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Edo APC Rally Impasse: Oshiomhole Indicts Police, Edo Govt Over Chaos

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The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has accused the Nigerian police of aiding thugs to cause chaos in the state, saying ‘I’m really ashamed of what happened between yesterday and today.’

He accused Edo State Government of sponsoring thugs to foment trouble by blocking major roads and burning tyre, adding that the plan was to apportion the blame on him should any casualty.

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Oshiomhole who addressed newsmen at his house shortly after the rally at Ize-Iyamu’s house noted that taking this into cognisance and knowing well the interior motives of the state government, he decided not to attend the rally which held at Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu’s house.

“As national chairman, I have to pay the price by abstaining from going there so that I deny the Inspector General of Police and the Edo State Command any excuse to go and  kill people and blame it on me. We will not go to their level; blood for blood is not our mantra.

READ ALSO: Female Pastor Says Sex Without Loud Moaning Produces ‘Inactive Children’, Nigerians React

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“So, once our members are united, I am comfortable, but we will sustain the path of peace and that was the only reason I opted not to attend the mega rally today. They have already planted a story today from the government house that I am under house arrest.

“The shame, however, is that those who have responsibility to provide security decided to create security challenges.

“Look at what happened at Airport road yesterday. Just because I was coming to the state, the state government sponsored thugs to barricade the roads burn tyre? How do you want owner of that Audi car that was burnt feel? This is a voter that has power to vote against us tomorrow and not a politician, so why burning his car.”

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“Thugs were burning tires on the road and security men were there looking at them. I personally wrote a letter, signed it and handover it to the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), notifying him of this rally, only for me to hear that this same IGP has cancelled the rally. I didn’t use PA, I didn’t use SA just to avoid communication gap, so I will want to know from the IGP and the Edo State Command what went wrong”, he added.

READ ALSO: ‘I Left My Husband To Enjoy Sex’, 34-year Old Woman Confesses

The former governor of the state posited that if at all there are differences among party members, the best way to iron such out is to have a round table discussion and not the ways things are being done, stressing that such method have been applied but the state government has refused such ‘all-inclusive meetings.’

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He said, “My position is that the way to iron differences is to sit down with various sides of opinion  within the party; listen to those who have complaints and weigh the ones that are valid; share with them how you will  address them; the ones that are not valid, then explain why they are not. This is what we have been working on but the governor has consistently refused to attend an all-inclusive meeting.”

The National Chairman of the APC however expressed satisfaction that the party held a peaceful rally despite the security challenges, stressing he concern is to make sure ‘the house of the APC is in order.’

“We are happy that in spite of everything APC had a successful rally that was peaceful and it achieved its purpose. As I stand here now, I am taller now than I was just yesterday because we have harvested to our party people who were part of the foundation of APC; those who participated in the negotiations for the merger, not only have they returned home, they have also used their connection in the other party they were in to move people to join us”, he said.

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READ ALSO:BREAKING: IG Suspends Edo APC Rally

In his part, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu declared that he was not in the APC to cause more division or chaos, rather he has come to the party to unit it the more and add value to it.

While thanking all that attended the rally, he expressed dismay that the state government could threaten to revoke his Certificate of Occupancy for organising a rally inside his compound.

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Elon Musk Puts Twitter’s Value At $20bn

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Elon Musk has put the current value of Twitter at $20 billion, less than half the $44 billion he paid for the social media platform just five months ago, according to an internal email seen by American news media.

The email to employees referred to a new stock compensation program in the San Francisco-based company and the allocation of shares to employees of X Holdings, Twitter’s umbrella company since Musk purchased it in late October.

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The compensation plan values the platform at $20 billion, slightly more than Snapchat’s parent company Snap ($18.2 billion) or Pinterest ($18.7 billion), both of which are publicly traded, unlike Twitter.

Musk, who is also the chief executive of Tesla Inc. and aerospace group SpaceX, said that Twitter would allow its employees to cash in shares every six months.

READ ALSO: Elon Musk Reinstates Suspended Twitter Accounts Of Journalists

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A query from AFP emailed to Twitter’s communications department generated an automatic response in the form of a poop emoji.

In the internal email, Musk describes the brutal contraction in Twitter’s value. He says the platform faced such grave financial difficulties that at one point it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

“Twitter was trending to lose ~$3B/year,” Musk said in a message posted Saturday on the platform.

