Headline

2023: Jonathan Recommends Removal Of Section 84 Of Electoral Act

Published

3 years ago

May 27, 2022

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has recommended the removal of the controversial Section 84 of the new Electoral Act to allow political parties to decide modalities for candidates’ elections.

Jonathan gave the recommendation at the public presentation of a book by former Minister of State Power, Dr Mohammed Wakil, on Thursday in Abuja.

The former president said that the National Assembly should allow political parties to have the leverage of doing certain things differently, as their needs were different.

“Give parties the leverage. The key thing is that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is regulating them.

“They mentor them, and the system they will adopt in selecting their candidates must be documented in their constitution and copies deposited with INEC. That is what will be used to judge that party.

“Parties are not parastatals of government and the National Assembly cannot make laws that choke the political parties. That is my take on this controversial issue,” he said.

Jonathan also rated as low, the ongoing primaries by political parties to elect candidates for the 2023 general elections because of provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act.

He said that the primary where only elected delegates were allowed to elect candidates, was already a failed process.

“The National Assembly made alterations to the Electoral Law, and now only what they call the `elected delegates’ are to elect people that would vote. Then one day Nigerians will go to the polls and think they are voting a president?

“But who presented presidential candidates for you? Very few people at the national level, at the state level, at the local districts, at the federal and state constituencies.”

Jonathan cited a Federal Constituency in Bayelsa State with only two wards and just only six delegates that elected PDP candidates because every ward had three elected delegates.

He said the situation was even more worrisome when the delegates were unknown figures in the society.

“We have former governors, former deputy governors, former Senators and all the rest. But then, we have only one elected delegate that you don’t know where he is coming from.

“A delegate that will come to Abuja to select who becomes the presidential candidate. Is that the kind of democracy we will practice?

“But those of us who have been involved know that it is terrible. Are we bringing those who really know who is who to elect these delegates or those delegates that can be bought over with money?”

Jonathan advised the National Assembly to make laws that would help solve problems, not those that were irrelevant or designed to create problems.

“And laws must be made assuming those who are making the law are blind to any interest just like the judges, who rely on only the scale and the sword.

“Laws must not be made to target a group of individuals or an individual.

“And when you go into that system of making laws, you will make this terrible mistake that messes things up like the primaries that are going on now.

“I think we should rather think about institutionalised democracy and make it our culture,” he said.

Headline

Welcome Home, Israel Confirms Return Of 20 Hostages From Gaza

Published

19 hours ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

Israel said that the last 20 living hostages released by Hamas on Monday had arrived in the country.

“Welcome home,” the foreign ministry wrote in a series of posts on X, hailing the return of Matan Angrest, Gali Berman, Ziv Berman, Elkana Bohbot, Rom Braslavski, Nimrod Cohen, David Cunio, Ariel Cunio, Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa Dalal, Maxim Herkin, Eitan Horn, Segev Kalfon, Bar Kuperstein, Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Yosef Haim Ohana, Alon Ohel, Avinatan Or and Matan Zangauker.

AFP

Headline

20 Members Of Gang Blacklisted By US Escape Guatemala Prison

Published

22 hours ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

Twenty members of a gang designated a “foreign terrorist organisation” by the United States have escaped from detention in Guatemala, a prison chief said Sunday.

The members of the Barrio 18 gang “evaded security controls” at the Fraijanes II facility, prison director Ludin Godinez said at a news conference.

He received “an intelligence report” on Friday warning about the “possible escape” from the prison, which is southeast of the capital, Guatemala City.

Godinez said they were investigating possible acts of corruption.

Washington last month blacklisted Barrio 18, an El Salvador-based gang which has a reputation for violence and extortion, as part of its crackdown on drug trafficking.

The US embassy in Guatemala condemned the prison escape as “utterly unacceptable.”

“The United States designated members of this heinous group as the terrorists they are and will hold accountable anyone who has provided, provides, or decides to provide material support to these fugitives or other gang members,” the embassy said on X.

It called on the Guatemalan government to “act immediately and vigorously to recapture these terrorists.”

According to Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez, there are about 12,000 gang members and collaborators in Guatemala, while another 3,000 are in prison.

The country’s homicide rate has increased from 16.1 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2024 to 17.65 this year, more than double the world average, according to the Centre for National Economic Research.

According to the Salvadoran government, the gangs Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13, are responsible for the deaths of about 200,000 people over three decades.

The two gangs once controlled an estimated 80 percent of El Salvador, which had one of the highest homicide rates in the world.

Headline

South Africa Bus Crash Kills 40 Including Malawi, Zimbabwe Nationals

Published

22 hours ago

October 13, 2025

Editor

At least 40 people, including nationals of Malawi and Zimbabwe, were killed when a passenger bus rolled down an embankment in South Africa, a provincial transport minister said Monday.

The bus travelling to Zimbabwe crashed around 90 kilometres (55 miles) from the border on Sunday after the driver apparently lost control, Limpopo province transport minister Violet Mathye said.

“They are still working on the scene, but 40 bodies have already been confirmed to date,” Mathye told the Newzroom Afrika channel. The dead included a 10-month-old girl, she said.

Thirty-eight people were in hospital and rescuers were searching for other victims, she told eNCA media.

The bus was travelling from the southern city of Gqeberha, around 1,500 kilometres away, and its passengers included Malawians and Zimbabweans who were working in South Africa. The crash may have been caused by driver fatigue or a mechanical fault, the minister said.

South Africa has a sophisticated and busy road network with a high rate of road deaths, blamed mostly on speeding, reckless driving and unroadworthy vehicles.

AFP