Benue State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has passed a vote of confidence in its leader in the state, Governor Samuel Ortom.
The vote of confidence is coming on the heels of the steps taken by the party National Working Committee (NWC) in referring Ortom to its Disciplinary Committee to answer charges of anti-party activities preferred against him.
In a statement issued by the State Publicity Secretary, Bemgba Iortyom and made available to newsmen in Makurdi, noted that the party in the state finds it difficult to understand the rationale by which the NWC determined nti-party activities and singled out governor Ortom out of the G-5 governor for punitive action.
“And what the procedure is for meting out punitive measures against such anti-party activities where some persons including Professor Dennis Ityavyar have been suspended without facing any disciplinary Committee.
“The party feels strongly that in fulfilling its duty as a state chapter it must remind the NWC of the implications of its current action against Governor Ortom and others.
Governor Samuel Ortom is a true testament to what resilience is. Like myself, Chief Ortom rose from relative humble backgrounds to get to these heights, against every odd.
The Executive Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Igyorov Ward of Gboko Local Government Area of Benue State has suspended the National Chairman of the party, Iyorchia Ayu, with immediate effect.
They suspended Ayu for anti-party activities after passing a vote of no confidence on him.While reading a resolution, the secretary of the party in Igyorov ward, Banger Dooyum, said Ayu’s anti-party activities – alongside his allies – contributed to PDP’s loss in his ward and local government in the governorship election.
Ayu is also accused of not paying his annual dues as enshrined by the party’s constitution. Twelve out of the seventeen exco members signed the documents endorsing his suspension.
They also alleged that the PDP chieftain did not vote during thegovernorship and state assembly elections held on the 18th of March, 2023.
According to them, most of Ayu’s closest allies worked for the opposition All Progressive Congress (APC) which resulted in the abysmal performance of the PDP in Igyorov Ward.
The ward chairman of Igyorov, Kashi Philip, also signed the letter alongside the exco.
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION FACES SETBACK AS US FINALLY CONCLUDES TO BAN TIKTOK DUE TO FEAR INVASION
More bad news for TikTok, with the US House Foreign Affairs Committee today voting to give President Joe Biden the power to ban the Chinese-owned app, if he deems such a move necessary, amid ongoing security discussions around its potential connection to the CCP.
The White House has already announced a full ban of TikTok on government-owned devices, following similar moves in over 30 US states. EU and Canadian officials have also followed suit, banning the app on all official devices, as tensions between China and the west continue to simmer, largely tied back to the Ukraine conflict.
Earlier this month, the US ordered a Chinese balloon to be shot down, amid concerns that it was being used to spy on the US and Canada, while rumors of China’s continued support for Russia’s attacks on Ukraine have also put it on a collision course with western governments.
Within this, TikTok has become a bigger focus. And while the app has been under CFIUS review for almost two years, discussions around its future are now accelerating, which could see it banned outright in the US sometime soon.
TikTok responded to the news with this statement:
Today’s announcement doesn’t give Biden the full green light to ban the app, with the US Senate still required to give sign-off before a ban could be implemented. But it’s another step towards that next stage, which increasingly feels like it will lead to a TikTok ban, or at the least, a significant change in direction for the app.
Former US President Donald Trump ordered TikTok to be sold to a US company in 2020, or face a full ban in the region. That option may still be another way to go, which could eventually see TikTok under new management, as opposed to going dark in the US.
But then again, a lot now depends on China’s next moves, and whether it continues to clash with the US.
The spy balloon incident feels like a turning point, of sorts, in this push, and it may be that relations between the two economic superpowers have now deteriorated to the point where the US feels compelled to act.
Clearly, security officials have major concerns, and if that extends to government employees, it stands to reason that the same logic could apply to regular citizens as well.
China insisted Friday it does not ask companies to hand over data gathered overseas, as the Chinese-owned TikTok faces mounting calls for a ban in the United States.
