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Tinubu Has No Preferred Candidates For National Assembly Leadership – Shettima

The President-elect, Bola Tinubu does not have preferred candidates for the leadership of both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the 10th National Assembly, Vice President-elect, Kashim Shettima has revealed.
Shettima made this known at the meeting with new members-elect to the National Assembly in Abuja.
A member-elect for Bungudu/Maru Federal Constituency of Zamfara State, Abdulmalik Bungudu, revealed this to our correspondent shortly after the meeting.
Bungudu, who spoke in the Hausa language, revealed that Tinubu told attendees that he had no preferred candidates for any of the principal offices of the 10th NASS.
He quoted Shettima as saying, “For now, he (Tinubu) said he doesn’t have anybody that he prefers to have as Senate President or Speaker, but consultations are going to continue to get the way out for the party and to also ensure the party emerges victorious in the forthcoming governorship and Houses of Assembly elections.”
 
Meanwhile, lawmakers newly elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, on Monday, in Abuja, said the party would zone principal offices only after the conclusion of the governorship and state Assembly elections holding on Saturday, March 18.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, among other lawmakers-elect, disclosed this to our correspondent after a meeting between senators-elect and House of Representatives members-elect with the party leadership held at the Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja.
The meeting, which comes barely two weeks after the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections, is the first between the newly-elected members of parliament and the party.
It followed rife speculations that the APC would use the medium to speedily zone principal offices in the two chambers of the 10th National Assembly to avert a repeat of the 2015 scenario where the party lost grip of the legislature despite retaining the most number of seats in both chambers.
However, the Speaker of the House, Gbajabiamila, told our correspondent that the conversation did not entail any discussion about the NASS leadership because the elections were not over.
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FG To Charge Helicopter Landing Fees — Minister

The federal government will charge landing fees for helicopters operating in Nigerian airspace.

Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika announced this while announcing the latest batch of trained Helicopter Monitoring Officers at the International Wing of the Port Harcourt International Airport in the Rivers State capital.

The minister, who was represented by the Director of Human Resources at the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Norris Anozie reiterated the resolve of the Federal Government to improve revenue collection of helicopter landing charges.

One of the newly trained Helicopter Monitoring Officers told Channels Television that everywhere helicopters land or take off from in the country will be adequately monitored.

The Helicopter Monitoring Officers are going to be vested with the responsibility of collecting landing fees on behalf of the Federal Government.

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BVAS Configuration: INEC Imputing Wrong Figures – Dino Melaye Raises Alarm

Senator Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP has made a new allegation against the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
He accused INEC, of imputing wrong figures while transferring results to the backend server.
Melaye, a spokesperson to the presidential candidate of the PDP in the just concluded February 25 election, Atiku Abubakar, disclosed this in a post via his Twitter handle on Monday.
He said his party would expose any wrong imputation and change in figures by the commission as it transfers election results to the backend server.
Recall that the Electoral Commission recently obtained order from the Court to allow it reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, for the March 18 gubernatorial election.
However, the former lawmaker said they would shock INEC and its ICT department.
 
“INEC is doing the wrong thing, wrong imputation going on. We will expose any wrong imputation and figures changing as upload and backend transfer is going on. We will shock INEC and the ICT department. Jail loading for many,” he tweeted.
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CBN Directs Banks To Dispense And Receive Old N200, N500 And N1000 Notes

Following the Naira scarcity in the country and the Supreme court order, declaring the old N500 and N1000 as legal tender till Dec 31, 2023, the Central Bank of Nigeria has now directed commercial banks to dispense and receive old naira notes.

A statement by the acting Director, CBN Corporate Communications, Isa AbdulMumin, says the apex bank gave the directive at a Bankers’ Committee meeting held on Sunday.

Banks have now been authorised to dispense and receive the old Naira notes.

Read The Statement Below;

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BREAKING: JAMB Postpones 2023 Mock UTME Over Gubernatorial Polls

The 2023 Mock-UTME scheduled for Thursday, March 16, 2023, has been postponed to Thursday, March 30, 2023.

The shift in date is partly owing to the change in the date for the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly Elections earlier scheduled to hold on Saturday, March 11, 2023, but now moved to March 18, 2023, the examination board said in a statement on Monday afternoon.

