The Atiku Campaign Organisation has cautioned Nigerians to be wary of the antics of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, and not submit to his overlordship as he is currently doing in Lagos. 

Spokesman of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, Charles Aniagwu, gave the advice at a news conference on Tuesday in Asaba and warned that Nigerians would be subjecting themselves to internal slavery if they allowed Tinubu to become Nigerian president. 

He said that Tinubu who already captured Lagos was looking for avenue to extend his control on the other 35 states and FCT and urged Nigerians to avoid repeating the mistake Lagosians made by allowing him control everything that happens in the entire state. 

According to him, “as a campaign council we are urging Nigerians not to make the mistake of submitting themselves to internal slavery by the APC whose Presidential candidate had since captured Lagos and what he is looking for is to expand his territorial control beyond Lagos to control the entire country in form of slavery. 

“For those of you who may not know, a number of the major projects and programmes in Lagos are controlled by this same individual. 

“When you get to Lagos and ask them about BRT you will discover that it is handled by this man’s family. The signages in Lagos which is a very big business is handled by his son, the collection of taxes in Lagos which is the biggest in terms of tax collection is handled by a company that is said to belong to this same man. 

“Needn’t I mention other sources of revenue that Lagos should have benefited from and you also know how he handpicks those who will govern Lagos to the extent that Ambode, a man that was doing well was taken out because he disagreed with them on how to share the funds of the people of Lagos.” 

He said for such a person to aspire to govern our country, it will be very detrimental to all of us. 

“If we don’t want to submit ourselves to slavery, Nigerians must stop Tinubu from crossing Lagos into the other 35 states and the FCT because that will amount to internal slavery for all of us where he alone will determine the next President, and who gets what and not forces of democratic governance. 

“As part of that unbridled quest to expand his grip and capture the states, they have cooked up stories because they have seen that Nigerians are convinced that Atiku Abubakar is a man that has what it takes to recover this country and place it on the path of growth and development. 

“They have gone to wake up a blackmailer and they call him a whistle blower. Am sure that as journalists you know who a whistle blower is and who a blackmailer is. 

“Michael Achimugu was not a staff of Atiku Abubakar, he was a staff of one of the support groups with the daughter, he was not employed to work for Atiku Abubakar. 

“If all he does is to record his boss and his friend and you call that whistle blowing, all of you know that is not whistle blowing but blackmail and anybody who is a blackmailer cannot be taken seriously and we are not perturbed because it was not done with the intention to help our country. 

Aniagwu, who is Commissioner for Information in Delta, said the campaign council was concerned about the challenges bedevilling the nation and how to solve them and not engage in mundane issues. 

“As a campaign council we know what the issues are that our youths are loosing their jobs and more than 133million Nigerians are now suffering from what they call multi-dimensional poverty, our economy is not in the best of shape while our unity is terribly challenged. 

“There also the need for our children to have the best of education to curb the ‘Jappa’ syndrome and of course to progress the country from a consumption atmosphere to a much more productive environment. 

“Any attempt to raise issues that don’t add up so that they can have their way to enslave the rest of us, we are asking Nigerians to be weary of him and ask Lagosians what they are going through in his hands. 

“Our forefathers fought the slave masters and colonial masters and chased them away to where they came from so we cannot afford to enthrone internal slave masters who will decide how the country would be governed. 

“Our desire is to get our economy working again, unite Nigerians against divisive tendencies, fix infrastructure, address insecurity which has stiffled productivity and weakened our fabrics as a nation. 

“In doing so we will amend the constitution and give way for state police and other matters. The APC has not given the country any hope in the past let alone renewing it so we cannot afford to allow them enslave the rest of the country,” he said. 

From Our Bureau Desk:

The Labour Party (LP) has alleged that the Anambra State Government has pulled down the campaign billboards of its Presidential and Senatorial candidates, Mr. Peter Obi and Chief Victor Umeh, respectively mounted at strategic places in the State.

The party accused the State Governor, Prof.  Chukwuma Soludo, of giving the order in that respect.

A chieftain of the party who would not want to be mentioned at this stage of the impasse, told our correspondent that Obi and Umeh’s large billboard at the Unizik Temporary Site Flyover was pulled down on Saturday by the Anambra Signage and Advertising Agency (ANSAA).

