Edo PDP Primaries: Court strikes out suit to stop Obaseki from contesting

Justice Emmanuel Obile of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt has struck out an application by a Governorship aspirant of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihiama seeking to stop Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki from participating in the party primaries scheduled for Thursday.

Justice Obile struck out the suit after all the parties in the matter agreed to resolve their issues.

Edo State Peoples Democratic Party Governorship aspirant, Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihiama had asked for an out-of-court settlement in his suit to stop Governor Godwin Obaseki from participating in the primaries of the party.

Ogbeide-Ihiama made the application through his Lawyer, Ferdinand Ogbeh SAN, to settle out of court when the matter was heard before Justice Obile of the Federal High Court, Port Harcourt.

The PDP governorship aspirant had asked the court to restrain Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki from contesting the party primaries after vowing not to step down for him

NSA, IGP, others meet northern govs on insecurity

The National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno (retd.), has led some security chiefs to meet with state governors from the northern part of the country over the spate of insecurity in their states.

Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle, disclosed this to State House correspondents on Monday night.

Matawalle also said the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, among others attended the meeting.

The meeting was held on Monday.

Recall that Monguno had, after a meeting Buhari had with security chiefs last week, told journalists that he was mandated to meet with the governors with a view to ending the nation’s security challenges.

Matawalle said his mission to the Presidential Villa was to meet the Chief of Staff to the President, Prof Ibrahim Gambari, on the same matter.

He said, “We have discussed extensively about the issue of insecurity in northern Nigeria, not just Zamfara State.

“Today (Monday), we met in the National Security Adviser’s office with northern governors and the Inspector-General of Police and other security agencies.

“We discussed seriously on the issue of insecurity and the Chief of Staff invited me to brief him about insecurity in my state, which I did.

“We have discussed about it and understand where we are going. Zamfara State Government and the security are doing their best to ensure we contain insecurity.”

The governor suggested the carrot and stick approach as one of the ways to tackle insecurity.

The Punch

Nigeria records 452 new COVID-19 infection

Nigeria yesterday recorded 452 new cases of COVID-19, bringing to 21,371 the number of confirmed cases in the country.

Announcing the new cases yesterday, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said Lagos recorded 209 new cases, Oyo, 67; Delta, 37; Ogun, 36; Federal Capital Territory (FCT), 22; Abia, 20; Enugu, 16; Bauchi, 15; Kaduna and Ondo, eight each; Osun, seven; Imo and Benue, three each and Borno, one.

Eight deaths were recorded from the virus on Tuesday bringing the total number of confirmed deaths from the virus to 533.

All the reporting states already had at least a case of the virus.

As of Tuesday, 35 states and the FCT have recorded at least a case of the disease. Only one state, Cross River, is yet to report any case of the virus.

Ghana President Calls Buhari, Apologises Over Demolition Of Nigerian Mission

President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana has called President Muhammadu Buhari Over the demolition of the Nigerian High Commission in Accra.

In a telephone conversation on Tuesday, Akufo-Addo expressed his sincere apology over the unfortunate incident that has sparked reactions from the Nigerian government.

This was confirmed in a statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu.

The Ghana leader assured President Buhari that he has directed a full investigation into the matter, assuring that justice will be served.

Meanwhile, some suspects linked to the demolition have been arrested and will be arraigned in court.

It will be recalled that a businessman who claimed ownership of the land housing the Nigerian mission reportedly moved with security personnel to demolish some portion of the staff quarters.

Although the demolition took place on Friday, the man was said to have shown up the previous week with some pieces of evidence to support his claim and began to knock down the fence surrounding the building.

A source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Channels Television that the action of the man was not opposed, adding that the Nigerian High Commission petitioned the Ghanaian Government about it, but there was no response.

Following the incident, many Nigerians including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila have condemned the action.

(Channels Television)

Obaseki: Wike Pulls Out Of PDP Reconciliation Committee For Edo Guber Poll

Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, has pulled of the reconciliation committee set up to resolve the various camps in the Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party ahead of Thursday governorship primary of the party.

