South Africa’s long-standing ruling ANC said Thursday it has reached an agreement with several other parties to form a coalition, after failing to win an outright majority in May’s general election. Speaking on the eve of the first sitting of the newly-elected parliament, party secretary general Fikile Mbalula said the government would “gravitate to the centre”, after leftist parties shunned the deal. “We have reached a breakthrough on the common agreement that we need to work together,” Mbalula told a news conference. The agreement means President Cyril Ramaphosa is likely to be appointed for a second term when lawmakers convene in Cape Town on Friday. Mbalula described the coalition as a national unity government and said it was to include the centre-right Democratic Alliance (DA), the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), the small centre-left United Democratic Movement, and right-wing Afrikaner Freedom Front Plus (FF+). The radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) was left out as talks with the party led by firebrand politician Julius Malema did not bear fruit, Mbalula said. Graft-tainted former ANC president Jacob Zuma’s electoral vehicle, the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) party, which came third in the election, also does not back the coalition. Mbalula said discussions with the party would continue, but the MK has denounced the election’s results and its 58 MPs plan to boycott parliament. Other small groups, including Muslim party Al Jama-ah, centre-left Rise Mzansi and the minority National Coloured Congress had agreed to join, but with reservations, he added. ‘Imperialism’ and ‘backwardness’ For 30 years since the advent of post-apartheid democracy, the late Nelson Mandela’s ANC has held an absolute majority and elected a president from its own ranks. But the former liberation movement — weakened by corruption and poor economic performance — saw its support collapse at the May 29 election, leaving it with only 159 seats. In South African elections, the president is chosen from among MPs through a secret ballot of the 400-member National Assembly. He or she then has to choose ministers to form the executive government in Pretoria. Mbalula said the ANC “invited everybody to participate” in the government. But bridging differences between white-led, free market DA and its 87 MPs and the EFF, with 39 seats and a plan to nationalise land and businesses, seems to have proved impossible. At a news conference Thursday, Malema, a former ANC youth leader, said his party was not against a broad coalition and would have voted for the ANC candidate for president if they were promised the speaker or deputy speaker position. But he denounced the idea of joining hands with the DA and the FF+. “That represents imperialism, represents racism and white supremacy, represents backwardness,” he said. Millionaire businessman A former trade unionist turned millionaire businessman, Ramaphosa, 71, first came to power in 2018 after Zuma was forced out under the cloud of corruption allegations. Once described by Mandela as one of the most gifted leaders of his generation, Ramaphosa played a key role in the negotiations that brought an end to apartheid in the early 1990s. Upon taking the reins of the country, he promised a new dawn for South Africa. But critics say he has disappointed. Under his watch unemployment has reached an almost record high, pushing the ANC towards its worst election result ever. The party’s latest tilt towards the centre, with a coalition supported by centre-right and right-wing groups, might further hamper his popularity, particularly among ANC ranks. The broad-church party is a progressive outfit of the left that has overseen welfare and economic empowerment programmes for poor, black South Africans. As coalition talks were ongoing, the prospect of an alliance with the DA caused division and malcontent among cadres and observers believe some ANC lawmakers might vote against him on Friday, under cover of the secret ballot. AFP

  Gunmen have killed the manager of Plateau Riders bus station in Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa State. The victim identified as Alhaji Auwalu Aliyu, was said to have been shot and killed by suspected armed robbers during a robbery incident. The incident occurred near the Bayelsa State Assembly complex at Imgbi Road Amarata in the Yenagoa metropolis. It was gathered that the late station manager was heading home after the close of the day to meet his wife in the vicinity when he was shot and killed. Confirming the incident on Thursday, the Bayelsa State Commissioner of Police, Alonyenu Idu, said investigation is ongoing to unravel the circumstances surrounding the crime and that the family of the deceased will get justice very soon. Briefing journalists in Yenagoa, the CP said the manner the victim was killed is alien to Bayelsa State. “We have the suspicion that the deceased was stalked from Plateau to Bayelsa and killed or his death is related to group of criminal elements currently assembly at Ogbia Local Government Area,” the police commissioner said. “We sympathize with the family of the deceased but we are sure they will get justice and that will happen very soon.”