He said, “The billboard at UNIZIK Temporary Site Junction was today (Saturday) removed on the orders of Soludo.

“The advert which was placed by an APCON registered Advertising Agency was fully paid for.

“Soludo said that he does not want Labour Party advert on such a strategic place and ordered the Anambra Signage Agency to refund the money it received for the advert.

“He also ordered the removal of the Labour Party advert at the Afor Nnobi Gantry. This Advert has been there since October, 2022 and was paid for five months.”

Responding to the allegation, the Managing Director of Anambra Signage and Advertising Agency (ANSAA), Mr. Tony Ujubuonu, confirmed that the LP billboard was removed on Saturday but not on the orders of the State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo.

He said, “Whatever that was removed was as a result of a challenge we had with the agent that erected the board.

“First and foremost is that the bridge you are talking about was having a Labour Party billboard. If you recall in August, we sent out a message to all political parties to pay up their campaign fees.

“There was a lot of hullabaloo about it. None of them has paid their own. So most of the parties that have not paid theirs that have adverts on government assets were removed. It has nothing to do with the Governor. 

“Governor didn’t give any order. If they said they paid, the campaign fees, let them give me any evidence, I should know, I’m the the ANSAA MD.

“They didn’t pay the campaign fees and we spoke to their media heads several times; we informed them about the enforcement, and they haven’t paid it so we decided to take down the advert. It has nothing to do with the governor. Anybody that tells you anything about the governor and the billboard is telling you lies.

He added that when the advert was removed, government refunded the advertising agency that mounted the advert its money.

Mr. Ujubuonu further said, “The money was refunded to the agency who owned the board not to the client. We don’t deal directly with the Labour Party, we deal with the advertising agency that mounted the board. 

“The money was refunded to the agency because they must have incurred some debts on that particular period.”

The Comptroller General of Immigration Service, Isah Idris has urged Nigerians that applied for passports especially through third parties, also known as touts, to go to passport offices for collection.

Idris, while speaking at the commissioning of an enhanced e-Passport production facility in Kano, reassured Nigerians that the passport reform process is still in progress, but complained that many of passports that are ready could not be sent to applicants as third parties who were employed by many applicants filled in wrong contact address.

He noted that the fast track programme designed specifically for those who returned from different parts of the globe for the Yuletide holiday is still on till January 31.

The CGI who was represented at the commissioning by the ACG Passport, Sadat Hassan, said he was particularly happy with the positive feedbacks from the various Passport offices across the country, which showed that our people appreciate the novel initiative.

He said: “We intend to keep the two weeks processing timeframe open to all diasporas until January 31st when the programme will come to an end.”

He added that the NIS is still committed to issuing passports between three to six weeks, post biometric capture, where there are no technical hitches or application irregularities such as inconsistencies in the NIN of applicants, while emphasizing that NIN remains mandatory for the issuance of passports and the information in both documents must match.

The CGI, according to a statement issued by the spokesman of the Service, Tony Akuneme, asserted that his management team remain focused on improving service delivery with particular emphasis on efficient and seamless passport administration, border security and welfare of officers and men of the Service.

He revealed that there are a total of 110,000 uncollected passports in the 36 states of the country plus FCT, insisting that for this reason, very senior officers of the rank of Assistant Comptrollers General have been dispatched to the various zones to ensure these uncollected passports are distributed to their owners

He said: “Nigerians are equally advised to go to the passport offices where they applied for passports and check as over 60% passport applications are completed by third parties who input wrong contact information for their “clients”.

“We encourage Nigerians to endeavor to fill their Passport applications by themselves and to contact us using any of the under listed mediums please:
(a) phone: +2348033074681; +2348021819988
(b) twitter: @nigimmigration
(c) email: nis.pro@immigration.gov.ng

“We reiterate our official position that Passport applicants should please avoid using third parties but go online and make their applications/payments themselves at passport.immigration.gov.ng. We continue to deal with the challenges of recalcitrant touts as well as few bad eggs amongst the personnel who are bent on sabotaging the reform process.”

The CGI warned members of the public of the nefarious activities of racketeering syndicate, stressing that they have gone a step further to even circulate fake news of Immigration recruitment exercise.

He reiterated that the NIS is not recruiting at this moment and will always publish such recruitment as usual, anytime the approval of Federal Government for recruitment is secured.