The fact that our reverred leader and one of the fathers of our nation, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, can sit there and say nothing when Chief (Dr.) Emmanuel Iwanyanwu, an elderstatesman 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.
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. He would have got up and told them off.
As for Iwanyanwu I will not respond to him or to all those that were at that event and that collectively rubbished our people because they are my in-laws and because my four sons are half Igbo.
There is nothing Iwanyawau can say that will make me turn against the Igbo because I have blood and family ties with them and I will continue to love them despite this outrageous provocation.
Apart from that there are millions of Igbos who do not share Iwanyanwu’s views and who have shown nothing but the greatest respect for the Yoruba race and our Northern brothers and allies.
Amongst them are dear friends and brothers like John Nwodo, Orji Uzor Kalu, Chimaroke Nnamani, Ifeanyi Ugwainyi, David Umahi, Hope Uzodinma, Innocent Chukwuma, Emeka Offor and so many others.
Iwanyanwu does not represent them when he calls us rascals and neither does he represent the wives of Seyi Makinde, Rotimi Akeredolu, Ademola Adeleke, Gbadebo ‘Chinedu’ Rhodes-Vivour, David Adedeji Adeleke (AKA Davido) and yours truly who all happen to be Igbo.
What I will say though is that those Igbos that think like Iwanyanwu need to be careful and appreciate the fact that those so-called “Yoruba rascals” have shown the Igbo race more love, respect, admiration, fraternity, solidarity and courtesy over the last 63 years than ANY other tribe in Nigeria and millions of Yoruba men have Igbo wives.
Again many Yoruba leaders stood with and supported Peter Obi in his ill-fated quest to become President of Nigeria including Pa Ayo Adebanjo, OBJ, Afenifere, Akin Oshuntokun, Gbadebo ‘Chinedu’ Rhodes-Vivour, Babatunde Gbadamosi and so many others. I wonder if they are “rascals” too?
We extended our hand for a handshake across the Niger a few years back and we built bridges with the east.
Chief Iwanyanwu, Ohaneze and Afenifere were at that conference and so was yours truly.
As a matter of fact we all made resounding and inspiring speeches seeking for a closer relationship and greater collaboration between our people.
It was a wonderful occasion and a great experience.
We were in full solidarity with the Igbo then and lamented the injustices they had been subjected to over the years.
I even went as far as to declare that Nigeria owes the Igbo an apology for the genocide they were subjected to during the civil war and the pogroms before the war. I maintain that position till today and so do many other Yorubas.
The only thing we asked for in return was a little respect and for them not to describe Lagos as a “no man’s land”. This is a very emotional issue for us. The assertion that Lagos is not part of Yorubaland is deeply offensive and insulting to us.
We also chose to support Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a proud son of the Yoruba, for the Presidency.
These two things have caused a handful of misguided Igbos to now display hatred towards us, to insult us at every turn, to unleash their youth against us in the Media space and to describe us as “rascals”.
With those words and that attitude the bridge between our two people may soon be broken and the handshake across the Niger may soon be withdrawn.
That would be a tragedy of monumental proportions and a negation of all we stand for. We must not let it happen.
We must be restrained and careful not to destroy the love and trust we have built over the years.
The Yoruba are not a people that can easily be insulted and we do not take such things lightly.
We are kind, welcoming, accomodating, civilised, generous, cosmopolitan, liberal and open-hearted to a fault.
We are also slow to anger but irresistible in battle.
We have long memories and when we choose to take a stand and fight it goes from generation to generation.
I pray Chief Iwanyanwu and those that share his views can cultivate the prescence of mind and courage to have a rethink before it is too late.
Millions of Igbos reside in and have their businesses in Lagos and we should preach love, peace and unity between our people and not resort to calling each other names or indulge in racial profiling or stereotyping.
We choose to overlook what Chief Iwanyanwu has said this time and look the other way but it must NEVER happen again.
