The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Adamu, said on Monday the ruling party had not flouted any laws in naming Kabiru Masari as running mate to its presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. While the APC has not officially announced Masari as its vice-presidency candidate, a chieftain of the party, Kabiru Faskari, confirmed the development to Channels Television on Friday. Masari is widely believed to be a placeholder to beat INEC’s Friday deadline for the submission of Vice-Presidential candidates.   Reacting to fears that the supposed placeholder may be unwilling to step down when the original candidate emerges, Adamu said the APC preferred to stay positive. The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Adamu, said on Monday the ruling party had not flouted any laws in naming Kabiru Masari as running mate to its presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. pic.twitter.com/Atu9CGrueu — Channels Television (@channelstv) June 20, 2022   “We are not in a speculative world,” he said. We are governed by the laws of the land. There’s nothing our presidential candidate has done in regards to submitting of forms that is not within the confines of the laws of the land. “Everything we’ve done so far, we’ve done very carefully with legal consultations and we are cocksure we are not going to have the kind of speculations that you are professing at this point in time. “We are very comfortable with what we’ve done. It’s still pessimism and we are not in that school of thought here.”

  The Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has said that the Spiritual Director of Adoration Ministry, Enugu, Father Ejike Mbaka, remains his priest and father in faith. Obi said this during an interview on the Voice of the People 90.3 FM on Sunday. Mbaka had said that the former Anambra State governor cannot win next year’s general election because he is “stingy”. While speaking during one of his programmes last Wednesday, the cleric maintained that it would be impossible for Obi to become Nigeria’s president, adding that an old man president is better than a ‘stingy young man’. Speaking on the radio station, Obi said, “For me, Father Mbaka is an ordained priest of God and as a priest, he remains my priest. I will always respect and show my allegiance to the church. “Whatever he says, I will take it because he’s my father in faith. I respect him and he’s my brother.” Mbaka had gone under heavy criticism from the comment, which led to a ban on his ministry from the Enugu Catholic Diocese. Reacting to the comment, Bianca Ojukwu, widow of the Biafran warlord, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, spoke on Obi’s ‘stinginess’ and how families benefited from it.

  The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says the ongoing continuous voter registration (CVR) cannot continue forever. Festus Okoye, INEC commissioner for information and voter education, spoke on Monday in an interview with Channels Television, while reacting to a recent court verdict on the CVR exercise. Earlier on Monday, a federal high court in Abuja granted an order of interim injunction stopping INEC from ending voter registration on June 30. The commission had fixed June 30 as the deadline to suspend the CVR exercise across the country ahead of the 2023 general election. Owing to the deadline, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) and 185 Nigerians filed a lawsuit against INEC. Speaking on the court verdict, Okoye said the date fixed for the suspension of the exercise is to give the commission enough time to ensure a “clean” voter register for the 2023 polls. “We recognise it as a constitutional and legal right of people to register. We also recognise the fact that it will add value to our electoral process if we get as many Nigerians as possible to register,” he said. “But we cannot do CVR ad infinitum and be registering people who have registered before. I think Nigerians should exercise patience and be calm. “At the end of the day, the commission will do all it takes to improve the registration process.” Speaking further, Okoye said ending the CVR exercise 90 days to the general election has heavy implications on the preparations of the commission for the elections. “The implication is that we will not be in a position to display the voter register for claims and objections. The second implication is that we will not have an opportunity to clean up the voter register — to remove double registrants,” he said. “When we cleaned up the voter register for those who registered between 28th June, 2021 and 14th June, 2022, we found out 46 percent of those who registered were invalid registrants and we have to remove them. “The implication is that if we go on as you have presumed (90 days before the general election), we may go into the 2023 general election with 50 percent of invalid registrants on the voter register. “This registration started in June 2021. During this particular time, sometimes a registration officer registers one individual a day. It is only in the last two weeks that voter registration is about to end that we have this surge. “The commission is a constitutional body and we are under a constitutional obligation to give effect to judgments and orders of properly constituted courts of law and we are going to give effect to the order made by the federal high court.” Section 9(6) of the Electoral Act 2022 stipulates that “the registration of voters, updating and revision of register of voters shall stop not later than 90 days before any election covered by the Act.” Meanwhile, the suit has been adjourned till June 29 for the hearing of the motion on notice for interlocutory injunction.

  Former Niger State Governor, Babangida Aliyu believes Nigerians may not be ready to elect Peter Obi as President in 2023. He made the remarks on Channels Television’s Political Paradigm. Aliyu also noted that many people in the Peoples Democratic Party had been rooting for Obi to be the Vice President to Atiku Abubakar. Obi is the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party for the 2023 elections. “Peter Obi is my good friend and a former member of my former Governors forum,” Aliyu said. “A very excellent person. His candidature, in terms of the Presidency, – I think he will make some name now. But he may be able to make it only in 2027, 2031. But 2023? Too early. “Even though the young people might go for him, the name is not dropping everywhere else. I doubt if Nigerians are ready for him now as a presidential person. “I would have loved him as a Vice President. Many of us were rooting for him to be Vice President to Atiku again.”

  The 14th Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi ll, has denied a viral statement attributed to him on social media, endorsing the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi. The post, which has been shared on different social media platforms, claimed Sanusi chided presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Candidate, Atiku Abubakar. But in a statement on Monday, the Chief of Staff to the deposed Emir of Kano, Munir Sunusi Bayero, said the article was not written Sanusi. “Our attention has been drawn to an article circulating the online media space analysing the motives of the three presidential candidates in the 2023 elections. “We would like to emphatically state that this was not authored by His Highness, Khalifa Muhammad Sanusi II as is being widely attributed. Bayero further clarified that the former CBN governor does not bear Sanusi Lamido Sanusi any longer. “Consequently, given the need to set the records straight, we hereby state for the benefit of those unaware that the Khalifa is not officially referred to as Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, but as HH Muhammad Sanusi II.” According to him, readers need to scrutinise any information critically to avoid consuming false and misleading information. “We also take this opportunity to encourage readers to scrutinize the information they find online to identify false and misleading information purported to have come from eminent personalities and thought leaders.” “While we restate that we have no affiliation to the article itself in any way, we staunchly continue to place our faith and trust in Allah ( Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala) to continue guiding His Highness as an elder statesman in his socio-economic Advocacy for all Nigerians, Africans and humanity in general,” he stated.