A former lawmaker representing Kogi West senatorial district, Senator Dino Melaye, has declared that the Peoples Democratic Party is “dead and buried,” alleging that the party is now under the control of the ruling All Progressives Congress.

Speaking in an interview on Arise Television, Melaye dismissed any hopes of revival for the opposition party, saying it no longer operates independently.

“Apart from our Lord Jesus Christ, no dead can rise again. PDP is dead and buried. The party was sold, and I’m not sure they even got the payment receipt. What you have now is an APC-controlled PDP,” he said.

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Melaye, who previously contested under the PDP platform, accused unnamed agents of the APC of infiltrating and steering the affairs of the party from the presidential villa.

“It is a party that has been controlled from the villa. I have said before that as far as we are concerned, it is the agents of the APC that control the PDP,” he added.

The former senator, however, stated that he is no longer a member of the PDP and has now pitched his tent with the African Democratic Congress which he described as the platform capable of defeating President Bola Tinubu’s APC government in the next general elections.

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“I’m a proud member of the ADC, and by the grace of God, that is the party that will unseat Tinubu and send APC out of the villa come May 29, 2027,” Melaye stated.

While steering the discussion away from the PDP’s internal issues, Melaye urged Nigerians to focus on pressing national challenges.

“There are critical issues bedevilling this country: hunger, malnutrition, misgovernance, and maladministration. Those are the issues I think we should discuss, not a dead party,” he said.

A constant stream of Palestinians fled in tractors, carts and overloaded vans down a coastal road in the central Gaza Strip, the latest mass displacement as Israel intensified its assault on the territory’s main city.

Those escaping the offensive on Gaza City left behind them a scene of utter devastation, where smoke from the aftermath of Israeli strikes wafted behind buildings that had already been reduced to rubble.

The United Nations estimates that nearly a million people live in Gaza City and its surroundings — the Palestinian territory’s largest urban centre, which the Israeli military is gearing up to seize.

The army on Tuesday told all residents to leave immediately and head southwards, saying it would act with “great force” in the city.

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“We were forcibly displaced to the southern Gaza Strip under intensified shelling,” said Saeb al-Mobayed, who was fleeing Gaza City along the coastal road.

“Many buildings have been destroyed,” he told AFP. “Mosques near areas sheltering displaced people were also targeted, forcing us to leave.”

Israel has come under mounting international pressure to end its offensive in Gaza, where the vast majority of the population has been displaced at least once in nearly two years of war.

Some of those forced into their latest move travelled on trucks and tractor-pulled trailers piled high with people and household furniture, while others had little choice but to push heavy carts by hand.

READ ALSO:Israel Threatens To Level Gaza City Unless Hamas Disarms, Frees Hostages

Ahmed Shamlakh, who had also been displaced from Gaza City, pleaded for an end to the war and for crossings into the Palestinian territory to be opened.

“Allow life to return to normal as it was before — it’s enough,” he said.

The Israeli military is telling Palestinians to head to a “humanitarian zone” in the southern coastal area of Al-Mawasi, where it says aid, medical care and humanitarian infrastructure will be provided.

Israel first declared the area a safe zone early in the war, but has carried out repeated strikes on it since then, saying it is targeting Hamas.

Gazans have said the journey south is prohibitively expensive and that there is no more space to pitch tents in the designated zones.

READ ALSO:Israel Threatens To Level Gaza City Unless Hamas Disarms, Frees Hostages

The spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency, Mahmud Bassal, told AFP on Tuesday that even in central and southern areas of the territory, “there are no necessities for life — no shelter, no space for tents, no food, and no drinking water.”

Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.

In Gaza City on Tuesday, Israeli army leaflets rained down on Palestinians, ordering them to evacuate.

“I ask Israel: where are we supposed to go?” said 36-year-old Khaled Khuwaiter, who had already fled from Gaza City’s Zeitun neighbourhood.

“People who fled from Gaza City to the Al-Mawasi area… found no place to stay — no tents, no water, no food,” he added.

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“Bombing and killings are everywhere. We have only God, because the world watches our slaughter and does nothing.”

Mirvat Abu Muammar, 30, said she had already fled once with her husband and three children and that they now had no basic supplies.

“Evacuation is humiliating,” she said.

“We will wait and see. For two years, we have not known a moment of peace or sleep — only killing, destruction, and despair.”

Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,522 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.

The Israeli military said it targeted senior Hamas leaders on Tuesday, after AFP journalists in Doha reported explosions in the Qatari capital, where the Palestinian group’s political bureau is based.

“The IDF (Israeli military) and ISA (security agency) conducted a precise strike targeting the senior leadership of the Hamas terrorist organisation,” the military said, without specifying where the strike took place.

An AFP journalist in Doha reported explosions rocking a Hamas compound in the city.

“For years, these members of the Hamas leadership have led the terrorist organisation’s operations, are directly responsible for the brutal October 7 (2023) massacre, and have been orchestrating and managing the war against the State of Israel,” the military said.

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Tuesday’s strikes come less than two weeks after armed forces chief Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir vowed to targed the group’s leaders based abroad.

“Most of Hamas’s leadership is abroad, and we will reach them as well,” Zamir said on August 31.

“May all your enemies perish, Israel,” Culture Minister Miki Zohar posted on X.

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Hamas and Israel have held multiple rounds of indirect ceasefire negotiations brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States throughout the nearly two-year Gaza war.

Despite two temporary truces, the talks have failed to bring a lasting end to the war.

Hamas said Sunday it was ready to “immediately sit at the negotiating table” following what it described as “some ideas from the American side aimed at reaching a ceasefire agreement.”

US President Donald Trump said Sunday he was issuing a “last warning” to Hamas, insisting it accept a deal to release the hostages seized during the October 2023 attack, which sparked the war.

AFP