Candidates
JAMB boss lists major challenges
Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB) said malpractice and indiscipline are some of the board’s major challenges yet to be fully addressed. The Registrar made this known when members of the Senate Committee on Basic and Secondary Education visited the board’s headquarters in Bwari, Abuja on Monday. Oloyede said that the challenges, unfortunately, were mostly with regards to parents trying to bend the system by all means and get their wards or children into schools, irrespective of their performance. “Our challenge remains examination malpractice, especially with regards to parents who keep calling me to favour their wards or children whether they meet the requirements of the system or not. “There’s also indiscipline from the tertiary institutions...
Anambra election: APGA in marathon race to beat INEC deadline
The deadline given by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for all registered political parties interested in participating in the November 2021 Anambra State governorship election elapses in less than 24 hours. The development, newsmen has gathered, has heightened last minute scheming and jostling within the ranks of the Jude Okeke-led leadership of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and its candidate in the election, Chuma Umeoji. Recall that according to the election timetable released by INEC, political parties are required to submit the personal particulars and names/list of nominated candidates between July 2 and July 9, 2021. With the development, APGA leadership and Umeoji, who is a current member of the House of Representatives has come under intense pressu...
Anambra election: 22 political parties storm INEC office, want participation
Twenty-two political parties, on Friday, stormed the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in Abuja, to submit names and particulars of candidates for the November 6 Anambra governorship election. The parties, which were part of the 74 political parties deregistered by INEC last year, insisted that they must be on the ballot as they had obtained a declarative judgment by the Appeal Court quashing their deregistration by the INEC. The electoral body, however, rejected their request, insisting that the parties remained deregistered. It would be recalled that the parties had, on March 18 this year, submitted letters of notice for the conduct of the governorship primaries for the Anambra poll. But INEC, then, in a swift reaction, signed by INEC National Commissi...
CSOs: No to manual transmission of election results
No fewer than 42 civil society organisations have rejected the Electoral Amendment Bill (2021) being proposed by the National Assembly. The CSOs in a statement on Sunday said the manual transmission of election results would be used to manipulate the outcome of polls. Some of the CSOs are Center for Liberty, The Electoral Hub, Yiaga Africa, Raising New Voices, Ready To Lead Africa and Speak Out Africa Initiative, Centre for Development Alternatives Research and Studies, Aspilos Foundation, Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre and South-South Professional Women Association. “As everyone may be aware, the National Assembly will pass the Electoral Amendment Bill (2021) this week. Barring any last-minute changes, the bill is expected to be passed by both chambers on Thursday. “Som...
APC insists Governor Matawalle is Zamfara party leader
The All Progressives Congress on Friday reiterated its conferment of the leadership of the Zamfara State chapter of the party on Governor Bello Matawalle. This is coming on the heels of the rejection of the governor’s leadership by former governor Abdelaziz Yari, and a party stalwart, Senator Kabiru Marafa. The Chairman, Caretaker/Extraordinary National Convention Planning Committee of the party, Governor Mai Mala Buni, had while welcoming Matawalle into the party, dissolved the APC state executive committee and announced Matawalle as the new party leader. However, Yari and Marafa had in separate interviews with the Hausa Service of the BBC, rejected Buni’s declaration, insisting that negotiations were still ongoing. When contacted, via the telephone, on Friday, the National Secretary of t...
Brazilian potential presidential candidate announces he is gay
Brazilian governor and potential major party presidential candidate Eduardo Leite, a prominent critic of President Jair Bolsonaro, came out as gay in a TV interview. Leite, governor of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, would be the first openly gay presidential candidate in Brazil. Anti-gay rhetoric has been a staple of speeches by Bolsonaro, who once declared that if he had a gay son, he would rather the child died in an accident. “I have never spoken about a subject related to my private life,” Leite told Brazilian journalist Pedro Bial in a TV interview on Thursday evening. “But during this moment of low integrity in Brazil, I have nothing to hide, I am gay. I am a governor who is gay, not a gay governor, as former President Obama in the US was a president who was Black, not a Bl...
