The suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, will on July 25, appear before the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court.

The embattled CBN boss, who has been in the custody of the Department of State Services, DSS, is billed to enter his plea before Justice Nicholas Oweibo, following allegations the Department of State Services, DSS, leveled against him.

It will be recalled that operatives of the security agency had on June 10, stormed Emefiele’s Ikoyi residence in Lagos after he was suspended as the governor of the CBN by President Bola Tinubu.

He was arrested and had since then remained in custody, with the DSS maintaining that his detention was based on the order of an Abuja Chief Magistrate Court.

President Bola Tinubu, on Friday, charged the Nigerian military and its counterparts in the Lake Chad region to change their doctrines, practices, and strategies in order to confront the unconventional forces in the country. The President gave the charge at the graduation ceremony of Senior Course 45 of the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, Kaduna state.

President Tinubu in a statement issued by his spokesman, Dele Alake noted that the change in tactics had become necessary because the countries in the region were battling a “mobile and elusive irregular force” that disregard established rules of warfare. He pointed out that the adversaries facing countries in the sub-region were not conventional armies engaging in traditional battlefield warfare.

The Nigerian leader, who encouraged African countries to work together against common threats, acknowledged the multinational efforts of Nigeria, Cameroon, the Niger Republic, and Chad to bring peace to the Lake Chad region. He reinforced his message that collaboration should serve as a commendable example to be emulated and improved on wherever necessary.

According to him, “We must also be brave enough to reform military doctrine and practice. We do not face a conventional army in the traditional field of battle. No, we contend against mobile, elusive irregular forces that disdain the normal rules of warfare. We must adjust accordingly to subdue the menace. This shall require a change in mindset, in strategy, in tactics in equipment and in gear.”

The President also used the occasion to spell out his National Security Objective, saying it would focus on ensuring security, justice, and democratic prosperity through state power.

Acknowledging the commitment of the immediate-past government in enhancing the combat readiness of the Nigerian Armed Forces, the President pledged to “pick up the pace,” by providing the necessary support to the military.

Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has described the proposed cash transfer policy of the Federal Government as a scam. Sani stated this while speaking in an interview with Friday.

The governor said, “My position has always been that, at this critical time, cash transfer should not be something that we should bring up, completely. I think that cash transfer for me, in my opinion, is a scam. Completely is a scam. I can be very certain about that, because who are you transferring the money to?

“Let me give an example, go and check the current statistics. As I said, as the Chairman, of the Committee of  Banking for four years in Nigeria, I oversight Central Bank, I oversight all the commercial sectors of our economy for the last four years and I look at the statistics, I will be very firm on this issue and you can go and check it.

“About 70 to 75 percent of the rural population in North West is financially excluded completely. You will have to go and check, these people we are talking about are important people in society. They do not even have a bank account so who are you transferring the money to?

“Let’s try and work very hard to make sure that they are financially included, that is the most important thing and I will like to call on our development partners, the World Bank, to put more money towards bringing more people into the financial services and the vulnerable in particular.

“Let’s put more money to ensure that we open accounts for them, get them involved, if we don’t do that, no matter what we do however you do it, money will go to the wrong people, that’s the fact.”

Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa state has described the planned palliatives of President Bola Tinubu’s administration to cushion the impact of the fuel subsidy removal as a courageous initiative and not a summersault policy.

Sule stated this while speaking on Friday on national TV.  He said, “No matter what you do there are going to be critics. In our own society, there are people who just specialize in criticism, especially in this era of social media. I think it (Palliative) was a courageous effort. It’s something that we have been clamoring for.

“From 2002, we have been talking about fuel subsidy removal, no president has had the courage to do that. This President (Bola Tinubu) has said they will be courageous enough to go ahead and remove that (the fuel subsidy).

“Let’s look at it in the other way, if he had said he is going to wait and not remove it, probably we will spend another four years without doing anything and people will still criticize him so, the idea of criticism should not prevent anybody from doing the right thing.”

Former Governor of Abia state, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, has stated that his administration did not owe any commercial bank before he left office on May 29. Ikpeazu disclosed that he was constrained to make clarifications on matters of great public importance about some financial issues on which Governor Alex Otti’s administration has been making allegations on.

