Author Archives: daudupress

The Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) otherwise called “Shi’ites” has accused the Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, of causing the death of five members of the group when his security details allegedly opened fire on them during a protest in Kaduna.

Many people including passers-by were said to be caught up in the melee on Thursday in Kaduna as many people sustained varying degree of injuries in the process.

In a statement signed by the Secretary of Academic Forum of the movement, Abdullahi Muhammad Musa, the group attributed the tragic incident that led to the death of their members to the inciting statement allegedly made by the governor a few days ago.

The governor was said to have incited members of his political Party in Zaria, against the movement and its leader, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky(H), where he told them that they must vote for his anointed candidate, Senator Uba Sani.

SaharaReporters gathered that the governor’s convoy ran into the peaceful protesters along the airport road demanding for the release of travel documents of their leader, Ibraheem El-Zakzaky and his wife Zeenah.

It was learnt that the combined security operatives reportedly fired both teargas canisters and live bullets at the crowd killing five persons on the spot.

One of the victims was identified as Aliyu Suleiman, an 18 years old Mechanical Engineering Student of Kaduna State Polytechnic.

The statement read, “Few days after the Kaduna State Governor, Nasiru El-Rufai, incited members of his political Party in Zaria, against the the Islamic movement in Nigeria and it leader, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky(H), where he told them that they must Vote his anointed candidate, Senator Uba Sani, so he may finish off what he described as the remnants of El-zakzaky’s Shiites in Zaria.

“The governor told the APC faithfuls that it’s only his successor that can fight and finish the Shiites in the state. Incidentally, less than 48 hours to the state’s Governorship election followers of the oppressed leader of the Islamic movement in Nigeria came out to protest against tyrant Buhari’s refusal to remove the illegal travelling ban on their leader, Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky and his wife to travel out for medical treatment, El-Rufai’s convoy, ran into the protesters and opened fire with live ammunition on them, killing more than five on the spot.

“These include Aliyu Suleiman, an 18 years old Mechanical Engineering Student of Kaduna State Polytechnic. Several others sustained various degrees of life threatening injuries, an unspecified number of passerby were also shot and arrested.”

Source: KPA

By Emmanuel Daudu

The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Foreign Affairs Ambassador Zubairu Dada has assured China of Nigeria’s reciprocal support at bilateral and multilateral levels.

According to Ibrahim Aliyu, SA Media HMOS in a press release on
14th-03-23, said, the minister gave the assurance when he received the visiting Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs in charge of African Affairs, Mr. Deng Li in Abuja.

Ambassador Zubairu Dada who said Nigeria and China have excellent relationship for many decades, maintained that relations between the two countries had continued to grow from strength to strength due to the total commitment of leaders of both countries.

While congratulating China for a peaceful transition, Ambassador Dada said he look forward to more dynamic relationships with the People ‘s Republic of China.

He said as Nigeria is going through the same process of transition from one civilian government to another, the country needs the support of China and indeed all other friendly nations to ensure a seamless transition.

The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs commended China for embarking on fifteen  developmental projects across Nigeria which he said some have already been completed while others are at the various levels of completion.

He however expressed concern over difficulties  faced by some Nigerians who wants to reside in China in the issuance of resident permits and called for urgent steps to be taken to address the problem.

While applauding China’s resolve to allow Nigerian students return to China to continue their studies,  the Minister also said the commencement of direct flights from Nigeria to China is also a welcomed development.

Earlier, the Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs in charge of Africa, Mr. Deng Li congratulated Nigeria for a peaceful conduct of Presidential and National Assembly elections.

He described Nigeria as an important strategic partner of China in Africa.

Mr. Deng Li said his country will continue to cherish Nigeria especially for its recognition and belief in one China Policy.

He urged Nigeria to always support China at the International front especially against the United States accusations of human rights violations, which he said was not true.

The top ranking diplomat appealed to the Federal Government of Nigeria to as a matter of urgency do everything possible to protect Chinese citizens and Enterprises from attacks in Nigeria.

He said China will assist Nigeria in intelligence gathering to curb terrorism and other forms of criminality in the country as he also pledge China’s resolve to continue to embark on more developmental projects across Nigeria.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has called for improved performance and synergy among security agencies involved in election security, ahead of the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly election holding this weekend, 18th March 2023.

The Commission expressed appreciation to the security agencies and other members of the Inter-agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) for the professionalism of personnel and the generally peaceful conduct of the elections, the Presidential and National Assembly held on the 25th of February 2023, but called for more coordinated deployment plan in among ICCES members.

Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu made the call at an ICCES meeting  convened at the INEC Headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday to review preparations for the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections holding this Saturday.

Confirming the Commission’s readiness for the election. Prof. Yakubu said “the Governorship election will hold in 28 States of the Federation. As you are aware, Governorship elections in eight States (Anambra, Bayelsa, Edo, Ekiti, Imo, Kogi, Ondo and Osun States) are held off-cycle and therefore not conducted during the General Election.” 

“However, elections will be conducted for all the 993 State constituencies nationwide. Our state offices have made available to the Nigeria Police Force, being the lead agency in election security, the delimitation details for both the Governorship and State Assembly elections, including locations of Polling Units and Collation Centres. On that basis, we expect a coordinated deployment plan in synergy with other security, intelligence, law enforcement and safety agencies,” Chairman said.

