WAFFI TV | Feature

Otuaro Praises Yar'Adua For Establishing Presidential Amnesty Programme

The Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Dr Dennis Otuaro, has applauded the late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua for proclaiming amnesty for former agitators of the Niger Delta and also establishing the progamme. He spoke at the 2nd President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua International Leadership Conference and Awards themed "Electoral Management Institution: Midwife of True Democracy, Development, and Prosperity," which was organised by the Global Initiative for Leadership Success in Abuja on Saturday. Otuaro, who received a corporate service award in recognition of his efficient administration of the PAP at the event, noted that Yar'Adua also created the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs before inaugurating the PAP as part of his response to the civic demands of the region's people. Describing him as ‘a selfless leader and a patriot,’he said Yar'Adua, who governed the country from May 29, 2007, to May 5, 2010, was deeply concerned about the need for guaranteed sustainable peace, stability, and development in the region. Represented by his Special Assistant on Data and ICT, Monabe Mitee, the PAP Administrator, while paying tribute to the former Katsina State governor's memories, extolled his exemplary and exceptional leadership as well as his high ethical and moral values in public service. "President Yar'Adua was a listening leader, and this was evident in his response to the civic demands of the Niger Delta people. "He not only proclaimed amnesty for the region's freedom fighters at the time, but he also established the Presidential Amnesty Programme which I am heading today by the benevolence of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, and as a precursor to the programme he also created the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs," Otuaro said. He further said that Yar'Adua operated an efficient administration in Katsina State as a governor and left indelible development footprints with profound impacts on education and infrastructure across the state. He said Yar'Adua had a deep understanding of the burden of leadership and brought this to bear in the governance of the country when he was elected president in 2007, ‘showing an unwavering commitment, zeal, and dedication to fix and transform Nigeria’ through his seven-point agenda. Otuaro noted that the insight and reasons that informed the organiser's initiative were noble, as they had provided a platform to celebrate, honour and immortalize Yar'Adua and his legacies. The PAP Administrator added, "He also ran a government of national unity to demonstrate his faith in a nation united by common aspirations for the attainment of national development, peace, security, progress, and shared prosperity and greatness. "I believe that President Yar'Adua would have contributed much more of his quota to the country's development process if his tenure had not been cut short by his protracted illness and eventual demise in office. He would be remembered for his selfless service. He was, indeed, a patriot!" Signed: Mr Igoniko Oduma Special Assistant on Media to the Administrator, Presidential Amnesty Programme. 29/06/2025

6/29/2025, 11:10:03 PM

Tinubu Directed Me To Settle With Wike~ Fubara

The suspended Governor of Rivers State, Sim Fubara, has revealed an instruction given to him by President Bola Tinubu amid his rift with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike. Fubara said Tinubu directed him to reconcile and make peace with his “Oga,” referring to Wike. The fallout between Fubara and Wike began shortly after Fubara assumed office in 2023, escalating into a major political crisis. This led President Tinubu to declare a six-month state of emergency in Rivers State and suspend the governor from office. Recently, Tinubu hosted a meeting at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, where he brokered peace among the warring factions. Following the meeting, Wike announced that calm had returned to the state and all parties had agreed to collaborate. However, speaking to his supporters—the “Simplified family”—in Port Harcourt on Saturday, Fubara described the reconciliation process as “bitter and heavy.” Despite this, he urged them to embrace the peace deal, emphasizing that it was a necessary sacrifice to ensure the state’s stability and development. Fubara said: “After the meeting we had before May 29th, we’ve had a series of meetings and one of the meetings we had was the one we met with the President, and President Tinubu clearly said, ‘I want you and your oga to settle.”

6/29/2025, 9:02:20 AM

I Was Advised To Vacate Aso Rock Over Fear Of Military Coup~ Jonathan

Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has recounted the tense atmosphere he faced at the Presidential Villa during his tenure as Vice President. Speaking in an interview with the Rainbow Book Club about his memoir My Transition Hours, Jonathan described his experience with certain northern politicians while President Umar Yar’Adua was battling health challenges. He claimed there were plots to remove him from office in an attempt to block the South from succeeding Yar’Adua. According to the former Nigerian leader, the country was at that time, tense following the “North-South, Christian-Muslim divide”. “Every day I was hearing about a coup”, he noted. He revealed that sometime when Yar’Adua was out of the country following his deteriorating health condition, he was advised by some friends to vacate the Presidential Villa for his safety. Jonathan said he turned down the advice and decided to stay back in the Presidential Villa not minding what may happen to him. “I remember one day, I was still Vice President, they had not even moved the Doctrine of Necessity and some of my friends came and said, ‘No, you don’t have to sleep here. You have to come and sleep in my guest house. “I said, ‘No.’ I will stay in the State House. If anybody wants to kill me, it’s better you kill me in the State House so Nigerians will know that they assassinated me in the State House. They know I have not committed any offence,” he said.

