News & Announcements

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, on Tuesday said that the 2023 general election is an election for the young people in Nigeria.

Yakubu said this at Chatham House, London while addressing the global audience.

In his address, Yakubu gave a breakdown of voter registration and collection of Permanent Voter Cards in Nigeria, stressing that records on the ground showed that the election would be dominated by the Nigerian youth.

The INEC boss, who said he was encouraged by the turn-out of registered voters to collect their PVCs, said over 600,000 eligible voters collected their PVCs in Lagos alone within the last month.

He noted that there are currently 93.4 million registered voters in Nigeria out of which 37 million, that is 39 percent, are young people between the ages of 18 and 34.

Yakubu said, “And then they’re closely followed by 33.4 million or 35.3 percent middle-aged voters between the ages of 35 and 49.

“Put together, these two categories constitute 75.39 percent of registered voters in Nigeria. So, actually, the 2023 election is the election of the young people, because they have the numbers. Even the majority of the PVCs collected are collected by young people.

“So, out of the 93.4 million, 70.4 million registered voters are between the ages of 18 and 49.”

The INEC boss reminded the audience that the collection of the PVCs would end on January 29, adding that “we have to end it because before the election we will publish a number of PVCs collected on polling unit by polling unit basis nationwide.”

Four men were found guilty of armed robbery and murder and were given the death by hanging penalty by the Osun State High Court in Osogbo.

The convicts are Hammed Rafiu, aged 37, Rasidi Waidi, 39, Kayode Sunday, 29, and Owolabi Bashiru, 54.

On October 23, 2019, they appeared in court for an arraignment. They were charged by the court of murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, conspiracy to murder, and theft.

On November 26, 2018, Victor Akinbile traveled to Ikirun, Osun State, to attend the swearing-in ceremonies of former Deputy Governor Benedict Gboyega Alabi and former Governor Adegboyega Oyetola.

The prosecutor had previously explained to the court that after Victor Akinbile arrived, the convicts killed him.

Akintayo claimed that Akinbile, who spent the night in his uncle’s home in the Moboreje Area of Ikirun, had contacted his wife to let her know he had arrived safely on November 26, 2018.

He claimed that one of the prisoners, Owolabi Bashiru, told Hammed Rafiu, Rashidi Waidi, and Kayode Sunday that Akinbile had arrived from Lagos and was staying in a house right across from his place of duty at Basorun House Moboreje Area, Ikirun.

He claimed that the inmates—who were allegedly armed with firearms and cutlasses—jumped the fence into Alabi’s home and forced their way through the window into the room where Akinbile was sleeping.

He claimed that when they sought N10 million from Victor, he refused and revealed that he had N5 million in his bank account instead.

According to reports, the victim transferred N3 million to Hammed Rafiu’s account at United Bank for Africa (UBA), who then demanded N100,000 in cash from the victim after threatening to murder him.

Akinbile was taken hostage by the convicts after they stole more than N3 million from him.

They then drove him to Dominion Camp, along the old Iragbiji Road along the Ikirun/Osogbo road, where they set him and the car on fire.

According to the prosecutor, this incident led to Akinbile’s death.

Today, Professor Usman Yusuf spoke in-depth with Arise TV on the security issues that some regions of Nigeria are now dealing with.

The Professor, a former executive secretary of the NHIS, asserts that the military cannot resolve either the banditry problem in the North West or the IPOB issue.

He thought that the best approach to handle these issues was to speak with these organizations and work out a solution with them.

Furthermore, he stated the Labour Party’s Mr. Peter Obi’s support for initiatives to quell IPOB agitation by remaining in the South East in the event that he lost the election.

His own words as seen on Arise TV this morning, “Neither the IPOB problem nor the banditry problem will be resolved by the military. Atiku is fully aware that civil officials will need to enter and address the issues they brought in. 

“Another issue is that there aren’t many military and other security personnel on the ground. 

“You can’t buy Tucano jets and drop bombs from the sky if there aren’t enough people on the ground to guard the ungoverned areas. 

“To staff all of these locations, we need more personnel on the ground.

