We deliver your news brief for Tuesday, October 6, 2014.

 

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar on Monday appealed to the Federal Government to take necessary steps to make governance at the centre less attractive to politicians.

Atiku stated this in Ado-Ekiti when he inaugurated the Oba Adeyemo Adejugbe General Hospital built by the outgoing Ekiti State government to mark its fourth year in office.

He suggested that the federal government could reduce the rush for power at the centre by devolving some of its powers which he described as too enormous.

Leadership

 

With few days to the Adamawa state governorship bye-election, the All Progressives Congress, APC, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the Peoples Democratic Party-led Federal Government to ensure credible election in Adamawa state on Saturday.

The Deputy Director of the APC’s gubernatorial candidate Campaign Organization, Abdulrahman Jimeta, in a campaign rally in Fufore Local Government of the state, said “INEC must take necessary measures to ensure election materials arrived on time”.

He said that “if INEC delays for one minute, the APC will protest for one hour”.

“We are not going to tolerate excuses such as absence of register, short supply of ballot papers or lack of ink and the rest. All we want is a peaceful and credible election but if anybody tries to cheat us, we will be worse than hell,” Mr. Jimeta said.

Premium Times

 

Ahead of the 2015 governorship election in Rivers State, the Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, has declared that nobody can intimidate his as far as the politics of the state was concerned.

Wike made this declaration on Monday when traditional chiefs and people of Apara Kingdom in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area paid him a visit at his residence in Port Harcourt to ask him to contest the 2015 governorship election.

The minister, who described politics as a game he had been involved in for some time, insisted that he and his supporters would not be shaken by any form of conspiracy.

Punch

 

The National Chairman of the All Progressive Congress, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has said the continued silence by the Federal Government on the attacks on judges in Ekiti State was the reason he did not personally attend the National Award ceremony in Abuja.

Oyegun said he was too shocked about the desecration of the judiciary for him “to wear agbada and shake hands with the federal government.”

According to him, he could not put himself together to receive an award in a country where its halls of justice have been desecrated and there was no forceful reaction from the federal government.

Nation

 

A chief of the All Progressives Congress, Dr. Bukola Saraki, has said that APC will not disintegrate because of its presidential primaries.

He stated that the contestants had given assurance that they would abide by the outcome of the primaries and would work for the overall interest of the party.

In an interview with journalists in Ilorin on Monday, he also said it was a mere propaganda that APC would disintegrate after its primaries. He said such propaganda would not materialise.

Punch