His spokesman, Sir Onyebuchi Ememanka in a statement noted the former Governor said that no day passed without the Otti administration looking for some reason to blame him for everything, no matter how unreasonable. Ikpeazu also challenged the Otti administration to produce any evidence to support their claim of an N22 billion outstanding loan liability from the Ikpeazu administration.

Onyebuchi further stated that the Otti administration should stop manufacturing excuses and face serious issues of governance and fund the various security agencies to protect the lives and properties of citizens of the state. He said; “For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to make it abundantly clear that as of the 28th day of May 2023 when the administration of Dr Okezie Ikpeazu ended by effluxion of time, the Government of Abia State did not owe any commercial bank in the ordinary course of business. In his words:

 “Nothing could be farther from the truth. The N22b loan exists in the imaginations of the peddlers of the wicked and warped narrative. This is actually a no-brainer because no commercial bank in Nigeria will grant any facility to any state government, the repayment terms of which will run beyond their tenure of office.” He further disclosed that the Ikpeazu administration had financial arrangements with banks through Temporary Overdraft facilities, TOD, which were cleared before the end of its tenure on May 29.

Speculations spreading around reveal President Bola Tinubu and Governors of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC may have settled for the immediate-past Governor of Kano state, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje as successor to the erstwhile National Chairman of APC, Senator Abdullahi Adamu have caused ripples within the party.

The National Vice Chairman, Northwest, of the party, Salihu Moh. Lukman was the first to kick against the proposition, describing it as the “height of insensitivity” and “politically suicidal”, some other officials of the party regretted that the president might be toeing the same path as his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari who had imposed Adamu on the party in the eleventh hour.

A former Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr Reuben Abati said the corruption allegations against Dr. Ganduje could haunt him in office.

“The position of a party chairman comes with a lot of responsibilities. It is not a place where he can go and be stuffing his babanriga with dollars as he was accused to have done and that matter has run into troubled waters in Kano state. In fact, if he emerges as chairman of the party as speculated, maybe he should not wear babanriga (flowing dress) because once people see him with babanriga in an important position, they will be looking around for nylon bags of dollars”, Abati had stated.

Chairman of the Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission, Muhuyi Rimingado had a few days ago declared that a forensic analysis has shown that the content of the 2017 viral video which captured Dr Ganduje, allegedly receiving bundles of dollar notes as a bribe from a contractor and stuffing them in his flowing dress was not doctored but real video.

APC Governors who met on Wednesday night at the Imo state Governor’s Lodge in Abuja between 9 pm and 11:15 pm were rumored to have agreed on the choice of Ganduje.

The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25, 2023 election and first petitioner in the ongoing case at the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, Peter Obi, has in his response to the legal team of President Bola Tinubu, declared that anarchy only reigns where the rule of law is trampled upon.

Obi said this through his legal team in response to the written address by Tinubu’s lawyers who had argued that an interpretation of the law requiring 25 percent of the total lawful votes cast in 24 states and the Federal Capital Territory could lead to anarchy.

According to Obi’s media team, in a release on Friday, the LP candidate through his legal team has given a principled response to the threat of Anarchy from the Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the 2nd and 3rd Respondents in the petition, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Kashim Shetimma, “that if the Court interprets the Electoral Act section 134 against them it might lead to the breakdown of law and order.”

The release read in part, “Recall that Tinubu’s legal team, led by Wole Olanipekun, had in their final address to the court threatened that, “Any other interpretation different from theirs will lead to absurdity, chaos, anarchy and alteration of the very intention of the legislature.”

However, “Peter Obi’s lawyers led by Dr Livy Uzoukwu and Onyechi Ikpeazu disagreed saying instead that what will lead to anarchy is where the rule of law is trampled upon or truncated, that in such situations anarchy reigns supreme!

According to Obi, “A sentence in the 2nd-3rd Respondents’ address alarmed the Petitioners and millions of Nigerians. The 2nd-3rd Respondents went too low and abandoned discretion when they claimed as follows: “Our submission is that the Petitioners are inviting anarchy by their ventilation of this issue of non-transmission of results electronically, by INEC.”

“Obi’s legal team noted that they found Tinubu’s outburst as “a cheap, misguided, and destructive blackmail intended to target the country’s judicial and constitutionalism. It also aims at cannibalizing our democracy. The Electoral Court is expected to enter judgment on the matter soon.