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JUST IN: Nigerians React As INEC Chairman Inaugurates Committees To Review 2023 Elections [PHOTOS]

Published

2 years ago

May 17, 2023

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has inaugurated two internal committees to review and document the activities of the 2023 general election.

The committees, according to the electoral body, are the committee to conduct post-election reviews arising from the conduct of the 2023 general election and a 2023 general election report writing committee.

The commission made this known on its Twitter handle on Wednesday amid repeated adjournments of presidential election petitions by the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja.

The INEC boss on March 1, 2023 declared Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the president-elect after the collation of results for the February 25 presidential election.

Yakubu in his declaration of the election results amid controversy and rejection of the election outcome by some Nigerians, declared that Tinubu, a 70-year-old former Lagos State governor polled a total of 8,794,726 votes to win the 2023 presidential election.

However, a former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who came second and the former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) who came third, have filed petitions to challenge the process and outcome of the election.

Reacting to the announcement on INEC’s Facebook page, one Mercy Okonkwo said the committees should hand over the mandate to the winner of the 2023 Presidential election after the review.

She wrote: “The committe should review the election and let the mandate be handed over to the owner.”

Another commentor, Mazi Chekwebe Okechuku Mbaneme, said the electoral body told the Labour Party to go to court, hence, they should provide them all the documents they need to retrieve their mandate.

“INEC provides all the documents labour party needs to retrieve their presidential mandate. Remember you tell the labour party to go court,” Mbaneme said.

While Victor Emeka alleged that the INEC chairman and his team compromised the conduct of the 2023 general election and will for the injustice.

“Prof and his cohorts will pay for the injuries and injustice meted out on Nigerians and Nigerian electoral system by their compromised INEC,” Emeka stated.

Another Facebook user, Harrison Philip Marshall, said the committees was inaugurated to look into the wrongness for the purpose of record.

He said: “A typical Nigerian will not do the right thing. But would prefer to do the wrong thing and set a committee to look into the wrongness for the purpose of record. This is madness.”

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Welcome Home, Israel Confirms Return Of 20 Hostages From Gaza

Published

1 day 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

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20 Members Of Gang Blacklisted By US Escape Guatemala Prison

Published

1 day 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

1 day 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