“How many police officers are assigned to the task of protecting the large men? Police reform is necessary. 

“I’m basically arguing that it should be up to the elders to sit down and talk with these agitators rather than the military. 

“Because some of the agitations from the North East have subsided, I believe Peter Obi’s rise to prominence is good for this nation. 

“Igbo youths are now seeing a pathway and my hope and prayer are that Peter Obi when he loses the election will continue to get engaged and quieten the IPOB agitation.”

A former Minister of Education, Obiageli Ezekwesili has called on the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar, to stop misleading the public.

Additionally, according to Ezekwesili, contrary to popular belief, the former vice president was never in charge of the Economic Management Team.

She issued the warning in a post using her verified Twitter account.

Following Atiku’s assertion that he led the economic management team as Vice President and played a key role in creating a plan to revive the private sector and allow for private sector investment, Ezekwesili made the same claim.

Atiku earlier stated, “As head of the economic management team while I was Vice President, I was instrumental in designing a private sector revival strategy and advocated for the opening of the economy for private sector investments in several sectors. And we made tremendous progress.”

However, the former Minister has called Atiku’s assertion as false.

The former vice president was also admonished by her to cease deceiving the public.

She stated in the tweet, “Dear former Vice President Atiku, please ask the handlers of your @Twitter account to stop misleading the public. You were never the Head of the Economic Management Team.

“This absurd lie does you no good at all. Please ask your Team to stop it. Happy New Year. Wish you well.”

The Catholic priest Rev. Father Micheal Olofinlade, who was kidnapped on Saturday by as-yet-unidentified gunmen, has been released.

Olofinlade was freed by his captors late on Tuesday night, however the specifics of his release were still unclear when this article was filed.

Fr. Olafinlade, the parish priest of St. George Catholic Church in Omu Ekiti, in the Ekiti State’s Oye Local Government Area, was abducted as he was making his way back to Omu Ekiti from a pastoral assignment in the state’s capital, Ado.

The Most Reverend Felix Ajakaiye, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Ekiti, had asked for prayers for Father Olofinlade’s swift and secure release.

In advance of the general elections in 2023, the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, has announced that it will conduct mock accreditation across the country.

Mahmood Yakubu, the INEC Chairman, revealed this during a Tuesday speech at the Chatham House in London.

Before the main elections begin in February, Yakubu stated that a mock accreditation process would be conducted in a few chosen polling locations to check the validity of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System.

He added that every BVAS device installed across the 774 local governments had been tested and noted how well the devices worked.

In case of system failures, backup machines have been made available, according to Yakubu, who also said that the commission is “comfortable and delighted” with the preparations made so far.

His words were, “We have the machines for the 2023 elections but we didn’t want to take chances. Each and every machine has been tested and confirmed functional. For the last two weeks our officials were in the 36 states of the federation testing these machines, and the functionality is simply encouraging.

“The second thing we’re going to do, and pretty soon, is to conduct mock accreditation exercise nationwide ahead of the elections. We won’t wait until the main elections come, we will test the integrity of these machines with real-life voters in selected polling units across the country.

“We did so in Ekiti and Osun, it was fantastic and we’re going to do so nationwide. Increasingly our people are becoming more excited about the deployment of this technology and we’re really happy.

“Also in terms of the numbers of these BVAS machines, we always make provision in case of malfunction or glitches. There is always a back up. We have IReV technical support that will fix the machines in the unlikely event of any glitches.

“However, where it fails to function completely in a polling unit, from previous experience there were isolated polling units, the law has a remedy that the commission should re-mobilise and re-conduct elections in the affected polling units within 24 hours, so we are really, really comfortable where we are.”

Japanese prosecutors on Friday said they have indicted a man suspected of murdering former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last year in a fatal shooting.

Nara prosecutors’ office said in a statement it had indicted Tetsuya Yamagami on murder and firearms charges after Abe was shot dead on July 8 while giving a campaign speech on a street in the city.

The Nara District Court confirmed to CNN it has received the indictment.

Yamagami has been undergoing psychiatric evaluation in Nara since his arrest last year to determine whether he is mentally fit to stand trial, public broadcaster NHK reported.