“Candidates, who registered early and indicated their willingness to take the Mock-UTME, would be notified as to when to print their Mock-UTME notification slip, which would contain their centres and other details”.

The mock UTME is an optional examination introduced by the JAMB to provide an opportunity for candidates to have hands-on experience with the system as well as afford the board an opportunity to ascertain its readiness and that of its partners for the main UTME, which is scheduled to hold between April 29 to May 12, 2023.

“The Board also wants to use this opportunity to announce that this year’s UTME would witness some groundbreaking innovations aimed at addressing observed infractions and centre failures.

“For instance, in the new regime, if there is a delay of up to one hour before the commencement of a particular session, that session stands cancelled and would be rescheduled along with the candidates.

“By the same token, no examination can be started one hour after the scheduled commencement time. The session will be scheduled for any vacant or available slot,” JAMB said in the statement.

Meanwhile, no fewer than 168,748 registered for the 2023 mock UTME out of the over 1.5 million prospective candidates for this year’s UTME according to official statistics provided by JAMB.

According to the official breakdown, a total of 2,200 students will sit for the mock in Abia state; Adamawa, 1,264; Akwa-Ibom, 3,981; Anambra, 6,104; Bauchi 1,572; Bayelsa 847; Benue 1,349; Borno 1,234; Cross-Rivers 1,750; Delta 7,409; Ebonyi 1,499; Edo 4,416; Ekiti 3,273; Enugu 4,443; FCT 14,863; Gombe 723; Imo 3,987; Jigawa 261; Kaduna 6,850; Kano 3,072; Katsina 1,088; Kebbi 697; Kogi 1,924; Kwara 6,544; Lagos 28,340; Nasarawa 3,332; Niger 2,491; Ogun 10,922; Ondo 4,743; Osun 7,131; Oyo 14,732.

Others are Plateau with 3,284; Rivers 9,469; Sokoto 967; Taraba 622; Yobe 1,047 and Zamfara with 318 candidates.

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Osun Tribunal: Appeal Court Reserves Judgement on Adeleke’s Appeal

The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has given an update on the Osun State governorship appeal filed by Governor Ademola Adeleke.
The court on Monday reserved judgement on the appeal.
The appeal filed by Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party is against a judgment of the tribunal which invalidated his election as governor of Osun State.
The three-member panel of justices led by Justice M.F. Shuaibu began sitting on the appeal at about 10am.While Adeleke is the appellant, Oyetola and the All Progressives Congress are 1st and 2nd respondents in the appeal marked: CA/AK/EPT/GOV/01/2023.
The Independent National Electoral Commission and the PDP are also joined as 3rd respondent and 4th respondents respectively.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal had on January  27, voided the July 16, 2022, election that produced Adeleke of PDP as the elected governor.
INEC had declared Adeleke the winner of the election after polling a total of 403,371 votes. He was said to have won in 17 of the 30 local government areas in the state.
But the panel led by Justice Terste Kume, in its judgment, invalidated the election and declared Mr Gboyega Oyetola of APC as the valid winner of the poll.
The tribunal directed INEC to withdraw the Certificate of Return issued to Adeleke and his deputy, Kola Adewusi, both of whom had been sworn in.
It, however, directed that the Certificate of Return should instead be issued to Oyetola.
Justice Kume held that the governorship election was not held in compliance with Nigeria’s Electoral Act. The tribunal also held that the governorship election was characterised by over-voting. It said after deducting the excessive votes, the figure Oyetola polled at the election was 314, 921.
The tribunal, thus, ordered that Oyetola should be returned as governor of Osun State.
NAN reports that INEC, in its earlier results, said Oyetola won in 13 LGAs with 375,027 votes in the July 16, 2022 governorship election.
Fifteen candidates contested for the poll which was keenly contested between Adeleke and Oyetola.
In his petition, Oyetola, the immediate-past governor of the state, had alleged that the election was characterised by over-voting in 749 polling units.
He also argued that Adeleke forged the academic credentials he submitted to NEC to contest for the election.
The tribunal had commenced sitting in August 2022, a few weeks after the governorship election. Oyetola and the APC were petitioners in the case with Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, and Akin Olujimi, SAN, as their lead counsels.
INEC was the 1st defendant, Adeleke the 2nd defendant and PDP as 3rd defendant.
The hearing was still ongoing as at the time of filing the report.
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INEC Denies Refusing Aggrieved Political Parties Access To Election Materials

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has dismissed allegations that it disobeyed the Appeal Court order to allow aggrieved political parties to inspect election materials.

