ikemba News

                                                By  - Prince Charls Amadi (Charvon). During the 2015 Governorship Election OZOPOLF, which is an acronym for Owerri Zone political Leaders Forum, no doubt became a rallying point for the actualisation of the Owerri project. The group under the Leadership of Ikeduru born billionaire mobilised Owerri sons and daughters who were very determined to support Owerri Zone project of producing the Governor of Imo state of Owerri zone extraction. The body gained a lot of political momentum and was almost the deciding force in terms of political moblisation, alliances and funding. It was glaring for all political parties to take advantage of Ozopolf deep consultations and reach to all stakeholders for their bid to produce the next governor. Unfortunately, the PDP which was a prime and formidable party in the Sta...

Nigerian  President Bola Ahmed Tinubu dragged the 36 State Governors to court for undermining the functionality of the 774 local government councils. iKEMBA News reported that  the litigation, was signed on Monday in Abuja, and was in tune with the reality on ground in our 3rd tier of government. one of our correspondence said that the move by the federal government was in the right direction. Similarly, Senator Kawu who penultimate week, sponsored a motion in the Senate for local government autonomy, said that the litigation was timely, as the Nigerian masses are in dear need of policies that will alleviate their sufferings at the local government level. Recall that the Federal Government had instituted a legal action against the Governors of the 36 States of the Federation at the Supreme Court over alleged misconduct in the administration of Local Government Areas, LGAs. The Federal Government in the suit marked: SC/CV/343/2024, which was filed by the Attorney Ge...

Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has given conditions that would make him accept any merger between his party and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the 2027 elections. Reacting to a statement by the presidential candidate of the PDP and former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, on the likelihood of a merger between both parties, the former Anambra State governor said during an interview with NoireTV at the weekend, that he would enter into a merger agreement with any party or individual only if it serves the greater good of Nigeria. He commended Atiku’s  willingness to support him if it benefits the southeastern region of the country and emphasised the need for any merger or alliance to be focused on improving governance and helping the poor, not just winning elections or for state capture. “I commend Atiku for his statement especially where he said he will support me if it goes to the South East. On the issue of a merge...

THE Presidency has said that the N497,000 demand by the organized labour as new minimum wage is unrealistic and advised the labour to be serious in its demand. The Presidency also said that what should be paramount to arriving at the new minimum wage by the Tripartite Committee on the new minimum wage should be the availability of resources to pay whatever is agreed upon Speaking exclusively to iKEMBA-News in an interview in Abuja, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, noted that the governments both at the federal and states have a bloated workforce. Recall that the organized labour had made a demand of N615,000 minimum wage but later reduced the demand to N500,000 and then N497,000, while the government and the private sector in the last Tripartite meeting increased their offer to N57,000. Fielding question on whether the recent N497,000 wage demand by the organized labour is outrageous, he said, “Well, it’s very simpl...

In a bid to fix the Port Harcourt refinery, the Federal Government in 2021 approved the sum of $1.5 billion, but the refinery, which has a total capacity of 210,000bpd has yet to restart operations since then. The Federal Government initially said the refinery plant would commence operations in December 2022. Later, it shifted the commencement date to the end of the first quarter of 2023, but nothing else came out of it. However, on Monday, the National Public Relations Officer, Independent Marketers Association of Nigeria, Chief Ukadike Chinedu, said the PH refinery may now commence operations by the end of July after several postponements. Meanwhile, the Managing Director of the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemicals Company, Mustafa Sugungun, has said the rehabilitation of the Kaduna refinery would be completed by the end of 2024 after years of being shut down due to lack of maintenance. Speaking during an oversight visit to the refinery by members of the Senate Adhoc Committee on Petro...

State governors, under the aegis of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum, NGF, are warming up for a face-off with President Bola Tinubu over the refusal of the Federal Government to share the Stamp Duty Fund with the 36 state governors and some consultants. Sources in the NGF said the state governors are piqued because they feel the Presidency is deliberately withholding the money to put them further into tight corners financially. “Already, the governors have been holding meetings on the matter. The thinking is that the Presidency is intentionally holding on to the funds, running into billions of naira because it is the one controlling the agencies collecting the money. This is causing hardship in the states, as the governors also need such funds to implement programmes to cushion the effects of the economic hardship in the country. “It is not only the federal government that needs more money to implement its programmes, the states also do.  The governors are insisting that t...

Prof Anthony Kila is a policy analyst, strategy and development expert at the Commonwealth Institute of Advanced and Professional Studies. In this exclusive chat with  iKEMBA News, he took a critical look at the President Tinubu administration, scoring it low on delivery, while listing the pathway to economic recovery. He also spoke on other vital political issues also. Excerpt:        There seems to be so much hardship in the country today and critics are attributing it to lots of errors by the government in its policy formulation and implementation. Given your background, what can you decipher as the cause? I think it’s a bit on both policy formulation and policy implementation. There is a premise that the past administration, the one that left almost a year ago, left the country in disaster economically and in terms of reforms as well. So, we were already in trouble. In terms of policy, the first policy that was embraced by this government was the...