  The Supreme Court has reserved judgment in the suit of the Federal Government against the 36 state governors seeking full autonomy for the 774 local governments in the country. Justice Garba Lawal told the parties in the matter that they would be communicated once the judgment is ready. He announced the reservation of the judgment after a 7-man panel of the apex court had taken adoption of processes filed by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi, on behalf of the Federal Government and those of the 36 state governors. At Thursday’s proceedings, the AGF asked the court to grant all the reliefs sought by the Federal Government in the suit. The governors, through their respective state Attorneys General and Commissioner for Justice, however, opposed the request of the Federal Government and asked the court to dismiss the suit. Fagbemi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), had on behalf of The Federal Government, initiated the legal action against the governors, primarily seeking full autonomy for local governments as three tiers of government in the country. The AGF is praying the apex court for an order restraining state governors from unilaterally, and unlawfully dissolving democratically elected local government leaders, among others. ‘LG Autonomy Against True Federalism’ Meanwhile, Anambra State Governor Chukwuma Soludo has said that any form of autonomy for local government areas in the country is against the tenets of true federalism. , the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria from 2004 to 2009, spoke at The Platform Nigeria, a programme by Lagos-based church, Covenant Nation, to mark the 2024 Democracy Day. He said, “Funny enough, more recently, some people are arguing for the autonomy of local governments including some APC persons, which would take Nigeria back many decades from what a true federation is about. “There is no federal system in the world where you have three federal units. The counties in America where we copied (democracy), their local governments don’t go to the centre to collect money directly. “Each state must have the power to design the kind of local government system they want. That is what true federalism is about.”

  The leader of the Ijaw Nation, Chief Edwin Clark, has called on President Bola Tinubu not to toe the path of his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, who “did everything to subjugate the Igbo for reasons best known to him.” Clark, in a letter to Tinubu, a copy of which he made available to the press on Thursday, said Buhari excluded the South-East from major appointments during his administration. According to the elder statesman, the South-East was also unfairly treated in the allocation of funds during Buhari’s regime. Clark expressed concern that Tinubu had also allegedly started to show the same trait and called on him to retrace his steps. He wrote: “President Buhari did everything to subjugate the Igbo for reason best known to him. Perhaps it may be necessary to cite some examples. The NNPC board, which he constituted when he came into office, had nine members, one from the South-West, one from the South-South, and no member from the South-East, even though three South-East states – Abia, Anambra and Imo – are oil-producing states. The remaining members, including his Chief of Staff, came from the North, a non-oil-producing region. “However, he later tried to amend it when he appointed Senator Ifeanyi Ararume as Chairman of the second board; and he later replaced him with Margery Chuba-Okadigbo before he took office. He (Sen Ifeanyi Ararume) took the matter to court and won but the situation has not changed. “Also, when President Buhari attempted to obtain loans from foreign financial institutions, which exceeded 30% of the GDP, which was not in the interest of the country; and the loan of $22.7bn, of which less than 1% of the amount was to be allocated to the South-East zone while other zones were allocated higher percentage for infrastructural projects. “That was a violation of the constitutional requirement to ensure a balanced economic development of Nigeria in accordance with President Buhari’s Oath of Office. “In President Buhari’s 17-man security chiefs, 14 of them came from the North and only three from the South, excluding the Igbo from the South-East.” According to Clark, under Tinubu’s government, the “discrimination and injustice” against the Igbos has not abated. Clark wrote: “Mr President, even in your administration, the discrimination and injustice against the Igbo has not abated. The old Eastern Region and the old Western Region, to which I belonged, were equal competitors and partners before and during the First and Second Republic but today, you have appointed 10 Yorubas as ministers from the South-West, and only five ministers from the South-East, and you even failed to give them the ministerial appointment due to their region that would have made it six ministers. There is no justification for this grave omission and no effort has been made to correct it.” Clark called on Tinubu to immediately embark on the restructuring of the country and to implement 600 recommendations of the 2014 National Conference Report. He said, “Now that the elections are over, we must face the restructuring of this country. I repeat the immediate restructuring of Nigeria must be carried out if this country is to remain one, and I appeal to Mr President to take immediate action to implement the historic 2014 National Conference Report which submitted 600 recommendations to the Presidency on how to restructure Nigeria in every aspect of our lives. “The Igbos of the South-East or wherever they are in Nigeria, must stand up and assert their rights legitimately, judiciously and in a democratic way, to benefit like any other Nigerian as it was before the civil war of 1967.”

