Politics
Speakership Battle: Pressure On Shettima, Adamu To Stop ‘Aggrieved Aspirants Coalition’
Published
2 years agoon
By
Editor
The battle for the speakership of the 10th National Assembly has taken a new dimension as the aggrieved aspirants are seeking to form a consensus candidate to tackle Tajudeen Abbas.
It would be recalled that aggrieved lawmakers- Muktar Betara, Idris Wase, Aminu Jaji, Alhassan Doguwa and Sada Soli formed a coalition to battle Abbas, the candidate endorsed by the President-elect, Bola Tinubu.
Report had it earlier that the group had commenced the move to produce a consensus candidate among themselves.
This was also confirmed by Betara on Friday, who stated that the group is working to produce the next Speaker.
READ ALSO: Speakership Battle: Betara, Wase, Gagdi Move To Produce Consensus Candidate
“We can pick the candidate from among ourselves, but will all sit down and decide on it. I assure all of you it is only one person that God would choose to be Speaker.
“I assure you we are not going to have any issues. We are going to agree to support one of us as the Speaker,” he said.
However, earlier, Abbas and the Joint Task, the group loyal to Femi Gbajabiamila visited the vice president-elect to intervene in the battle.
During the meeting in Abuja, Abbas said there is an ongoing conversation with Wase, Betara, Onuoha and others.
READ ALSO: 10th NASS Speakership: Don’t Expect Us To Be Loyal If Your Preferred Choice Stands – G7 Tells APC
“I will take it upon myself to reach out to the other contenders. Rt Hon Betara is my brother. We are from the same subregion, we are from the same state and I have the best relationship with him. I met him two nights ago, I will sustain that.
“Around 1 pm today I met with Rt. Hon Wase, the deputy speaker. We will continue with the engagements so we can have a rancour-free Assembly,” he said.
It was learnt that there has been pressure on Shettima and Abdulahi Adamu to stop the rebellion in the House.
Shettima and Betara are from the same Borno State, but the former has been quiet on the speakership race. Some leaders of the party have turned to him to address the issue.
Aside from being from Borno State, Shettima is also currently a member of the National Assembly, representing Borno Central.
READ ALSO: NASS Forwards Peace Corps Bill To Buhari For Assent
Those within the party believe that Betara holds the ace in the race, and his withdrawal will weaken the opposition.
This paper also learnt that similar pressure is on the National Chairman, Abdulahi Adamu and the Deputy Chairman, Suleiman Kyari to intervene.
Adamu is from North-central, the same region as Wase and Gagdi, while Kyari is from Borno State.
However, in the absence of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, there is a vacuum once again, and the decision on the race appears to be facing uncertainty until his return.
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Politics
Why I left Tinubu’s Govt — Former Aide Aliyu Audu Declares
Published
9 hours agoon
June 16, 2025By
Editor
A former Senior Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Public Affairs, Aliyu Audu, has revealed that he resigned from the administration in order to actively campaign against Tinubu’s re-election bid in 2027.
Speaking on Monday during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Audu said his decision was driven by a matter of “principle and conscience,” as he accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of attempting to turn Nigeria into a one-party state.
“It confirmed it on one hand, and on the other hand, it strengthened my resolve to not work for him in 2027,” Audu said, referring to Tinubu’s Democracy Day speech where the president claimed to enjoy seeing the opposition in disarray.
READ ALSO: Wike Defends ₦39bn ICC Renovation, Renaming Edifice After Tinubu
“I couldn’t in all honesty and in my conscience be in his government knowing I’m plotting against removal in 2027, because I will, and by God, we will remove him. Collectively, Nigerians will install a leader that will be our chosen, not his chosen. Not emilokan (my turn), but awa lokan (our turn), in fact, gbogbo wa lokan (all of us).”
He also criticised the inclusion of Nyesom Wike, a PDP member and current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, in the APC-led government, questioning his loyalty and the legitimacy of such a move.
“What is Wike doing in our government? If he’s going to leave the PDP, he should leave. If we’re doing a government of national unity, you deal with the party, not individuals. The party is what we vote for — not Bola Tinubu but APC; not Atiku but PDP; not Peter Obi but Labour Party.”
READ ALSO: Ndume Insists Tinubu’s Govt Has Been Hijacked By ‘Kleptocrats’
Audu’s resignation letter, dated June 8, criticised the APC’s political trajectory and warned against what he described as a deliberate silencing of opposition voices. In a follow-up statement, he clarified that while he does not support the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he would not lend himself “as an instrument to reduce Nigeria to a one-party state.”
“If we now begin to silence or crush opposition simply because we have the upper hand, then we are no different from the very system we once criticised under Obasanjo in 2003,” he said.
Politics
VIDEO: How Peter Obi Betrayed Me – Kenneth Okonkwo In New Interview
Published
2 days agoon
June 14, 2025By
Editor
Veteran actor and ex-spokesperson of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Kenneth Okonkwo, has accused former presidential candidate, Peter Obi, of betrayal in the wake of internal party disputes.