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He cited a revenue drop of $1.5 billion a year and a debt-servicing burden of the same amount — leaving it with “only 4 months of money.”

Musk, Twitter’s majority shareholder, added simply: “Extremely dire situation.”

But he then said that “It looks like we will break even” in the second quarter of the year, with advertisers — many of whom fled the platform after the mercurial billionaire bought it — now beginning to return.

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READ ALSO: FG Speaks On Banning Twitter Again After Elon Musk’s Takeover

Since taking control, Musk has sharply cut the group’s payroll from 7,500 employees to fewer than 2,000.

He said in the email that he sees a “clear but difficult path” to a valuation of $250 billion, without specifying how long that might take.

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However, in another setback for the company, fragments of Twitter’s source code were published on the development platform GitHub, the latter told AFP on Sunday, confirming a report by the New York Times.

GitHub removed the files from its site at Twitter’s request, but their brief exposure could allow hackers to identify flaws in Twitter’s original software.

AFP

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Obasanjo’s Father Not Fully Yoruba, Might Be Igbo Man – Fani-Kayode

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Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode has expressed the belief that ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s father might not be a Yoruba man.

Fani-Kayode said Obasanjo’s ‘silence’ over a recent comment by Igbo businessman Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu that Yoruba people are “political rascals,” was an indication that the former president’s father was an Igbo man, not Yoruba.

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Iwuanyanwu said Igbo people had invested so much in Nigeria and were not going to yield to the pressure of people asking them to leave.

Speaking in Awka, Anambra State, on Saturday, Iwuanyanwu berated Yoruba people.

However, Fani-Kayode said he was disappointed that Obasanjo was silent over Iwuanyanwu’s anti-Yoruba comments.

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Taking to his Twitter handle, Fani-Kayode wrote: “The fact that our revered leader and one of the fathers of our nation, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, can sit there and say nothing when Emmanuel Iwanyanwu, who I have always respected, describes the entire Yoruba race as “rascals” that the Igbo “will DEAL with” tells me that the rumour that he is NOT a fully-fledged Yoruba man and that his father was an Igbo may well be true.

READ ALSO: Coup Comment: ‘I Was Asked To Report To DSS Everyday, Interrogation Challenging,’ Fan-Kayode Laments

“Whatever the case, this is not the OBJ I once knew, loved, defended and worked so hard for. Something has gone wrong. No one could have made a statement against ANY tribe in the presence of the old OBJ that we all knew and respected and got away with it.”

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Following the outcome of the presidential election, there was a face-off between Yorubas and Igbos in Lagos.

The fallout was due to the victory of the Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate, Peter Obi, in Lagos State.

Against the backdrop of Obi’s victory, Igbos were warned against voting during the governorship election in Lagos.

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Report Banks Not Dispensing Cash To State NLC’s Office — LABOUR

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The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has directed workers to report banks not dispensing cash to its state councils, ahead of planned strike over the scarcity of naira notes across the country.

This is even as leaders of NLC have scheduled a meeting of National Executive Council, NEC, meeting tomorrow to take a final decision on Wednesday’s planned nationwide strike.

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It gathered NLC gave the directive weekend after its NEC meeting on Friday where affiliate unions and state councils of NLC were directed to monitor the cash situation and how banks were dispensing naira notes to workers.

Speaking in an interview with Vanguard yesterday, President of NLC, Joe Ajaero, said: “Our affiliate unions and state councils were directed to monitor the situation. Workers have been directed to report banks not dispensing cash to NLC state offices.

”Our state councils and affiliates unions are to report back to us the prevailing situations in their states by Tuesday when we will hold another NEC meeting. The report we get from them will determine our next line of action.

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READ ALSO: NLC Gives FG 7-day-ultimatum Over Naira Scarcity

”In fact, the seven days ultimatum we gave will expire on Tuesday (March 28). The report will determine our final decision. As we speak, I am out on the streets of Abuja monitoring the situation.

”I am aware also that officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, were in Lagos on Saturday and Sunday to monitor the situation.”

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It was gathered that part of the decision was that “the nationwide strike will be a sit-at-home and picketing of the headquarters of the CBN and all its offices nationwide on Wednesday, March 29, 2023. If the strike commences, it would continue until cash becomes available to all Nigerians.”

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