  The Court of Appeal in Abuja, on Thursday, set aside the contempt proceedings instituted by the immediate past Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, against the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Olanipekun Olukoyede. In a unanimous judgment, the three-man panel of justices; Justice A.M. Talba, Justice D. Z. Senchi, and Justice Joseph Oyewole, set aside the proceedings. justice Oyewole, while delivering the lead judgment, overruled the respondent’s preliminary objection, citing technicalities. The appellate court said the high court judge failed to extend the orders of February 9, 2024 in its final judgment of April 17, 2024, adding that the second issue raised by the respondent on the interim order, had become an academic exercise. The court awarded N1m cost against the respondent. Recall that the appellate court had granted an ex-parte motion for a stay of contempt proceedings filed against the EFCC boss by Bello. The Court of Appeal, presided over by Justice Oyewole, granted EFCC’s application from a team of lawyers led by Jibrin Okutepa, (SAN), to serve the processes in the appeal by substituted means on the former governor. Olukoyede was summoned to appear before the Kogi State High Court in May to show cause why he should not be committed to prison for disobeying its orders following the siege laid at the former governor’s Abuja home after the court ruled in favour of Bello in the fundamental human rights suits he filed before the court.   The EFCC boss, however, appealed the ruling of the trial court and sought a stay of the proceedings of the court. The Kogi State High Court based its ruling on the premise that the EFCC chair carried out “some acts upon which they (the EFCC) have been restrained” by the Court on Feb. 9, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive originating motion. It would be recalled that Justice I. A. Jamil, in a ruling on Suit No: HCL/68M/2024 and Motion No: HCL/190M/2024, ordered that “the said act was carried out by the respondent (EFCC) in violation of the order, which was valid and subsisting when they carried out the act. The judge held that EFCC’s act amounted to contempt. EFCC operatives had laid siege on the residence of the former governor, as early as 8am on April 17, with a bid to arrest him despite a court order restraining them from taking such action, pending the determination of the originating motion. Justice Jamil’s order was based on a motion ex-parte filed by Bello, through his lawyer, M.S. Yusuf, where he prayed to the court for an order to issue and serve the respondent (EFCC chairman) with Form 49 Notice to show cause why order of committal should not be made on him. Okutepa and Adanu Emmanuel Ogwiji, Esq represented EFCC, while Victor Oni, Esq represented the Respondent.

  Africa’s richest person, Aliko Dangote, says local and foreign mafia tried several times to sabotage his $19 billion refinery from coming to fruition. This is as he said he has repaid about $2.4 billion of the $5.5 billion borrowed to build the refinery. According to him, several entities did everything to sabotage the 650,000 barrels per day facility. He spoke Wednesday at the Afreximbank annual meetings (AAN) and AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum in Nassau, The Bahamas. Dangote said he was aware that resistance would always exist, but he did not anticipate it being so harsh. “Well, I knew that there would be a fight. But I didn’t know that the mafia in oil, they are stronger than the mafia in drugs. I can tell you that. Yes, it’s a fact. The local and foreign mafia tried several times to sabotage the refinery from coming to fruition,” he said. The businessman, who tagged himself a fighter throughout his life, said the mafias had tried several times to defeat him. “But I’m a person that has been fighting all my life. You know, so I think it’s part of my life to fight,” he said. On if he was receiving enough crude oil as feedstock for his refinery from the international oil companies (IOCs), Dangote said: “In a system where for 35 years people are used to counting good money, and all of a sudden they see that the days of counting that money have come to an end, you don’t expect them to pray for you. Of course, you expect them to fight back. “And I think that is the process that we’re now really going through. But the truth is that, yes, the country, the sub-region, and also the continent, sub-Saharan Africa, need this refinery. So, you expect them to fight through non-supply of crude, non-purchase of the product, but I think it’s all temporary. We’ll get there.”

