Politics

Attempts to sack dissenting Nigerian governor forces Presidency into denials

Published

6 years ago

July 31, 2018

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari is labouring hard to convince citizens that he is not remotely connected with attempts to impeach a governor in the North-central State of Benue who only recently ditched the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

On Monday, eight lawmakers of the Benue State House of Assembly, backed by a detachment of the Nigeria Police Force gained access, and sat at the Assembly premises from where they served the governor of the State, Samuel Ortom, an impeachment notice.

On Tuesday, the nation’s anti-graft body, EFCC, also linked Ortom to an alleged fraud totaling N22 billion.

The commission is also said to have revealed that 21 members of the Benue State House of Assembly were under investigation for allegedly diverting N375 million meant for the procurement of vehicles that were to be used for oversight functions.

These were said to be contained in a report of an investigation which began in 2016.

Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to President Buhari in a statement on Tuesday, acknowledged that strident attempts were being made to drag President Muhammadu Buhari into the unfolding drama between the executive and the legislature in Benue State.

However, the Presidency condemned different interest groups insinuating that the President may have a hand in the development in Benue.

Adesina said, “This is paranoia at its worst, coming from people who have wittingly positioned themselves against the clean-up of the country, and the way we do things. They prefer business as usual.

“President Buhari will never be part of any unconstitutional act, and any attempt to link him with the inglorious past, when minority number of lawmakers impeached governors, will not stick. It will simply be like water off the duck’s back. Those with open minds know this, but those who cavil would rather source everything untoward to the President. It is murky ground in which they are now marooned, as fallout of their resistance to change in the country.

“When it suits them, they preach separation of powers and true federalism, and in another breath, they call on the President to interfere brazenly in affairs at state level.

“President Buhari will always stand by all that is noble and fair, and will reject attempts to drag him into infamy. People who stoke fires by deliberate acts of omission or commission, and then summon the President to come and put it out will find that this President will be guided by the Constitution at all times, no matter the attempt to entangle him in unwarranted controversies”.

The weeks ahead remain unpredictable as different plots coalesce to determine the power structure and political future of Benue State.

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Politics

Chad: Interim President Deby begins campaign ahead of election

Published

14 hours ago

April 15, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

With a promise to improve security and the economy, Mahamat Idriss Deby, Chad’s temporary president, started his campaign for president on Monday.

The election is set for next month and will end three years of military rule. Concerns of a democracy backslide have been raised about Deby’s government and others that have taken power in West and Central Africa since 2020.

Chad is one of the countries in Central and West Africa that is run by the military. There is still a push from both inside and outside of Africa for the country to switch to a democratic government.

Mahamat’s father had been in charge for a long time and was killed in rebel fighting in 2021. At first, Deby promised that polls would happen in 18 months. Later, however, his government passed measures that let him run for president and pushed the election date to 2024.

Some countries in the region and around the world have been pressuring Chad to quickly hand power back to people, but the country has been the first to hold elections.

“Today we are at the final turn on the road to constitutional return,” Deby told a large crowd gathered in scorching weather at the high-security event in Chad’s capital N’Djamena.

“You know me, I am a soldier and I hold my promises,” he said, barely visible behind a barrier of bodyguards crowding the podium.

“We will strengthen internal security to guarantee peace and stability in our country,” he said.

Deby made it official that he was going to run at the beginning of March. The news came a few days after Yaya Dillo, an opposition politician, was killed in a gunfight with security forces. This caused worries about the safety of the upcoming election.

Since then, forensic experts have said that Dillo was most likely shot from close range. Among the nine other candidates for president is Succes Masra, who was recently named Prime Minister of Chad and is a strong opponent of the junta.

Politics

Sudan conflict: US plans $100 million aid response

Published

1 day ago

April 15, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The United States is set to announce an extra $100 million in aid for the conflict in Sudan as Washington continues its attempts to get the rest of the world to help before Monday, which is the anniversary of the war.

Samantha Power, who is the administrator of the US Agency for International Development, said in a statement on Sunday that the extra fund would be used for emergency food aid, nutrition support, and other life-saving aid.

The statement says that Power will ask the warring sides to stop making it hard for aid workers to get to areas that need it and to take part in “good faith negotiations to reach a ceasefire” so that there is no more hunger and suffering.

“A year ago tomorrow, the people of Sudan awoke to a nightmare,” Power said.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Army (SAF) went to war on April 15, 2023. More than a million people have fled to nearby countries since the terrible war in Sudan began in April 2023. Of the 48,000 people who had to go back to eastern Chad, about 378,000 are Sudanese refugees.

“The warring sides turned bustling neighbourhoods into battle zones, killing thousands, leaving bodies in the streets, and trapping civilians in their homes without adequate food, water, and medicines.”

On April 15, 2023, war broke out in Sudan between the army and the rebel Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The infrastructure of the country was badly damaged.

There have been thousands of deaths of civilians, but figures of the exact number are very sketchy. Both sides have been charged with war crimes.

Millions of people are now severely hungry because of the war, which has also caused the world’s biggest migration crisis and waves of killings and sexual violence based on ethnicity in the Darfur area of western Sudan.

The news that Washington will provide more help comes before a humanitarian meeting in France which is set for Monday. At the conference, the US asked partners from around the world to put the war in Sudan at the top of their list of priorities and provide more money.

“We call on others to join us in increasing support to the people of Sudan and urgently mobilizing additional support for the Sudanese response,” Power said.

The United Nations says 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, need help and 8 million have left their homes. The United States says that both sides of the war have broken the law.