CHIEF IWUANYANWU’S PROVOCATIVE AND IRRESPONSIBLE OUTBURST
Our attention has been drawn to the comments made by Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, the Chairman, Council of Elders of Ohaneze Ndigbo in a video clip that has gone viral. Chief Iwuanyanwu made these comments on Saturday, March 25th at a ceremony in Anambra State where he was a special guest of Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s one-year commemoration in office.
In the video, Chief Iwuanyanwu said, “I want our people in Lagos to know that on Wednesday, I called a meeting of the Ohaneze Council of Elders worldwide and we x-rayed the events in Lagos…We have resolved that never, never again can we allow anybody to take the life of an innocent Igbo person. All of us are going to fight the person. Never again. We are going to fight the person.”
“We are in Nigeria. And we have invested in Nigeria. Our investments are so much. We are not going to take the pressure of people telling us to go. We are not going anywhere. And I want to tell those in Lagos to realize that there’s no war between us and Yorubas. Yorubas are just political rascals. And we’re going to handle them.”
Although it is tempting to go toe-to-toe with Chief Iwuanyawu in what we believe was a deliberately made provocative, irresponsible, and condescending statement in our response, which would also have disparaged the entire Igbo people. But we won’t.
We would have blamed Chief Iwuanyanwu’s outburst on some cheap whiskey taken at the event where he made this negative, utterly annoying remarks. Or perhaps his morbidly obese body constitution could be the culprit as this might be affecting his capacity to think clearly and speak intelligently. But we wager that what happened at the Soludo event was another one of those predetermined, calculated attempts to draw the ire of the Yoruba people in order to create an unstable sociopolitical atmosphere in the polity to achieve their pathological fixation for an Interim government. We’re too discerning to fall for that bait.
The invective of Chief Iwuanyanwu, and by extension, his Ohaneze Ndigbo clan against a people whose only sin is the fact that they are too loving and accommodating for their liking (because they lack these virtues) should be seen within the context of someone having a withdrawal symptom after working himself into a frenzy for so long that his candidate would win the recently concluded presidential election without any empirical and intelligent political permutations to justify his delusion.
We should therefore brace ourselves for more of this senseless and idiotic vituperation as the inauguration of President-elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu draws closer.
We urge our people to resist any attempt to be provoked because their overarching game plan is to create a crisis atmosphere so that our democracy can be truncated. They know that their court case is wooly at best. Let us continue to take the insults and abuses from the likes of Chief Iwuanyanwu and his Igbo travelers while Asiwaju and his team concentrate on an inauguration that will usher in a new dawn of unprecedented accomplishments across the country as he did in Lagos, which gave them the platform for their much-touted and overdramatized investments, towards a more perfect nation.
FEMI ODERE Spokesperson Tinubu/Southwest Media Veterans Support Group
OBASANJO’S SUPPOSED “IGBOPHOBIC” COMMENTS, ANOTHER ILL-CONCEIVED ATTEMPT TO TRUNCATE NIGERIA’S DEMOCRACY
Nigerians in Diaspora have reacted to a comment by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in a recent event where he tried to lament about what he term “Igbophobia” – a term he used to describe a deliberate stimatisation of the South Eastern people of Nigeria.
Obasanjo at Akwa has tried to paint a picture of stimatisation of the Igbo nation during the one year in office event of Governor Charles Soludo as Anambra State Governor.
Obasanjo at the event while struggling to eulogized Soludo was also subtly painting a sour image of how some Igbos were allegedly been attacked drawing from pots of incidents that took place during the elections with particular focus on Lagos State.
MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. – Staff Sgt. Randolph Elder was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his service as a Montford Point Marine, among the first African Americans to enlist in the Marine Corps after it was desegregated in 1941 by President Franklin Roosevelt. His sons, Larry and Kirk Elder, received the nation’s highest award to civilians on his behalf. Pictured left to right: Col. Jason Q. Bohm, 5th Marine Regiment commanding officer, Larry Elder, U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California 48th District, Kirk Elder, and Sgt. Maj. Alberto Ruiz, 5th Marine Regiment sergeant major.