  The US Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a bid to restrict an abortion pill widely used in the United States to terminate pregnancies. The court, in a unanimous opinion, said the anti-abortion groups and physicians challenging the medication, mifepristone, lacked the legal standing to bring the case. Abortion rights are one of the key issues in the November election and the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden had urged the court to maintain access to the drug, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2000. His opponent Donald Trump leads a Republican Party broadly favoring blocks to abortion access. The mifepristone case was the first significant abortion case heard by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court since it overturned the previously long-held constitutional right to abortion two years ago. “We recognize that many citizens, including the plaintiff doctors here, have sincere concerns about and objections to others using mifepristone and obtaining abortions,” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote the 9-0 opinion. “But citizens and doctors do not have standing to sue simply because others are allowed to engage in certain activities,” Kavanaugh said. “The plaintiffs lack standing to challenge FDA’s actions.” The conservative justice said the federal courts were “the wrong forum for addressing the plaintiffs’ concerns about FDA’s actions” and they could present their objections through regulatory procedures or through the “political and electoral processes.” Abortion opponents have been seeking to restrict nationwide access to the pill, claiming it is unsafe and that anti-abortion doctors were being forced to violate their conscience by intervening on patients who suffered complications after using it. A conservative US district court judge in Texas, who was appointed during Trump’s presidency, issued a ruling last year that would have banned mifepristone. An appeals court overturned the outright ban because the statute of limitations on challenging the FDA’s approval had expired, but restricted access to the drug. The appeals court reduced the period during which mifepristone can be used from 10 weeks of pregnancy to seven weeks, blocked it from being delivered by mail, and required the pill to be prescribed and administered by a doctor. The Supreme Court ruling lifts those restrictions. Medication abortion accounted for 63 percent of the abortions in the country last year, up from 53 percent in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Some 20 states have banned or restricted abortion since the Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that enshrined the constitutional right to abortion for half a century. Polls show a majority of Americans support continued access to safe abortion, even as conservative groups push to limit the procedure or ban it outright. AFP

  The National Coordinator of Operation Whirlwind of the Nigeria Customs Service, Comptroller Kehinde Ejibunu, says the smuggling of Petrol Motor Spirit products has pushed up the price to ₦900 per litre. Ejibunu revealed this while announcing the seizure of 26,950 litres of petroleum products worth about ₦19m being smuggled out of the country into the Republic of Benin. This is as data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in its latest report on PMS that the average retail price paid by consumers for petrol for April 2024, was ₦701, indicating a 176.02% increase when compared to the value recorded in April 2023 (₦254.06). The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s petrol pump price currently sells below ₦600/ltr. At a press briefing held at the Ogun State Command Office of the Nigeria Customs Service Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, he said activities of the smugglers usually aid the artificial scarcity of petroleum products in the country, leading to an increase in prices. Giving further details of the team’s activities, he said that the seized petroleum products which consisted of 978 kegs of 25 litres totalling 26,950 litres, were impounded in Zone A of the Nigeria Customs Service, consisting of Lagos and Ogun states under two weeks. He said that the special squad was set up two weeks ago by the Comptroller-General of the NCS, Bashir Adeniyi, to add bite to efforts aimed at cracking down on the criminals smuggling petroleum products outside the country. “In just about two weeks of operation, the Operation Whirlwind team, Zone A axis intercepted 26,950 litres of premium motor spirit worth N19m,” he said Ejibunu said that the menace posed by the unpatriotic act of smugglers on the Nigerian economy cannot be overemphasised, hence, the need for synergy with other relevant agencies to win the fight against the saboteurs Ejibunu disclosed further that “121 kegs of PMS of 25 litres equivalent to 3025 litres was intercepted at Oyinkansola Global Concept along Badagry/Seme road in Lagos State on 31st of May 2024. “77 drums of PMS (616 kegs of 25 litres) equivalent to 15, 400 litres was seized on Friday, June 7, 2024, at Seayab Petroleum along Imeko/Obada road in Ogun State. The means of conveyance is a truck with the registration number 95D4244D”. He further stated that another 100 kegs of PMS of 25 litres equivalent to 2500 litres, was impounded on Saturday, June 8 along Owode/Atan Road, Ogun State while an equivalent of 6,025 litres consisting of 141 kegs of 25 litres, was seized at Julankoly Oil and Gas along Owode/Ilaro road. Ejibunu said that the petroleum stations involved in the criminal activities have been sealed up while their owners will be prosecuted. He said that the product seized would be condemned and then auctioned very soon given its inflammable nature, urging all those who are into criminal acts of sabotaging the country’s economy, to either have a change of heart or get dealt with according to the extant laws.