Speaking further on preparations for the Saturday election, the INEC Chairman explained that “only yesterday, the Commission held a virtual meeting with all the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) in which we reviewed preparations for the State elections. In addition to election technology, logistics and a host of other issues, security was also discussed. We will present some of the issues at this meeting for further discussion and, most importantly, appropriate action.”

Commenting on the huge task before the Commission and the security agencies come Saturday, Prof. Yakubu said “the Governorship and State Assembly elections this weekend involves more constituencies than the national elections held about three weeks ago. Unlike the last elections involving 470 constituencies (1 Presidential, 109 Senatorial Districts and 360 House of Representatives seats), the State elections will involve 1,021 constituencies (28 Governorship and 993 State Assembly seats).” 

The INEC Chairman used the opportunity to urge the political actors to guard their utterances and ensure their supporters conduct themselves appropriately. In his words; “there will also be more candidates involved and more collation centres to protect. They are also local elections involving keen contests. It is therefore important for parties and candidates to speak to their agents and supporters to see the elections as a contest and not war. They should refrain from acts of violence that may mar the elections or compromise the security of our personnel, observers, the media and service providers.”

He further lauded the directive of the Inspector- General of Police (IGP) to state commands to handle all cases of electoral offences expeditiously. “We look forward to receiving the case files. We will immediately set up a legal team to handle such cases in earnest”, he said.

On his part, the National Security Adviser and Co-Chairman of ICCES, Major- General Babagana Monguno (Rtd), commended the security agencies for their role in the conduct of the February 25th Presidential and NASS elections.

He however, urged them to double their efforts to up the game of securing the electoral space for the conduct of free, fair and credible election on Saturday.

Stressing why more efforts must be invested in this Saturday’s election, the NSA explained that unlike the Presidential and NASS election, this election will be conducted in more constituencies; 28 Governorship and 993 Houses of Assembly seats.

According to Gen. Monguno, “though we do not envisage any threat or issues concerning the Saturday election that is going to be terrible or violent, we must not fold our hands and do nothing at all in case of unforeseen circumstances.”

He continued “we must make sure every Nigerian exercises his or her franchise without hinderance of any kind and we must not allow anyone to undermine the electoral process”.

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has assured Political Parties seeking to challenge the outcome of the just concluded 2023 Presidential election in court that the Commission is willing to cooperate by making available all necessary documents requested by the parties.

Prof. Yakubu who asserted that the Commission has nothing to hide, gave the assurance when the Legal team of the Labour Party (LP) led by Dr. Levy Uzoukwu, visited the INEC headquarters in Abuja on Monday.

Addressing the LP Legal team, the INEC Chairman said “I want to assure you that the Commission will not hide any document from anybody and will make available any document that they have requested for. There are two categories of documents those that are in possession of the headquarters of INEC, we will easily make these documents available to you”.

“Specifically, the Form EC8Ds from the states and the EC8DA, which is the collation at the National Collection Centre by the Commission itself. The EC8E, the declaration, so many, a total of, I think 39 documents, this we can easily certify and give you almost immediately.”

He added that; “as for other documents that we are asking for they are at state level, so we need to work out the schedule so that we know when your team is going to which state and on which date so that we can easily facilitate not just certification of documents, but also the inspection that you requested for each of these documents.”

The INEC Chairman also spoke on the Legal teams’ request for the accreditation data for the Presidential election. He said “the other one is accreditation data from the back end. This will also be made available to you. Remember that the accreditation data covers over 176,000 polling units. We have to print them physically certify them, and give them to you, so the tall and short of what I’m saying is that you will get this document speedily.”

“They will also make arrangements and notify our Resident Electoral Commissioners of your intended visit so that these documents will be made available to you, those that are at the state level, including access to inspection of any category of materials.”

He added that; “a meeting has been scheduled with all the Resident Electoral Commissioners it is going to be a virtual meeting at 3pm, today, (Monday) which we will discuss among other issues, this matter of providing CTCs not only to the Labour Party, but to all other litigants as well.”

Explaining the purpose of their visit to Journalists after the meeting, the leader of the team and also Lead Counsel to the Labour Party, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), said that it was a follow up to their written request and the order by the Court of Appeal issued on the 3rd of March 2023.

He said: “we are here because we have not received any electoral stocks for inspection on behalf of our clients, and as you all know, election petition is time sensitive. We have 21 days to file a petition on behalf of our clients. Out of that 21 days we probably have about 10 days to go and up till now we have not received any documents”.

“We have written to INEC requesting for documents apart from that, the Court of Appeal made an order on the March 3, to INEC to release those documents to us but we haven’t received any hence we requested for a meeting with the Chairman of the Commission.”

Dr. Uzoukwu explained further that the Prof. Yakubu graciously granted them audience within a very short notice, “and he has given us assurance, concrete assurance on record that all documents we require will be made available and if possible, some of them will be made available to us today”.

“So, we believe that that will happen, and we are leaving here rest assured that by the time we leave INEC premises at least we will leave with some documents, the rest can then come from tomorrow and so on and so forth.’, he added.