Saraki, Dogara, Others Meet To Decide On Budget

The leadership of the National Assembly held a crucial meeting on Monday night to take a final stance on the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari to withhold his assent to the controversial 2016 budget.

Investigation showed that the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, would chair the meeting to be held at his Abuja residence.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu; the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Yussuff Lasun, and other principal officers of the Senate and the House would attend the meeting.

The budget of N6.06tn had been passed by the National Assembly on March 23.

With just days to April 23, a date the budget would have been with Buhari for 30 days, it was still unclear last night if the President had returned it to the legislature stating reasons why he would not sign it as provided under Section 59 of the 1999 Constitution.

But some legislative officials said that the aim of the meeting was for the leadership of both chambers to take a position in anticipation that Buhari would return the document with explanatory notes on the “grey areas.”

“The meeting may not necessarily be about overriding the President’s veto. There isn’t a veto per se because Buhari has not said so officially.

“It is to look at the areas where the executive has already complained of distortions in the budget so that both houses will agree on what to do when a formal letter comes from the Presidency,” one of the officials said at 7.55pm.

Findings indicated that the meeting was billed to start around 9pm.

Credit: Punch

PDP Former Ministers To Decide Sheriff’s Fate

The former ministers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are meeting in Abuja to decide Senator Ali Modu Sheriff on the party’s leadership.

The former Minister of Special Duties and Chairman of the PDP’s Ministers Forum, Kabiru Turaki, disclosed that the meeting would take some critical decisions that would save the party from its leadership crisis.

He also believed that the forum would also be able to save the party from further collapse.

The PDP former ministers from 1999 till 2015, when the party lost to the All Progressives Congress (APC) are meeting to decide whether or not to allow Senator Sheriff continue as the party’s National Chairman.

The meeting is sequel to series of controversies that have trailed the emergence of the new PDP National Chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, who resumed office on Monday.

PDP’s Board of Trustees (BoT) had earlier joined the group of those rejecting the appointment of Senator Sheriff as the party’s National Chairman, saying that he was not a suitable leader for the party.

The acting Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party’s BoT, Senator Walid Jubril, maintained that the board would meet to provide a viable solution to the leadership crisis.

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Northern Govs Decide Over Shi’ite Killings

Following the recent bloody showdown be­tween men of Nigerian Army and members of Islamic Movement of Nigeria popularly known as Shi’ites in Zaria, Ka­duna State, Northern States Governors Forum (NSGF) has described the incident as unfortunate and vowed not to make another mistake as it was the case with Boko Haram when it started in 2009.

Chairman of NSGF, who double as Borno State Gov­ernor, Alhaji Ibrahim Kashim Shettima, who stated this at the opening session of the forum’s emergency meeting held at State House, Kaduna yesterday, added that both immediate and remote causes that led to the incident and other issues that affect the region would be extensively deliberated upon with sole aim of preferring solutions.

Governor Shettima was quick to clarify that, that did not equate the Islamic set with dreaded Boko Haram, neither did they underscore the ability of Gover­nor Nasir El-Rufai’s adequacy to put the situation under control.

His words, “we already have the serious problems of Boko Haram to contend with. We are not in any way comparing the Islamic Movement with Boko Haram, no. But we don’t want the same mistake that happened over the Boko Haram crisis to repeat itself.

“When Boko Haram went wild in July, 2009 with clashes between them and the police in Bauchi on 25th and 26th in Mai­duguri, most Nigerians saw the issues as the problems of Bauchi and Borno. When they contin­ued to attack Borno and Yobe, it became the affairs of Borno and Yobe States. All of a sudden, there was suicide attack in Abuja in 2012 and then everything went out of control and we are where we are today.”

Credit: Sun

Court To Decide On Dasuki’s Bail Suit On December 17

The Federal High Court in Abuja will on Thursday, December 17, decide if it will grant bail to the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd) and other accused persons.

Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf adjourned the case after taking arguments for and against the bail application by parties in the suit.

Counsel to the former NSA, Mr Ahmed Raji, asked the court to adopt earlier bail conditions given to Mr Dasuki by the Federal High Court, as the issues were the same.

Colonel Dasuki was arraigned along with the immediate past Minister of State for Finance, Mr Bashir Yuguda, a former Governor of Sokoto State, Mr Attahiru Bafarawa and his son Sagir Attahiru, the Director of Finance in the office of the National Security Adviser Mr Shuaibu Salisu and two others.

Rejecting the application, counsel to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr Rotimi Jacobs, asked the court to decline bails.

“The case before the Federal High Court is a secondary offense which emanated as a result of the case before the present court and as such, the bail terms cannot apply,” he said.

Credit: ChannelsTV

Presidency To Decide On MTN Fine

Owing to the absence of a board and concerns over national security, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is awaiting the directive of presidency on whether to insist on the payment of the N1.04 trillion ($5.2 billion) it imposed on MTN Nigeria, accept staggered payments as offered by the firm, or reduce the fine all together.

This is just as the network operator’s parent company in South Africa – MTN Group – announced  monday that it had secured more time to negotiate the fine that has shaved almost a quarter of the market value from Africa’s biggest mobile phone company in the past three weeks.

“Shareholders are advised that the Nigerian authorities have, without prejudice, agreed that the imposed fine will not be payable until the negotiations have been concluded,” MTN said in a statement from Johannesburg monday.

NCC had previously set a deadline of November 16 for settlement of the penalty.
It imposed the levy on MTN for failing to meet a deadline to disconnect 5.2 million unregistered subscribers earlier this year.

Credit: ThisDay