  Justice Emeka Nwite of the Abuja Federal High Court, on Thursday, ordered two staff of the Account and Finance Department of the Nigeria Rural Electrification Agency to be remanded in Kuje prison over their involvement in a N1.853 billion fraud. Justice Nwite had last week issued a warrant for the arrest of three REA officials, who are defendants in four separate criminal charges brought against them by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission. The judge ruled that the officials, identified as Emmanuel Pada, Umar Laraye and Henrietta Okojie, should be arrested for failing to appear in court for their scheduled arraignment. The judge gave the order after ICPC lawyer, Osuobeni Akponimisingha, moved an oral application to the effect.   Afterwards, Justice Nwite adjourned the matter for ICPC to produce Laraye and Pada in court today, while Okojie’s case was fixed for June 14. At today’s proceedings, the two officials, Laraye and Pada, were present for their arraignment. ICPC counsel, Akponimisingha, told the court that the matters are for the defendants to take their plea. Akponimisingha also asked the court to vacate the June 6 bench warrant issued against the defendants given that they have made themselves available in court to take their plea. Justice Nwite granted the request. The defendants were docked and the separate four-count charges read to them. They, however, pleaded not guilty to all charges. After the duo took their plea, Justice Nwite ordered that they be remanded in prison pending their bail. The defendants’ counsel, Idoko Alhassan, who appeared for the duo, informed the court that he had already filed a bail application on behalf of his client dated June 11. He claimed the application was duly served on the prosecution on Tuesday. Responding, Akponimisingha said he was yet to receive the copy of the bail application. The judge however held that the prosecution was still within time to respond to the application. Akponimisingha applied for commencement of trial and date. Justice Nwite adjourned the matter until June 20 for a hearing of the bail application and fixed July 10 for trial. All four defendants are facing a four-count charge bordering on misappropriation of public funds meant for the provision of electricity to rural communities across the country. In the first charge marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/204/24, where Pada, is the sole defendant, ICPC accused him of defrauding the REA to the tune of N261m. The ICPC said he received the funds in different tranches under the “false pretence of project supervision” in violation of the Advance Fraud and Other Related Offences Act of 2006. According to the proof of evidence attached to the charges, the monies were “illegally paid out to the defendants from the Government Integrated Financial Management System without requisite approvals.” In the second charge marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/202/24, which has Karaye, as a defendant, the anti graft-agency, accused him of N165m fraud. The anti-graft agency alleged that he moved the funds out of government coffers through the GIFMIS payment platform being payment for “project supervision” in March 2023. Okojie, in the charge marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/203/24, was accused of cornering N342m “under the guise of project supervision” in breach of the Advance Fraud and Other Related Offences Act of 2006. Recall that the fourth defendant, Usman Kwakwa, was arraigned on June 6, before Justice Nwite, on a four-count charge bordering on fraud. Kwakwa also pleaded not guilty to the charge brought against him. He appealed to the court to grant him bail which was granted. Justice Nwite granted him bail in the sum of N50 million.