INEC National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, Festus Okoye, made the clarification, when he appeared as a guest on Arise TV on Sunday.

Okoye advised lawyers of the aggrieved parties, to channel their request appropriately, so that, “the issues can be handled expeditiously.”

He added that INEC, at the national level, does not conduct elections, but rather elections are conducted at the state and local government level.

The INEC Commissioner also stated that the commission will direct the parties to the appropriate place where they will find the materials they want.

He said, “The commission will not deliberately or flagrantly disobey the order of a properly constituted court of law, and in this case, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting at the Court of Appeal.

“I think that what the parties involved in this election should do, is to send lawyers who understand the trajectory of the electoral process and request for some of these materials.

“If you are requesting to scan ballot papers used during the election, ballot papers are not in the headquarters of INEC.

“Some of these ballot papers are still in our local government offices and so the proper place to scan them will be at our local government offices.”

Okoye said INEC is only resetting the BVAS, to recognize the new date for the forthcoming election.

He explained that the BVAS will not allow itself to reconfigure until all the data in it has been uploaded to the commission’s server.

Okoye ruled out the possibility of INEC allowing individuals to witness the reconfiguring of the BVAS, saying the device contains sensitive information of biometrics of other individuals.

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FG Reappoints UCH CMD For Another Four Years

President Muhammadu Buhari has given approval for the reappointment of Jesse Otegbayo to serve another four-year term as the Chief Medical Director of University College Hospital, Ibadan, Oyo State.
Buhari had approved the appointment of Otegbayo as the CMD in January 2019.
The Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire, announced this on Monday in Ibadan, the state capital.
Ehanire had also handed over his letter of reappointment to him at the board room of the teaching hospital in Ibadan.
It will be recalled that Otegbayo took over from Temitope Alonge, who completed his tenure as the CMD.
He hails from Otan-Ile in Obokun Local Government in Ijesaland, Osun State. He graduated from the University of Ibadan College of Medicine in 1989.
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2023 Election: Northern Politicians Now Being Nice, Humble – Shehu Sani

Former lawmaker, Shehu Sani has taken a swipe at Northern politicians, stating that they are now being nice and humble to the people.

According to Sani, this could be as a result of lessons learnt from the February 25 presidential election.

Nigerians trooped out en-masse to decide their next leader during the presidential election and even though there are reports of massive rigging and electoral fraud across the country, the turnout showed that the people, especially the youth, are now prepared to make decisions about who leads them.

Sani, a former representative of Kaduna central Senatorial District in the Bukola Saraki-led 8th Assembly, suggested that the outcome of the election has humbled arrogant politicians in the North.

“Politicians are now being nice and humble,” he tweeted.

“They are reaching out to the displaced and traumatised victims of terrorism, sharing foodstuffs and promising them heaven.

“The same widows and orphans they never visited for years. The voters are the kingmakers, if only they know.”

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BREAKING: CBN Authorizes Use Of Old Naira Notes

Anambra State Governor, Charles Soludo confirmed on Monday that the Central Bank of Nigeria has directed commercial banks to dispense and accept old naira notes as deposits.

Soludo, a former CBN governor, made this known in a statement he posted on his social media handles.

He explained that the Governor of CBN, Godwin Emefiele gave the directive at a Banker’s Committee meeting on Sunday.

He added that Emefiele personally confirmed the directive to him.

According to him, residents should report banks refusing to accept the old notes.

“Commercial banks have been directed by the Central Bank to dispense old currency notes and also to receive the same deposits from customers. Tellers at commercial banks are to generate the codes for deposits, and there is no limit to the number of times an individual or company can make deposits.

“The Governor of the CBN gave the directive at a Bankers’ Committee meeting held on Sunday, 12th March 2023. The Governor, Dr Godwin Emefiele, personally confirmed the above to me during a phone conversation on Sunday night. Residents of Anambra are therefore advised to freely accept and transact their businesses with the old currency notes (N200, N500; and N1,000) and the new notes”, the statement contained.

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