Wike also warned the national leadership of the party and governors to handle the crisis that would soon rock the party in the state with care, if not, it will snowball into more dangerous crises than what is happening in the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The governor announced his withdrawal from the reconciliation committee on Tuesday in Port Harcourt, the state capital.

He said he had decided to pull out of the committee following accusation that he was behind the court order allegedly restraining Governor Godwin Obaseki from participating in the party’s governorship primary slated for Thursday June 25 in Benin.

Wike accused some members of the PDP National Working Committee for allegedly acting like tax collectors and sycophants since the defection of Obaseki to the party.

He said, “I told them that in Edo State, we must handle the issue carefully and carry everybody along. They must respect human beings and not behave like tax collectors. They said because an order was obtained from a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, then I am responsible.

“I have had sleepless nights to resolve the issue in Edo. The Governors of Edo, Adamawa, and Delta states know what I have done to resolve the issues. As a result of this senseless accusation, I have pulled out of Edo State settlement.

The Governor said his integrity matters most on the matter, adding that he has directed his lawyer to write a national daily on a publication allegedly made against him on Tuesday.

Wike said, “They (NWC) are tax collectors. Let them challenge me and I will come out with facts. Nobody will rubbish me by raising false accusations against me. I will fight back.”

“I am brought up not to accept injustice, and that is why I keep speaking out on national issues. Nobody in PDP can intimidate Rivers State.

“Nobody can threaten me because I said things must be done constitutionally. I will always continue to satisfy my conscience. From now on, I want to concentrate on the development of Rivers State”, Governor Wike added.

Education ministry presents proposal to NASS on Schools reopening

The Minster of State for Education, Mr Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba on Tuesday presented to the National Assembly a proposed date for the reopening of schools across the country as a post COVID-19 measure.

He made the presentation during a meeting with the Senate Committee on Basic and Secondary Education on the ministry’s plans for pupils who have been forced to stay at home following the outbreak of the COVID – 19 pandemic.

While noting that government had said that schools for some categories of students would be reopened soon, Nwajiuba said that giving a tentative date would result to misrepresentation by the public.

“We said we are going to experiment with some people and these are children from exit classes.

“In the document we have provided, we have suggested how we can move our education sector forward in this pandemic period.

“We don’t want to make it known at this period so that some people will not take our proposal for guidelines for schools reopening.

“This is because people publish fake guidelines every day which I always come on air to debunk. What we have now is a proposal.

“Even if the Senate has not called us, we would have come to you to discuss with you because we have already discussed with the House of Representatives.

“The documents were presented to you so that you can criticise and make inputs as major stakeholders”.

He, however, expressed concern over the decision of Oyo State Government to reopen its primary and secondary schools in spite the current rising cases of Coronavirus infection in the country.

Nwajiuba wondered why the government of Oyo state which was currently battling with increase cases of new infections, should be eager to throw open the gates of its schools when its neighbouring states, were employing caution.

He said, “Why is Oyo state talking of reopening schools when it has just started recording increase cases of Coronavirus infection.

“Just beside Oyo is Ogun which was part of the three states under the FG’s lockdown since April is not talking about schools reopening.”

Vice Chairperson of the Committee, Sen. Akon Eyakenyi, who presided over the meeting, expressed the fears that the academic calendar could be distorted in public schools where no visible arrangement was being made to teach the children at home unlike their private schools counterparts.

She said public schools students were made to rely on educational programmes on radio and television stations whereas they tune to stations showing cartoons whenever there was no adult to guide them.

Eyakenyi said that children in public schools had no access to online classes like their counterparts in the private schools.

She noted that the arrangement regarding radio and television stations was not working.

“Even when the students in the cities have access to education programmes on radio and televisions, what of those in the villages? What do we do so that we don’t shut them out?

“If government can give guidelines for the reopening of churches and mosques, stakeholders in the education sector could also hold a meeting with the government to agree on guidelines for schools reopening.

“All we need to do is to come up with measures that would ensure the safety of both the students and their teachers.

“We can design a plan that would make sure that not all the students resume at the same time. We could probably start with the exit classes.

“We could have the numbers of students that would go to school in both the morning and afternoon sessions.

“We have to be innovative in our approach to save our educational sector in this country because nobody knows how long the virus will be with us.” (NAN)