The Big 5: Osinbajo receives knocks as he says 2023 presidency is for the Southwest; Atiku explains why 2019 budget is “fundamentally flawed” | Other top stories

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The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar has described the 2019 budget proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari as “fundamentally flawed.”

He said in a statement, “the proposed budget as presented is fundamentally flawed. It deliberately ignores and fails to address current realities and pretends, as Mr. President asserts, ‘we are on the right direction’. On the contrary, the 2019 budget is built on a very shaky foundation and makes very generous, often wild and untenable assumptions which pose significant risks to its implementation. It will be a disservice to the country if we ignore these fundamental flaws.”


Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai has said while reacting to questions at the end of a parley with reporters in Maiduguri, Borno, that troops are also fighting criminality in the Northeast – aides the Boko Haram war.

The COAS said the army was contending with forces that sabotage the war against insurgents, describing such forces as collaborators, informants, and saboteurs.

Gen. Buratai added that powerful people behind the Boko Haram crisis kept rebranding the crisis.


Vice President Yemi Osinbajo Sunday, urged Nigerians not to fall for empty promises being made by desperate politicians ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Osinbajo, who spoke yesterday at the palace of the Hausa Community leader (Sarkin Hausawa) of Agege, Alhaji Musa Muhammadu Dogonkadai, noted that there are two type of politicians – those that would like to take power by force, and those who would seek the peoples’ mandate through the ballot.

He said President Muhammadu Buhari belongs to the type that would make promises and fulfil them.


Referencing an earlier report, which stated that he fears God and President Buhari, Ogun Governor Ibikunle Amosun has clarified that he only fears God and not human beings.

“You know this is our time as politicians, a time when politicians will call black, blue. Yesterday I held a  meeting with our people, and the way I started was that, I was brought up to fear God but only for me to see in the paper this morning that ‘Amosun says he fears  God and Buhari’.

“No, it is only God I fear, the one that is alive, the only one that will say ‘kunfayakun’ and no one can change(it), that is the only God that I fear.”


The pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere; Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party )PDP), Uche Secondus, and the African Action Congress (AAC) Sunday, faulted a statement credited to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo that the victory of President Buhari in the 2019 presidential election would guarantee South-West Presidency in 2023.

“Yoruba have a lot to contribute to Nigeria for the 2019 elections. It is for us, Yoruba; if you understand, it is for us. We are not looking at 2019, but 2023. If we don’t get it now, it may take some time again,” Osinbajo had said.

Ohanaeze Ndigbo said Nigeria would continue to wallow in “abject socio-political, economic and developmental blindness until an Igbo man becomes the President.”

Afenifere’s spokesperson, Yinka Odumakin wondered what the Yoruba people had gained since Osinbajo became Vice-President.

The PDP Presidential Campaign Council said, “giving out two promises has exposed the insincerity and dubious intention of the Buhari-led Federal Government with the people of the South-East and South-West geopolitical zones with empty promises of bequeathing power to the two zones at the same time in 2023.”

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