His detention period evaluation expired on Tuesday, NHK added.

Yamagami was detained at the scene and admitted to shooting Abe, according to Nara Nishi police.

Doctors said the bullet that killed the former prime minister was “deep enough to reach his heart” and that he died from excessive bleeding.

Abe, 67, the former Liberal Democratic Party leader and Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, held office from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020, before resigning due to health reasons.

His assassination in broad daylight shocked the world and sent shock waves through Japan.

World leaders offered their condolences while thousands of mourners gathered in the streets of Tokyo to pay tribute.

An elaborate and controversial state funeral was held for Abe in September.

NHK reported at the time that the suspect had targeted the former prime minister because he believed Abe’s grandfather – another former leader of the country – had helped the expansion of a religious group he held a grudge against.

CNN has not been able to independently confirm what group Yamagami was referring to, however, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida referenced Abe’s connections to the Unification Church during a parliamentary session last September, saying there were “limits to understanding” the former prime minister’s ties to the group following his death.

In October, Kishida ordered an investigation into the church amid a growing scandal tying his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to the controversial religious group that has seen a number of ministers resign.

The church, originally known as the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, was founded in South Korea in 1954.

It had a global reach by the 1980s and remains prominent in parts of Asia today.

Tunde Bakare, the Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, says politicians who practice the “emi lo kan” kind of politics do not intend to serve the people.

Bakare spoke on Sunday during a state of the nation broadcast delivered at his church auditorium in Ikeja, Lagos.

The broadcast was titled: ‘Bridging The Gap Between Politics & Governance’.

Speaking on the forthcoming polls, Bakare asked Nigerians to shun vote buying and focus on politics that can spur development.

Highlighting bad politics, the cleric mentioned politics of division, deception, manipulation, merchandise, exploitation, betrayal, slander, intimidation, elimination, and entitlement.

Commenting on the politics of entitlement, Bakare said such a form of politics is also known as the “EMI lo kan” politics, which gratifies personal ambitions.

Although the cleric did not mention Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the catchphrase — EMI lo kan — was popularised by the former Lagos governor.

“Emi lo kan” is a Yoruba phrase that loosely translates to “it is my turn”.

In June 2022, Tinubu, while addressing APC delegates in Ogun state prior to the party’s primary, mentioned the phrase and said it is his turn to become the country’s president.

“Politics of entitlement — this is the ’ EMI lo kan’ type of politics that insists on one’s turn, even if circumstances do not align,” Bakare said.

“Politics of entitlement also manifests as a perennial candidacy, not with the intent to serve but to gratify long personal ambitions.

“It could also manifest as insistence on a given political office as a reward for what one considers a lifetime of sacrifice to the nation.

“Politicians with a sense of entitlement evade political debates and do not consider it imperative to communicate with the electorate.

“Entitlement politics will breed an imperial presidency that is distant from the people and has no sense of responsibility or accountability to the people. Such imperial governance will slide towards dictatorship and will be intolerant of dissent.

“Entitlement politicians set low-performance benchmarks for themselves when they secure power and are content with projecting molehills as mountains of achievement. That is bad politics and bad fruit and all that it is.”

Speaking further, the cleric said politicians who practice a good form of politics communicate with the people and do not avoid debates or delegate questions.

“Good politics — it is communicating. Politicians who practice good politics talk to the people they intend to govern,” he said.
“By communicating, they allay fears, restore hope and assure the citizenry.

“It is engaging and interacting — practitioners of good politics are open to interrogation and they do not avoid debate or evade difficult questions. They don’t even delegate their questions to people to answer for them.”

n December 2022, Tinubu, at the Chatham House in the United Kingdom, asked some persons on his team, including Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the house of representatives, and Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna, to answer questions on his behalf.

Tinubu’s action elicited reactions on social media as some Nigerians questioned his decision not to answer all the questions himself.

The APC candidate has also avoided attending presidential debates.

Meanwhile, in June 2022, Bakare and other presidential aspirants such as Rochas Okorocha, Ikeobasi Mokelu, and Tein Jack-Rich, had zero votes at the APC presidential primary, which was won by Tinubu.

