the Easter holiday. Following the President’s absence from Wednesday’s meeting, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said Buhari was working from home. In a statement, Mohammed said the President only decided to work from home on Wednesday, not that he had decided to work from home henceforth. The minister said, “He (the President) wanted to rest today and he asked the VP to preside over today’s meeting. “In addition, he also asked that all his files be taken home to him and he will be working from home today.’’ But the PDP kicked against the development, urging the Presidency to reveal Buhari’s health status. Spokesman for the party’s National Caretaker Committee, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, stated the party’s position in an interview with our one of our correspondents in Abuja on Wednesday. Adeyeye said it was obvious that Mohammed did not know what to tell Nigerians following the third consecutive absence of the President from the weekly FEC meeting. He said, “We have passed a stage whereby you dish out lies to Nigerians on a daily basis about the health status of the President. “We...
by Admin | Apr 27, 2017 | Blog |
Follow @NigeriaPI The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) said it has organized a manhunt for a Lagos socialite and suspected drug baroness wanted in connection with cocaine trafficking. The suspect, Fumilola Arike Ogbuaya, also known as Arike Fumilola Ogundipe, allegedly was involved in smuggling 1.595kg of cocaine from Murtala Muhammed International Airport to Saudi Arabia in February 2017. NDLEA spokesman Mitchell Ofoyeju said the agency is also investigating Mrs. Ogbuaya’s multi-billion naira assets, allegedly the proceeds of drug sales. The anti-narcotics agency commenced investigation into Mrs. Ogbuaya after arresting one Odeyemi Omolara Morayo, also known as Ariyo Monsurat Olabisi, for drug trafficking. Investigation into Mr. Morayo implicated Mrs. Ogbuaya, according to the NDLEA commander at the Lagos airport. He said that the NDLEA then invited the Lagos socialite in for questioning to no avail. NDLEA officers subsequently stormed her Lagos home, but the alleged drug trafficker was nowhere to be found. “The agency is therefore investigating several landed properties worth several billions of naira traced to Mrs Fumilola Arike Ogbuaya a.k.a. Arike Fumilola Ogundipe in Lagos, Ogun and Osun States,” he said. “The assets include Arike Plaza, some plots of land, and buildings in strategic locations. The Lagos socialite, who is a distributor of alcoholic drinks, is needed by the NDLEA in an ongoing investigation. She hails from Ilesa, Osun State.” Impressed with the level of investigation in the ongoing case, NDLEA Chief Executive Muhammad Mustapha Abdallah has vowed to pursue the case to a logical conclusion and to trace all illicit drug proceeds. “The agency is building capacity for elaborate investigation and this is a test case...
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