Nigeria’s electioneering history may yet define the ongoing season as the most remarkable yet. Similar processes in our more distant past, did not generate as much jives and jabs, as we’ve witnessed in the course of the ongoing campaigns. I have alluded in an earlier article, to the comic content which the present politicking has thrown up thus far. The verbal ingenuity of Bola Tinubu, presidential frontiersman of the All Progressives Congress, (APC), for the presidency, has most probably been the phenomenal discovery of the season. Tinubu was premiere governor of Lagos State this fourth republic, we will recall. His…
Author: meridianspy
Sterling Bank has faulted claims by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission (ICPC) over the newly designed naira notes stashed in its Central Business District (CBD) complex in Abuja. Meridianspy reports that ICPC had stated the bank kept the fund in its vault instead of loading it into the ATM. However, in a statement yesterday, the lender’s Chief Operating Officer, Raheem Owodeyi, stated: “This report is developed for the purpose of providing the true representation of events to the misleading narrative as expressed by the ICPC in a tweet late on Tuesday, 07 February, 2023.” According to…
Rivers governor, Nyesom Wike has renounced the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, over their support for the currency redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. PDP and Atiku had despite the hardship inflicted on Nigerians by scarcity of the new naira notes had encouraged the CBN not to extend the deadline for the withdrawal of old notes from circulation. However, speaking after the Supreme Court judgment which halted the CBN from withdrawing the use of the old naira notes of N200, N500 and N1000 on 10th February as scheduled by the apex…
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, says the 2023 general elections will hold as scheduled. Mr Yakubu said this Wednesday in Abuja when he fielded questions from State House Correspondents after he briefed the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on the level of preparedness for the conduct of the election. He identified scarcity of petroleum products and the naira redesign as major challenges confronting INEC, saying, however, that solutions were already in sight. Also Read: Naira-Fuel Scarcity: Buhari Convenes Emergency Council Meeting “We took members of the council through all the preparations that we have put…
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC on Wednesday arraigned one Ali Bello, a nephew of Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, before Justice Obiora Egwuatu of a Federal High Court in Abuja. Bello was docked alongside Abba Adauda, Yakubu Siyaka Adabenege, Iyada Sadat, Rashida Bello (at large) on 18-count charge bordering on criminal misappropriation and money laundering to the tune of N3,081,804,654.00 (Three Billion, Eighty One Million, Eight Hundred and Four Thousand, Six Hundred and Fifty Four Naira. According to the EFCC, Bello, Adaudu, Adabenege, Sadat and Rashida (at large) sometime in June, 2020 in Abuja allegedly procured E-Traders International…
President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an emergency meeting of the Council of State over escalating crises in the country ahead of the general elections. The meeting will hold in the State House, Abuja, on Friday. Those expected to brief the Council include the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmood Yakubu, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emefiele and the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali Baba. The meeting is coming on the heels of a national crisis that resulted from the scarcity of Naira notes. It is expected that the meeting will…
What an irony! The operational network of Zenith Bank has collapsed for over a week now. No customer can transfer a farthing of their own savings out to other banks. Neither can they fish out as much as one kobo for their own use through Zenith ATMs. Gripped with ignominy, the bank’s officials are seen on video scaling the fence at the back to escape irritated customers massed up in the banking hall. This bank was where the current Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, left as Group Managing Director to take his current seat in…
The Supreme Court has restrained the Federal Government from implementing the February 10 Deadline of the old 200, 500 and 1000 naira notes to stop being legal tender. Three northern states — Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara — had in a motion ex-parte filed on February 3rd, prayed the apex court to halt the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) naira redesign policy. A seven-man panel of the Supreme Court led by Justice John Okoro, in a unanimous ruling, granted an interim injunction restraining the FG, CBN, commercial banks etc from implementing the February 10, deadline for the old 200, 500 and…
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has found N258 million hidden in a bank’s vaults despite the persistent lack of cash in the nation. Azuka Ogugua, spokesperson of the anti-graft agency, disclosed thatbthe money, all new naira notes, was found in the vault of the Abuja head office of Sterling Bank. “Operatives of ICPC discovered the sum of Two Hundred and Fifty-Eight Million Naira (N258m) stashed in the vault at the head office of Sterling Bank in Abuja,” she said. According to Oguagua, investigation showed that the money was released by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for distribution. Also Raed: CBN assures INEC of Cash Availability for Logistic during Polls “The team…
Barely three weeks after similar attack, the National spokesman for the Coalition of United Political Parties, Comrade Ikenga Ugochinyere, on Tuesday raised the alarm that gunmen have launched another deadly attack on him in his country home of Akokwa, Ideato North Local Government Area of Imo State. Ugochinyere who is the Candidate of Peoples Democratic Party,PDP for the Ideato North and Ideato South federal constituency in the forthcoming general elections raised the alarm in an urgent message he sent out on a WhatsApp to news men on Tuesday that another attack was taking place in his house. The WhatsApp message…
Turkey-Syria Quake: Death toll passes 10,000 as Rescuers dig through Rubble for Survivor The death toll of a devastating earthquake in southern Turkey and Syria jumped to more than 9,800 people on Tuesday as rescuers worked against time in harsh winter conditions to dig survivors out of the rubble of collapsed buildings. As the scale of the disaster became ever more apparent, the death toll looked likely to rise considerably. One U.N. official said thousands of children may have died. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan declared a state of emergency in 10 provinces. But residents in several damaged Turkish cities…
Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has assured Mahmood Yakubu, chairperson of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and Nigerians that there will be adequate cash for transaction for election logistics during the forth coming February 25 Presidential polls. Emefiele spoke on Tuesday during a meeting with INEC Chairman at the CBN headquarters in Abuja amid concerns over the current naira scarcity. In his speech, Yakubu said while service providers needed for elections are generally paid by electronic transfer, there are critical areas such as transportation and emergency situations where cash payments will be required. Also…