In a swift reaction, President of Nigerians in Diaspora Coalition UK/US Provice), Bar (Sir) Ken Awa, has tackled the former President Olusegun Obasanjo over his statement at the event which he termed is aimed at truncating and further heating up of the democratic progress in Nigeria.
Awa a legal luminary, in a statement made available to Push News 24 International on Sunday, described Obasanjo’s statement as insincere and destructive to Nigerian unity.
While observers have questioned Obasanjo’s motives over who becomes the next president of the country, it will not be out of place to conclude that this has also always been the tradition since he was out of office as President.
Obasanjo earlier alleged that the results of last February 25th, 2023 presidential election had been doctored and manipulated due to his failed attempt to install Peter Obi as President.
Awa who was miffed by why a man of his age and caliber will continue to clandestinely issue statements that will truncate the little progress achieved so far in Nigeria.
While Awa hailed President Muhammadu Buhari for ensuring a free and fair electoral process, he saluted the courage of law abiding citizens of Nigeria for not taken to the streets to burn- down the country.
The US trained lawyer have advised Obasanjo to be true to his words by leaving politics finally and pleaded to him to enjoy his retirement in peace.
LABOUR PARTY IMO GOVERNRSHIP CANDIDATE FOUND DEAD IN HIS HOME
A Labour Party governorship Stalwart in the forthcoming governorship primary holding in Imo State, Humphrey Anumudu, has been found dead in his house.
Anumudu was reported dead in his home after returning from a meeting at the LP secretariat in Abuja.
The deceased was a native of Mbieri Ancient Kingdom in Mbaitoli Local Government Area of Imo State.
A family friend who spoke to The media on the condition of anonymity confirmed the death saying the auto merchant died on Friday evening.
He added that his death came as a shock.
Until his death, Anumudu was a multi-billionaire businessman cum politician who had been contesting the governorship seat of the state since 1998.
He was said to be the winner of the Peoples Democratic Party governorship primary in the state in 1998 before the ticket was ceded to Achike Udenwa who went on to rule the state between 1999 and 2007.
Since then, he had been contesting for the number one seat of the state.
In 2019, he was the Zenith Labour party governorship candidate.
He was also a respected legal luminary and the Chief Executive Officer of Globe Motors
Earlier, the LP Stalwart had launched his campaign with the several donations.
The joy of the members of Imo State Labour Party knew no bounds as an illustrious son of Imo State from Owerri senatorial district, Hon. Humphrey Anumudu, through his Humphrey Anumudu Foundation Imo State, donated campaign vehicles to Party executive and to all the Local Government Areas of Imo.
The vehicles were presented last Tuesday at the Party Secretariat in Owerri , Imo State capital.
Humphrey Anumudu while donating the vehicles said that “this invitation is specifically to assign these vehicles to Imo State Labour Party for the presidential campaign of Mr. Peter Obi.”
“Labour Party has existed and has been supported by Imo people without great showing of its existence in the State. Considering that our presidential flag bearer, Mr. Peter Obi is greatly and massively supported by Nigerians, I, Humphrey Anumudu therefore support his presidential campaign with these vehicles. I expect that the recipients of these vehicles will put them to maximum use in the overall interest of the campaign of Mr. Peter Obi and our great Party, the Labour Party.” He advised.
Responding, the State Chairman of Labour Party, Chief Ambrose Onyekwere thanked Humphrey Anumudu for his passionate commitment towards the emergence of Mr. Peter Obi as the next Nigeria President and Labour Party in general.
The chairman charged the Labour Party LGA chairmen to make judicious utilization of the vehicles especially for the general interest of Nigerians and Imo State people in particular that are yearning for good governance through Mr. Peter Obi. He urged the ward chairmen to henceforth show commitment to the party via making efforts that are capable of making the party and her candidates popular in various localities of Imo State.