JAMB chief accuses institutions of awarding fake certificates
The Registrar, Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, has accused some higher institutions of mobilising and awarding IJMB/JUPEB certificates to individuals who did not attend their institutions. Oloyede alleged that some of the certificates issued by the Interim Joint Matriculation Board (IJMB) and Joint Universities Preliminary Examinations Board (JUPEB) centres for Direct Entry into universities were fakes He made the allegation in Abuja on Tuesday, at the 2021 Batch ‘B’ pre-mobilisation workshop of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) on the theme ‘Sustainable Mobilisation Process: The Role Of Stakeholders’. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that IJMB and JUPEB are national educational programmes approved by the Federal Government. They are quali...
2021 UTME results: Candidates, parents decry low scores
File Photo Reactions have continued to follow the recently released results of the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculations Examination (UTME) conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB). Some candidates and parents who spoke in separate interviews with newsmen on Monday in Bwari, Abuja, expressed their displeasure. NAN recalls that the board on Friday, June 25, released the first batch of results of candidates who sat for the examination between Saturday, June 19, and Tuesday, June 22. While some candidates expressed satisfaction with their scores, others expressed disappointment on the results. Oluwakemi Moses, a candidate, who said that she wanted to study medicine, said she scored 167, a score she explained, was not only too low but also below her first attempt of t...
Ogun council poll: OGSIEC cancels nomination fees for chairmanship, councillorship candidates
Ogun State Independent Electoral Commission (OGSIEC) has cancelled the nomination fee deposit for Chairmanship and Councillorship candidates in the forthcoming local government elections in the state for all political parties. OGSIEC’s Chairman, Babatunde Osibodu, made this known while fielding questions from newsmen in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, on Saturday. He explained that though, OGSIEC had in the guidelines released earlier, stipulated the payment of non-refundable deposit of N200,000 and N100,000 by intending candidates nominated and cleared to contest the chairmanship and councillorship elections in the LG poll, the fees have now been cancelled by the electoral body. “You will recall that we had earlier asked male Chairmanship and Councillorship candidates to make a non-refu...
Plateau council poll: PDP accuses PLASIEC of plotting to exclude party in election
File Photo The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Plateau State, has raised the alarm over plan by Plateau State Independent Electoral Commission (PLASIEC) to exclude the party from the October, 2021 Local Government Election in the state. Secretary, PDP Caretaker Committee, Plateau State, Hon. Patrick Ogbu disclosed this on Friday during a press briefing in Jos and vowed that the party will resist such attempt. He noted that the Caretaker Committee was drafted to the state following a court judgment that ordered fresh State Congress to elect officers of the party and on resumption, the committee invited PLASIEC to participate in their up coming local government party primaries but didn’t show up. “Based on the election guidelines and timetable released by PLASIEC, our great party in line wit...
Algeria’s FLN remains biggest party after election
Algeria’s FLN, long the country’s biggest political party, won the most seats in Saturday’s parliamentary election, the head of the electoral authority said on Tuesday. Fewer than a third of registered voters took part in the election, which the long dominant establishment had seen as part of its strategy to move beyond two years of mass protests and political turmoil. The protests that erupted in 2019 demanded the ousting of the ruling elite, an end to corruption and the army’s withdrawal from politics. While authorities praised the demonstrations as a moment of national renewal, they also cracked down with arrests. “The dynamic of peaceful change that was launched (with the protests) is being strengthened,” electoral authority head Mohamed Chorfi said, referring to the election. The FLN’...
House member: Lai Mohammed destabilizing Kwara, destroying APC
The All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmaker representing Offa/Oyun/Ifelodun Federal Constituency of Kwara State at the National Assembly, Hon Tijani Kayode Ismail, has accused the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, of destabilizing the state and destroying the party. Ismail spoke at a press conference in Ilorin on Wednesday in reaction to the recent comments by the minister. According to him, “There were crises before the party’s primary election and after the emergence of party candidates, I could remember when Alhaji Lai Mohammed made attempt to replace the names of some candidates. “He personally told me to step down for Gbenga Power which I resisted and he later sponsored Gbenga to challenge my victory in Court. Thank God, I came out victorious. “Alhaji Lai, as ...