The Harbingerngr News

President Bola Tinubu and wife of the acting Inspector-General of Police, Olufunmilola Olatunji Disu decorating the newly-appointed, Acting Inspector General Police, Olatunji Disu at the Presidential Villa Abuja. •Says ‘you have my support’ •My appointment took me off-guard—Disu •Vows zero tolerance for impunity PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu, has charged the Acting Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu, to restore peace and strengthen security nationwide. Tinubu issued the directive at the decoration of Disu as the Acting Inspector-General of Police, following the retirement of Kayode Egbetokun, pending the Nigeria Police Council’s ratification of the appointment and the Senate’s confirmation.  The council will meet next week. But after his decoration as the 23rd indigenous Inspector-General of Police IGP which was barely 48 days to his retirement, the acting IGP, Olatunji Disu, said his appointment took him by surprise but noted that it filled him with gratitude to the President In h...

•Gunmen storm ADC secretariat, Odigie-Oyegun’s residence •We got intelligence of attack — Odigie-Oyegun •APC, Edo govt deny complicity; ADC, Atiku, Akpata, Owie react  TENSION gripped Benin City, Edo State, yesterday, as 2023 Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Mr. Peter Obi; former Governor of Edo State,  John Odigie-Oyegun and other leaders of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, escaped attacks from gunmen.   Few minutes after leaders of the ADC, including Peter Obi received former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, and the LP Edo 2024 governorship candidate, Olumide Akpata into the party, gunmen attacked the facility at Ogbelaka Street, Off Sokponba Road, Benin City, and the residence of the party’s National Leader,  Odigie-Oyegun. Obi, narrating his ordeal, declared: “It is time to speak up. It is time those in government act. They are not going to be there forever. What they allowed to happen in the country today will take its rev...

*R eal-time electronic transmission of election results not practicable now — Senate TENSION is rising in the nation’s legislative arena as the two chambers of the National Assembly meet today to take a common position on the method of election result transmission from polling centres to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s result portal. The 24-member committee, made up of 12 each from the Senate and House of Representatives, converge on NASS today to finalise their position on the controversial issue, which almost threw the chambers into chaos last week until the senators summoned an emergency meeting to assuage Nigerians with a slightly different position from what they had earlier adopted. But ahead of the meeting, intense lobbying as to which version of the proposed amendment should be adopted, has begun in earnest, spiking the potential of the lawmakers taking a position dictated by the All Progressives Congress, APC, which controls both chambers of NASS. There was ind...

Recent demolition exercises in some parts of Lagos State, especially Makoko, have not only led to thousands of people being rendered homeless, but many students having no where to continue their education, at least for the time being. According to figures from community leaders and school owners in the community, no fewer than1,000 children have been driven out of their schools, which are mostly private-owned. The area is one of those underserved in terms of education facilities. A school owner, who preferred anonymity, captured the situation thus: “The demolition exercises in Makoko,  Ekun-Agbo and Shogunro communities have forced over 1,000 children to stop school. As I am speaking with you, only 50 out of over 500 in my school resumed. This is because many have relocated, many are homeless now, with many abandoning school due to the trauma of the demolitions.” The tension of the demolition of homes and properties in the Makoko waterfront community and its environs may be going d...

*Where electronic upload fails, result sheet to be used for collation, declaration  *12-member conference c’ttee to harmonise bill with Reps, submit report Feb 17 *Abaribe moves, withdraws motion  for division, vote *Amaechi leads son to Occupy NASS protest ground *Electoral Act alteration threatens Nigeria’s democracy, ACF warns *Public pressure forced Senate reversal on e-transmission of results —ADC Proceedings in the Senate turned rowdy yesterday as lawmakers rescinded and re-amended provisions of the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill, 2026, to accommodate electronic transmission of election results, but without making real-time upload mandatory. The tension followed the Senate’s decision to revisit Clause 60(3) of the bill, barely days after it had rejected a proposal seeking to compel real-time electronic transmission of results from polling units to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC,’s Result Viewing Portal, IReV. After hours of heated debate, the Senate ...

*Reduces election notice from 360 to 180 days *LP, PDP, George, Okorie slam Senate over results transmission *We retained old law, didn’t reject electronic transmission – Akpabio  *INEC vows to sanitise voters register, says dead men don’t vot  *Declares readiness for Feb 21 Abuja council, Rivers, Kano bye-elections *Senate blocking real-time results to protect incumbents — Atiku AFTER pressure from the media and other stakeholders, the Senate,has passed the Electoral Act Amendment Bill but rejected electronic transmission of results, an item that some stakeholders consider critical for free and fair elections in 2027. The Senate passed the Electoral Act 2022 (Repeal and Re-enactment) Amendment Bill 2026 after the third reading. It rejected a proposed amendment to Clause 60, Subsection 3, of the bill, which sought to make the electronic transmission of election results mandatory. But Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, said in a swift reaction that the Senate retained transmis...

By Olu Fasan BY the end of this year, or even earlier, the All Progressives Congress, APC, Nigeria’s ruling party, may control 30 or more of Nigeria’s 36 state governors. Currently, the party has 29 state governors in its fold. Of these 29, only 21 are APC governors by election, the others are APC governors by defection. The gale of defections has swept away eight of the 12 governors of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and deprived the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, of its only governor. The president, Bola Tinubu, is fully hands-on in his determination to lure and co-opt virtually all opposition governors into his party ahead of his re-election bid in 2027.  But does anyone, not least the president himself, care about the irreparable damage that the whirlwind of defections is inflicting on Nigeria’s party system and its electoral or representative democracy? Any representative democracy derives its legitimacy from the explicit consent of the governed, and, thus...