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There may be fresh trouble for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Anambra state as candidates have indicated interest to boycott the primary election of the party or step down over candidate imposition. The Anambra PDP primary election was earlier scheduled to hold on today, August 28 with growing concerns over the conduct of the delegates’ conference and an alleged imposition of candidate by the PDP governors’ forum. A source who spoke to our correspondent said that he and many other aspirants in the election already plan to boycott the election over the imposition of a candidate Oseloka Obaze blessed by former governor Peter Obi. The source alleged that Wike left the conference with the original result sheets and only left behind a photocopy. “The process was defective, the process was wrong because, the chief returning Officer Wike left the delegates conference at 2PM with the originals of the result sheets and left only photocopies behind. “With the photocopi...

 It is no longer news that Charles Otu, the Editor of Ebonyi-based Conscience Newspaper was iron-stroked and manhandled beyond recognition by unscrupulous and recalcitrant blood-wastage enthusiasts under the guise of Ekubaroha Youth Assembly. In fact, all and sundry saw from the pictorial elements harvested from diverse online sources that Charles Otu went through the torture reminiscence of that of a newly undergraduate cult initiate; a Spartan treatment only deserved by an Army recruit undergoing some rigorous military trainings. This is why I doubt if it was really a common write-up of criticism against the Government of the day which should have served as propellant to development, that steered such echelon of annihilation.   I don’t know who or what is Ekubaroha. However, it sounds “Igbotic” and has a meaning which scrambles to explain a wealth which can accommodate all. So, if this group really knows what their name stands for, they should rather use it to toe g...

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, on Tuesday justified the 45 per cent increment in electricity tariff, which took effect on Monday, stressing that the action remained the only way to enhance stable power supply in the country. Fashola, who stated this when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Power, explained that an Act of the National Assembly actually empowered the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission to increase tariff, hence it would not be able to stop the implementation of the new tariff regime at this stage. He explained that the rise in the cost of procuring raw materials to generate electricity was one of the reasons for increasing the tariff and that the best way to sustain the current stable power supply in the country. He said, “Electricity is a product; it is made from raw materials; some of the raw materials are gas, power plants; they are also related. So, the issue of tariff is the single issue of price; when the ...

 Lionel Messi will not chase a second Olympic gold medal at the Rio de Janeiro Games in August, Argentina coach Gerardo Martino said on Monday. Martino added he did not want the Barcelona forward, who will captain Argentina at the Centennial Copa America in the United States in June, to suffer burnout after a demanding season. He can take three over-age players in his U23 squad to the Rio Games but Messi, who helped Argentina win their second Ol ympic title in Beijing in 2008, will not be one of them. “Messi won’t go to the Olympic Games because there is a lot of competition for the national team this year,” Martino said with World Cup qualifiers also in mind. “We have the Copa America, the Olympic Games and after that four rounds of the qualifiers,” he told Radio La Red. “The reality at Barcelona shows the season will be long. I want to win very much but not at any price, nor for throwing the players on to the pitch for them to die there.” Messi led Argentina t...

 The Police in Nasarawa State on Tuesday apprehended a former councillor of the Otukpo Local Government Area, Mr. Sunday Aboh, for allegedly buying stolen cars from armed robbers in the state. Parading the suspect and 14 others in Lafia for committing various offences in different locations in the state, the Nasarawa State Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Ismail Numan, stated that the former councillor of the Otukpo LG A was particularly arrested in connection with a stolen vehicle which he received from suspected criminals. According to him, four suspected robbers had on November 22, 2015, snatched a Toyota RAV 4 from a woman in Masaka, in the Karu LGA. He said investigations by the police led to the arrest of the suspects in a hotel on December 3, 2015, adding that an Acura saloon car and two locally-made pistols were recovered from them. The PPRO said before their arrest, the group had on November 11, 2015, robbed one Rev. Father Christopher Omaku in Mara...

Elder statesman, Dr. Tunji Braithwaite, says former President Olusegun Obasanjo and a former maximum ruler, Ibrahim Babangida, made corruption attractive to state governors in the country. Braithwaite said the former helmsmen’s policies and actions elevated corruption in governance, adding that many state governors were merely emulating them. The human rights activist said this during a telephone interview with our correspondent on Tuesday. He was reacting to a statement credited to Obasanjo in which the former president slammed state governors for living like emperors – to the detriment of the masses. Obasanjo, who spoke at the inaugural conference of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Ibadan, on Monday, said, “Nigeria is a country where some governors have become sole administrators, acting like emperors. These governors have rendered public institutions irrelevant and useless.” But Braithwaite said, “Obasanjo is not sa...

  The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, appeared before an ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives on Tuesday and said he had no information on the contracts for the rehabilitation and modernisation of railway in the country. The railway contracts reportedly gulped over N1tn between 2010 and 2015, with additional funding from the rested Subsidy Re-Investment and Empowerment Programme. But Amaechi told the committee, which is chaired by a lawmaker from Edo State, Mr. Johnson Agbonayinma, that he would not be useful to the investigation because he was not in the office when the contracts were awarded and could not speak authoritatively about them. “I don’t know about the past contracts but I can talk more on our progress and what we are doing now,” the minister said. He said on resumption of office as minister, he ordered an audit of projects being carried out in the ministry to establish their status. Amaechi added that a full report of the a...