6/28/2025, 7:20:20 PM

Buhari Govt’s Excess Money Printing Crippled Naira~ Oshiomhole

Edo North Senator, Adams Oshiomhole, has attributed the naira’s collapse to the “excessive printing of money” by the Central Bank of Nigeria during former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration through its Ways and Means policy. The Ways and Means provision permits the Federal Government to obtain emergency loans from the CBN to cover delayed revenues or fiscal deficits. Speaking at a meeting and interactive session of the Progressives Governors Forum held in Benin City, Edo State, on Saturday, Oshiomhole said the policy was largely responsible for the naira’s sharp decline against the US dollar “We are coming from a country that was almost like Zimbabwe or Idi Amin’s Uganda where he asked the Central Bank governor ‘go and print more money for us to share to the people’. And the governor said, ‘if we print more money, Uganda currency will be like a sheet of paper’. “This is what the immediate past CBN governor was doing. In the Senate, we have the record that they printed over ₦31 trillion which they called Ways and Means. You know when the government wants to deceive people they use jargon. “They called it Ways and Means but I can tell you what it means: it means a situation in which the government prints banknotes, not based on what we have earned or any resources, just print banknotes to go and share to the people to meet their money illusion. It is the result of that excessive printing of banknotes that led to the collapse of the naira,” Oshiomhole said. The former Edo State governor further stated that “to understand the root cause of the present cost of living and the exchange rate regime, you must trace it and locate it in terms of the excessive amount of banknotes through so-called Ways and Means which the past government created and which this government has eliminated”. He added that Nigeria was “borrowing everyday the way fish drink water”, adding that it has become President Bola Tinubu’s burden to pay back those loans in order to guarantee the sovereignty of Nigeria.

6/28/2025, 5:21:08 PM

Nigeria’s Public Debt Hits N149.39tn Amid Rising Borrowing, Naira Depreciation

Nigeria’s total public debt climbed to N149.39tn as of March 31, 2025, representing an increase of N27.72tn or 22.8 per cent compared to N121.67tn recorded in the same period of 2024. According to figures released by the Debt Management Office (DMO) on Friday, the debt stock also rose by N4.72tn or 3.3 per cent from N144.67tn as of December 31, 2024. The continued growth in public debt is largely driven by fresh borrowings from the Federal Government and the depreciation of the naira, which has inflated the local currency value of external obligations. This surge comes against a backdrop of ongoing fiscal pressures and the government’s continued dependence on both domestic and external financing to bridge budget deficits. At the end of the first quarter of 2025, Nigeria’s external debt stood at N70.63tn (\$45.98bn), up from N56.02tn (\$42.12bn) in Q1 2024. This reflects a year-on-year increase of N14.61tn or 26.1 per cent. On a quarterly basis, it inched up from N70.29tn in December 2024, marking a marginal rise of N344bn or 0.5 per cent. While the actual increase in dollar terms over the year was \$3.86bn, the significant depreciation of the naira amplified the growth when reported in local currency. For context, the Central Bank of Nigeria used an exchange rate of N1,330.26/\$1 to value external debt in Q1 2024. Although the DMO did not disclose the exact exchange rate used for Q1 2025, the higher naira value suggests that a weaker rate was applied, highlighting ongoing currency volatility. Nigeria’s external debt comprises loans from multilateral institutions like the World Bank and African Development Bank, bilateral lenders, and commercial instruments such as Eurobonds. The rising cost of debt servicing, fueled by naira depreciation, has sparked concern over its impact on government finances, especially as the country struggles to boost foreign exchange liquidity and stabilise the currency. Domestically, Nigeria’s debt stock rose to N78.76tn (\$51.26bn) in March 2025, up from N65.65tn (\$49.35bn) a year earlier — an increase of N13.11tn or 20 per cent. Compared to Q4 2024, domestic debt expanded by N4.38tn or 5.9 per cent from N74.38tn. Of the domestic debt total, the Federal Government held N74.89tn, while state governments and the Federal Capital Territory accounted for N3.87tn. This marks a slight decline in state-level domestic debt from N3.97tn in the previous quarter and N4.07tn in Q1 2024, suggesting either better debt servicing performance or a slowdown in new borrowings by subnational governments. Domestic debt largely consists of instruments such as Federal Government Bonds, Treasury Bills, Sukuk, and Green Bonds, which help finance budget deficits but carry interest costs and can reduce private sector credit availability. As of March 2025, domestic debt made up 52.7 per cent of the total debt portfolio, while external debt accounted for 47.3 per cent. This reflects a shift from March 2024, when domestic debt stood at 54 per cent and external debt at 46 per cent. The rise in the external share, particularly in naira terms, underscores Nigeria’s heightened exposure to exchange rate risk. Meanwhile, the steady growth in domestic borrowing highlights the government’s greater reliance on the local capital market, despite challenges such as rising interest rates and fluctuating investor demand.

