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Imposing Levies on Communities Doesn’t Mean Bandits Have Taken Over – Lai Mohammed
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, says the fact that bandits are imposing levies on communities does not mean they have taken control.
Mohammed said this during a press conference in Abuja on Thursday while reacting to an article by The Economist magazine titled, ‘Insurgency, secessionism and banditry threaten Nigeria.’
The minister said the London-based magazine was wrong to claim that terrorists had carved caliphates for themselves in the North-East.
While answering questions from journalists on banditry in the North-West where bandits now impose levies on communities, Mohammed argued that imposing levies does not mean criminals are in charge, adding that it takes place in many parts of the country, including in the South where touts commonly referred to as ‘area boys’, impose levies.
He added, “Do you know how many places in this country where area boys collect taxes? And there is no terrorism or banditry there. I don’t want to mention names.
“In many of our cities, they carve out their own territory. So, it is not indicative of the bandits have taken over.
“No. I know many areas in Nigeria both in the South and the North where these kinds of things happen. So, it is not the same thing.”
The minister urged the Nigerian media to stop glorifying negative reports published by their foreign counterparts.
Mohammed said The Economist Intelligence Unit, which is a sister organisation of The Economist magazine, had predicted in 2019 that the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, would win the election but the prediction turned out to be false.
“President Muhammadu Buhari won re-election by over three million votes. So, The Economist and other arms of the group are not infallible,” the minister argued.
Mohammed argued that the idea of the Nigerian media regurgitating things published or reported by foreign media is antithetical to its reputation of independence and vibrancy.
“The Nigerian media does itself a great disservice by turning itself into an echo chamber of the foreign media. When The Economist reported its patently-wrong and badly-researched story, it was immediately amplified by the local media, without even interrogating its content? This is totally unconscionable!” he added.
The minister maintained that contrary to the article by The Economist, Boko Haram had been degraded. He, therefore, lambasted the newspaper for attempting to downplay the exploits of the Nigerian military.
He added, “Again, at a time that Boko Haram and ISWAP are taking on each other in a mutually-destructive lockstep, and at a time that the terrorists are surrendering in droves as a result of heavy pounding by the military, it is wrong to say that Jihadists are carving out a Caliphate in the North-East, as The Economist reported.
Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, the political adviser to President Bola Tinubu, has resigned his appointment.
Reports say the former spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) tendered his resignation about two weeks ago.
Further reports quoting presidency sources did not, however, provide details of the reasons for his decision, but only stated that it was on personal grounds.
Baba-Ahmed was appointed in September 2023 as Special Adviser on Political Matters in the Office of Vice President Kashim Shettima.
Over the past 17 months, he had represented the presidency at several public fora, including a recent national conference themed: “Strengthening Nigeria’s Democracy: Pathway to Good Governance and Political Integrity”, which held from January 28 and 29, 2025 in Abuja.
The Supreme Court has set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja recognising Julius Abure as the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP).
In a unanimous judgment, a five-member panel of the apex court held that the Court of Appeal lacked the jurisdiction to have pronounced Abure National Chairman of the Labour Party, after finding out earlier that the substance of the case was about the party’s leadership.
The apex court held that the issue of leadership was an internal affair of a party, over which courts lacks jurisdiction.
The court further allowed the appeal filed by Senator Nenadi Usman and one other, and held that it is meritorious.
It also proceeded to dismiss the cross-appeal filed by the Abure group of the Labour Party for being unmeritorious.
In January, the Court of Appeal in Abuja reiterated that Abure remained the chairman of the LP.
A three-member panel of the appellate court, in a judgment delivered by Justice Hamma Barka, held that its judgment of November 13, 2024, which recognises Abure as national chairman, subsists and has not been set aside by any court.
Justice Barka made the declaration while delivering judgment in two separate appeals filed by Senator Esther Nenadi Usman and the caretaker committee and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The appellate court in the two separate appeals held that it did not delve into the issue of the leadership of the Labour Party because such issues are not justiciable.
It said that anything done outside jurisdiction amounts to a nullity. Hence, the judgment of the Federal High Court delivered on October 8, 2024, by Justice Emeka Nwite is of no effect because it was delivered without jurisdiction.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has denied being partisan in handling the failed recall of the lawmaker representing Kogi Central, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.
Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press Secretary to Chairman of INEC Mahmood Yakubu, who was on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, explained how the Commission handled the process.
“In the case of the Kogi Central District, we received a petition and a cover letter and of course what Nigerians were saying was that we were taking sides,” Oyekanmi said on the programme.
“But what happened was that in the covering letter, the representatives of the petitioners did not include their address as required in our regulations and guidelines and what we just did was to ask them to supply their address, it has nothing to do with the petition.
“And of course, there is nowhere in the law where INEC is asked to reject a petition just because the cover letter did not contain the address. So, there was no hanky-panky in what we did.”
Earlier on Thursday, INEC rejected the petition to recall Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan, saying that it has not met the requirements.
The electoral commission said the petition to recall Senator Natasha did not meet constitutional requirements.
Senator Natasha was suspended for breaching Senate rules, prompting some of her constituents to initiate her recall. They claimed the move was to ensure their constituency did not lack representation following the suspension of the 45-year-old senator.
Asked whether there could be a repeat of the recall process, the INEC spokesperson said the law did not specify if the process could be repeated and how many times.
“The law just talks about the threshold, the threshold meaning that if you want to recall, you must have, in addition to your petition, 50 per cent plus one signatures. The law did not specify how many times you can undertake that,” he said.
The lawmaker has made headlines in recent months after she accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio of sexual harassment, a claim the Akwa Ibom lawmaker has equally denied.
She was, thereafter, suspended by the Red Chamber for violation of its rule of conduct.