A man is suspected to have wiped out his entire family before taking his own life in the incident that happened at Nyanya in Zimbabwe.

Local media reports that the suspect, Edward Chirombe, murdered his wife, 40, two daughters, and a son, who are aged between 14 and 12 years old.

Upon arriving at the crime scene, the police could not gain entrance into the man’s house because the door was padlocked at the rear.

The operatives eventually broke in before they could retrieve the corpses of the family.

In a statement, the police said they found the wife’s corpse covered with blood on the bed while those of the kids were lying around the house.

The suspected murderer, Edward was found hanging on a tree in the garden of the house.

“Investigation is in progress to ascertain the motive for the callous murder,” the police said while urging citizens not to take the law into their own hands.

At least six people were injured in an attack at Paris’ Gare Du Nord train station early Wednesday, restricting access to one of the French capital’s major rail hubs.

An individual began attacking people at 6:42 a.m. local time and was neutralized a minute later, according to French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.

The individual was disarmed by off-duty police officers who were going home and by border police, Darmanin said in a press conference.

The attacker made the weapon himself, Darmanin added. Paris police had earlier said the individual started attacking people with a knife at 6:45 a.m. local time.

Several police officers opened fire, including a security agent working for rail operator SNCF, police said. Multiple shots were fired and the alleged attacker was injured.

A spokesman for the Paris Prosecutor’s Office said six people were injured, including a member of the French border police. One of the injured is in critical condition.

The suspect is also in critical condition, the spokesman said.
The motive for the knife attack is unknown, according to the Paris Prosecutor’s Office.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin (third left) and Paris Police Prefect Laurent Nunez (second left) arrive at Gare du Nord after several people were wounded during an attack at the train station.

The French national Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said it is “evaluating the facts” about the attack, but has not yet taken the case.

The fact that the suspected attacker was injured may lengthen the time it will take to evaluate the facts about the case, the office added.

Darmanin arrived at Gare du Nord soon after the attack Wednesday morning.

Earlier, he wrote on Twitter that the alleged attacker had injured several people before being “quickly neutralized.”

“Thankful to the police for their effective and courageous response,” Darmanin tweeted.

CNN affiliate BFMTV interviewed one woman, identified only as Lili, who witnessed the attack and helped injured victims.

“My friends and I were going on holiday this morning and we were at the entrance of the station when we heard people yelling,” she said.

“We saw two people on the ground. One was hitting the other. People tried to pull them apart and that’s when the attacker pulled out his weapon. People started yelling ‘knife!’ and began running away. I helped the first victim who had been attacked and I got the impression that the individual was attacking all the people who tried to get near him and overpower him.

“I helped the injured person who had been attacked and was in a state of shock. I brought them to the police and I then tried to find my friends and that’s when we heard the gunshots. The armed forces responded very quickly to the attack. It didn’t even last five minutes even though it felt like an eternity to me.

“We are all shocked by what we saw. We were two meters away. It could have been one of us because we were so close. It’s very traumatic.”

Police and protesters clash in Paris after a fatal shooting at the Kurdish community center.

According to CNN’s team at the station, a few hundred people coalesced in the main concourse of the Gare Du Nord station, many looking for information about trains following the attack.

Several dozen police officers were posted around a security perimeter that blocked off a large portion of the station’s main concourse, blocking access to several intercity train platforms, according to CNN’s team.

Access to the Eurostar terminal has since reopened after it was cut off for several hours.

Police screens hid the scene of the attack from view but police officers could be seen collecting evidence in paper bags.

French police stand guard in a cordoned-off area at Gare du Nord station, where an attack cut off access to major train services.

While residents of Paris had begun to relax after several years of heightened tensions around terror attacks, Wednesday’s incident, which currently is not being investigated as terror-related by French authorities, is the second in two months.

In December, a man who was being investigated at the time by Paris’ Prosecutor’s Office for racist violence shot and killed three Kurdish activists in the north of Paris.

Even so, the atmosphere at Gare du Nord was calm Wednesday around lunchtime and passengers seemed hopeful of being able to catch their trains.