Headlines
Uche Nwosu Lambasts Ihedioha, Says He Should Stop Chasing Shadows and Work
The governorship candidate of the Action Alliance in Imo State, Uche Nwosu, has advised the state governor, Emeka Ihedioha, to stop chasing shadows and start working on his plans for the state.
Nwosu, who was Ihedioha’s closest rival during the last governorship election said that the actions of the governor since he was sworn in showed that he was not prepared for leadership.
Nwosu,who addressed journalists in Owerri, the state capital on Wednesday, alleged that the governor was only “chasing shadows.”
Nwosu said, “The people of Imo State did not vote for him to start chasing shadows. For the time he will stay as the governor, he should unfold his plans and programmes for the people. No one is interested in excuses. What the people want is performance and nothing less.
“The people want concrete statement on what the programmes of the government are, what the government intends to do and how it would deliver dividends of democracy to them and not embarking on a mission to pull down Rochas Okorocha.
“Suspension of Local Government Chairmen and their Councilors, dissolving the recently-inaugurated boards of government agencies and parastatals and scrapping of recently established tertiary institutions, are definitely the wrong way to start for a government that wants to make headway. One would have expected that by now, the governor would have engaged the civil servants and tell them what he has for the workers, as well as take up from where his predecessor stopped.
“The acrimonies that could arise from these actions are hardly what Ihedioha needed at this time, he should rather consolidate on the achievements of his predecessor and that is what Imolites want to see. He should concentrate on the business of governance. If I were the governor today, I would definitely hit the ground running, knowing that there is a job to do.”
When contacted, the Special Adviser, media, to the state governor, Steve Osuji said Ihedioha “does not want to be distracted.”
The governor’s spokesperson said, “We don’t want to be distracted by the immediate past governor and his cronies. Apart from not handing over, the immediate past government has continued to unleash their media thugs against the state government.”
“Imagine starting work without a handover note. There is no office for the governor to operate from. The immediate past administration claims that it left a huge amount of money, yet there are no proofs. We don’t want to be distracted.”
The Punch
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.