In a viral interview with Symfoni which started trending on Saturday, Okonkwo, who officially exited the Labour Party in February 2025, revealed that Obi went against his advice and returned to support the embattled Julius Abure-led faction of the party, despite alleged warnings.
According to him, Obi was misled by LP executives who claimed that the Independent National Electoral Commission had recognised them.
He said, “Any politician that knows what he’s doing cannot be betrayed by another. If there is anybody that betrayed the other, I can say it emphatically that Peter Obi betrayed me.
READ ALSO: Nigeria No Longer A Democracy, Peter Obi Laments
“The Julius Abure-led LP members lied to Obi that the Independent National Electoral Commission had accepted them and Obi surreptitiously went back to them but I told him: ‘Sir, you have made a public statement on integrity and even if INEC has accepted them, that is not a criterion for you to go back and start dealing with them because they have shown that they are not democratic. If you go back to them, they will destroy your political career and everything you have said about integrity will die.’”
He said that despite privately urging Obi not to align with a group he described as “undemocratic” and “agents of the government,” Okonkwo said Obi went ahead to publicly endorse them.
“I told Obi that these people had become agents in the hands of the government to destabilise him. What they did was absolutely illegal and unconstitutional, I told him that if he went back to them, I wouldn’t join him in doing so.
“Thereafter, I called all the people that were in the inner circle and told them the same thing about what Obi was trying to do. I told them he wanted to go back with the Abure people and if he did, I wouldn’t go back with him because I do not swallow back my words.
READ ALSO: Teen Who Stood In Front Of Peter Obi’s Convoy Freed After Months In Kirikiri
“And after saying all those things, within like 72 hours, Obi went back to Abure’s office to publicly endorse them and while he was there talking to them, one of the leaders in that executive sent me the video to mock me that the person I was fighting for against them has come to their office to endorse them.
“It was when INEC dissociated itself from Abure that Obi came out to start acting neutral but I told him he could not be neutral and something had to be done,” he added.
The Labour Party has been embroiled in a prolonged leadership crisis, with opposing factions laying claim to the party’s national structure.
The Abure-led faction has faced allegations of financial mismanagement and anti-democratic practices, which critics say contradict the party’s reformist image.
Okonkwo, a known loyalist of Obi’s political ideology, cited these irregularities as his reason for quitting the party earlier in the year.
Watch video below:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1933867577651925202https://twitter.com/i/status/1933867577651925202
Politics
Amaechi Slams Tinubu’s Policies In Fresh Outburst
Published
4 days agoon
June 12, 2025By
Editor
Former Minister of Transportation and two-time governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, has asked the coalition opposition to kick President Bola Tinubu out of office if Nigeria is to escape its deepening economic crisis.
In a no-holds-barred interview with the BBC, Amaechi, a founding member and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, lamented the country’s deteriorating condition and signalled his willingness to help forge a new opposition coalition to rescue the nation.
“People are dying. People are starving. I myself am feeling the effects of hunger,” he said, painting a grim picture of life under the current administration.
Amaechi’s statement comes in the wake of the APC’s recent endorsement of Tinubu as its sole presidential candidate for 2027, a move Amaechi openly questioned.
READ ALSO: I Don’t Want To Join Issues With Children, Amaechi Hits Back At Wike
While reiterating his loyalty to the party, he warned that fidelity to a political platform should never come at the cost of national conscience.
“If the government is failing the country, you don’t just go along because you’re in the same party. You know that’s not right,” he stated emphatically.
Though he stopped short of confirming a 2027 presidential bid, the former minister said the option remained on the table.
“Certainly, I believe I can make a meaningful contribution,” he added, hinting that his political journey may not yet be over.
READ ALSO: Democracy Day: Gov. Mohammed Advocates Unity, Good Governance
He spoke of widespread poverty, spiralling food insecurity, and daily tragedies that now dot the national landscape.
Reflecting on his years as Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Amaechi lamented that the number of out-of-school children then pegged at 10 million, had since ballooned.
The economic hardship, he said, had also deepened insecurity.
“The Boko Haram insurgency is not just a religious crisis. Many of those involved are driven by desperation and hunger,” he asserted, linking terrorism, banditry, and kidnapping to a broader socioeconomic collapse.
Amaechi’s declaration added momentum to an emerging political realignment.
Talks were already underway among key opposition figures, including Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, as they explored the possibility of a unified front against Tinubu in 2027.
Even ex-Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and once a key Tinubu ally had signalled interest in backing an opposition alliance.
But as opposition forces stir, the ruling party continues to absorb defectors, prompting fears of Nigeria drifting toward a one-party state, a scenario Amaechi warned could undermine democracy and silence dissent.
“We’re thinking that if we come together and win the election, the country will certainly witness change,” he said, suggesting an urgent need for a credible alternative.
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