6/28/2025, 2:04:30 PM

Worst Of PDP Defections Yet To Come~ Saraki

Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Reconciliation Committee and former Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, has cautioned that the party could witness further defections despite ongoing efforts to restructure and strengthen it ahead of the 2027 general elections. Saraki disclosed this in an interview on Arise TV on Friday. He said, “PDP would likely see one or two more defections, and we should prepare ourselves for that; there is a possibility. We haven’t seen the worst of the defections for PDP. We would probably see maybe one or two governors who will defect, and we might see some senators who will defect. He, however, described the timing of the crisis as an advantage, arguing that it gives the PDP time to recover and rebuild before the election cycle begins in full swing. “For some of us, this happening early in PDP is an advantage. We are lucky that this is not happening, let’s say, late 2026; we would not even have had time to recover and regroup,” he said. “We have just under two years to the election, and we are lucky to have that. I think, with a lot of commitment and understanding, it is not a lost cause. “A party with over 26 years of history that has been around, the largest party, we will definitely have low times like this.” Despite the turbulence at the national level, Saraki said the PDP remains strong at the grassroots and across state structures. “When you go round the country, the state chapters, the local government chapters, the party is still very strong in the grassroots. In some areas in the country, they are not even aware of what is happening at our level, in Abuja. “The reactions we are seeing at the grassroots give us a lot of encouragement. But what we need to do is to get to the bottom and start to build.” He added that the party is already laying the groundwork for the 2027 elections but warned that the stakes go beyond just party survival. “This is not just about resolving today’s issues. It’s about building for the future. The next convention must not be business as usual. We must bring in new, younger faces who represent the future of this party. “If PDP fails, Nigeria edges closer to a one-party state. And that would be a disaster for democracy.”

6/28/2025, 12:33:16 PM

NDDC Vows Quick Completion Of Gbaregolor~Ogulagha Road

The Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, has reaffirmed the Commission’s commitment to ensuring the swift completion of Phase I of the Gbaregolor-Ogulagha Road project in Ughelli South Local Government Area, Delta State. Speaking during an inspection tour of the 24-kilometre project—accompanied by the Chairman of the NDDC Governing Board, Mr. Chiedu Ebie; Executive Director of Projects, Mr. Victor Antai; and members of the House of Representatives Committee on the NDDC—Dr. Ogbuku described the project as a major undertaking, highlighted by a 576-metre-long bridge, with billions of naira already invested. Dr. Ogbuku explained that the road, once completed, would significantly boost economic activities, thereby reducing poverty in the host and neighbouring communities. He added that the project is also expected to enhance security and accelerate infrastructural development, ultimately linking ten communities across Bomadi, Ughelli South, and Burutu Local Government Areas of Delta State. According to Ogbuku, “the project is one of the legacy projects which captured in the 2024 budget of the commission as part of the fund approved by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to facilitate completion of legacy projects across the region. The president’s approval also includes the Kaa-Ataba Bridge, the Bonny Ring Road and the Okrika-Borokiri Bridge in Rivers State, among others.” The NDDC Managing Director acknowledged that there had been concerns regarding the bridge design and the cost variation requested by the contractor. However, he explained that these issues were addressed and resolved during a meeting with the Chairman of the construction company. He reassured the residents—who came out in large numbers to welcome the delegation—that the Commission remains deeply committed to addressing their challenges. Providing further details on the project, Engineer Nicholas Masoliba, representing the contracting firm, revealed that about 70 percent of the work, which began in 2009, has been completed. He added that the original design had to be adjusted—including extending the bridge—to mitigate the effects of erosion on the project.

6/28/2025, 11:09:20 AM

Renowned Kano Business Mogul, Aminu Dantata, Dies At 94

Prominent Kano-born industrialist and philanthropist, Aminu Dantata, has died at the age of 94. Reports indicate that the respected elder statesman passed away in the early hours of Saturday in Abuja. His death was confirmed by his Principal Private Secretary, Mustapha Junaid, in a post shared on Facebook. Junaid wrote, “Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi rajiun. Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi rajiun. It is with heavy heart that I announce the passing of our beloved father Alhaji Aminu Alhassan Dantata. May Allah grant him Jannatul Firdaus and forgive his shortcomings.” “The Janazah (funeral) details will be shared later insha Allah,” the post further read.

6/28/2025, 7:55:21 AM

'Peace Has Returned To Rivers'~ Wike, Fubara Speak After Meeting Tinubu

After months of political tension and division in Rivers State, Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, have officially reconciled, assuring residents that peace has been restored. The reconciliation came after a Thursday night meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, where both leaders and other key stakeholders agreed to collaborate for the state’s development. Speaking to journalists after the meeting, Wike, now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, thanked God for the breakthrough. Wike said, “I want to give God the glory that today is the 26th of June 2025, that peace has finally returned to the state. We all agreed to work together with the governor, and the governor also agreed to work together with all of us. We are members of the same political family.” He acknowledged that disagreements are part of politics but emphasised that the resolution marked a fresh start for the state. He said, “Just like humans, you have disagreements, and then you also have a time to also settle your disagreements, and that has been finally concluded today, and we have come to report to Mr President that is what we have agreed. “So for me, everything is over, and I enjoin everybody to work together with everybody. There is no more acrimony; there is nothing to say. We have disagreed; we have all agreed on everything, so thank God. For me, it’s a day we have to thank almighty God.” Governor Fubara, who also spoke to journalists, said the return of peace is crucial to the state’s development. He said, “For me, it’s very important that this day has come to be. What we need for the progress of Rivers State is peace, and by the special grace of God this night, with the help of Mr President and the agreement of the leaders of the state, peace has returned to Rivers State.” Fubara pledged to do everything within his power to sustain the peace, describing it as a step toward lasting stability and governance in the oil-rich state.

6/27/2025, 10:22:47 AM

Retired Police Officers Plan Nationwide Protests Over Contributory Pension Scheme

Amid growing frustration over unresolved pension challenges, retired police officers enrolled in the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) have announced plans to hold what they are calling the “Mother of All Peaceful Protests” across the country on July 21, 2025. This was revealed by the Kaduna State chapter of the Union of Retired Police Officers in a statement signed by its Chairman, Retired Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Mannir M. Lawal Zaria, and Vice Chairman, Retired Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Danlami Maigamo, following their monthly meeting at the Police Officers’ Mess in Kaduna. The retirees are calling for the Nigeria Police Force to be removed from the CPS, which they say has caused severe economic hardship, financial distress, and a troubling increase in depression and deaths among retired officers. “We have no option but to embark on another peaceful protest tagged ‘Mother of All Peaceful Protests’ on July 21, 2025,” the union declared. The group emphasised that the demonstration would be peaceful and span all 36 states of the federation. “As law-abiding citizens, we shall continue to pursue our demand for the Nigeria Police to be exited from the CPS through peaceful means until our voices are heard,” the statement added. The union recalled an earlier protest held between February 24 and March 3, 2025, at the National Assembly by the Kaduna and Bauchi State chapters, during which petitions were submitted to five key offices, including the chairmen of the relevant Senate and House committees and the Director of the Department of State Services (DSS). However, the retirees expressed deep disappointment over the silence of the National Assembly, especially concerning the outcome of the public hearing on the Police Pension Board Bill held on November 19, 2024. They also dissociated themselves from any groups plotting violent protests, maintaining that their agitation is rooted in legitimate concerns over welfare and dignity. “The silence from the authorities is deafening, but we remain committed to lawful engagement,” the group stated. The union insists that the establishment of an independent Police Pension Board remains the only viable solution to what they described as systemic injustice in the current pension regime.

6/27/2025, 10:18:48 AM

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