Month: October 2023

Mr Felix Hyat, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman in Kaduna State, has said that the exit of former governor Ramalan Yero and Rep. Godfrey Gaiya would not affect the party’s strength.

The duo recently left the party with Gaiya, currently an aide to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, moving to the APC while Yero is yet to announce his next destination.

The party also recently lost Mr Tanko Rossi, the “generous” super delegate, who openly shared millions of naira to his constituents after he returned from PDP presidential primary election.

Rossi, who said that the money was what he received as a delegate to the primaries, defected to the APC and has since been a major critic of his former political party.

Hyat, while reacting to their exit in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday, said their exit would “never” affect the party’s fortunes as none of them had any political weight.

“They were mere paper weights. They had no influence. We are not going to miss any of them.

“None of them has said that the PDP maltreated him. We did not do anything to offend anyone.

“They came on their own volition. None of them did not get a good share even above their contributions to the party.

“The former governor became a commissioner of finance without being a member of the PDP.

“As a sitting governor, he contested and lost the governorship seat in 2015. He contested for the ticket to seek the seat later but lost the primaries.

“As for Gaiya, he got two terms in House of Representatives and left after losing elections.

“He came even lower, politically speaking, and sought to be a local government chairman but lost the primaries woefully.

“I am told that he was promised the then vacant Kaduna State ministerial slot if he defected, but it has been taken now. He may have do another political arithmetic. It is up to him.

“So, their exit cannot pain anyone. They are not strong politicians with any particular support base.”

Hyat said that PDP was the leading party in Kaduna having won the three senate seats and 10 out of 16 House of Representatives seats.

Hyat also spoke on suggestions that the PDP made some poor calculations ahead of the 2023 general elections.

“I have of such suggestions, but the fact is that there was no way any PDP leader could have impose any candidate because the primary elections were handled by ad-hoc delegates that came from the wards.

“The room for manipulation was not there at all. Even in the presidential election, it was the same delegates that decided.

“All presidential candidates requested for, and met, the delegates.”

On the management of the campaigns in Kaduna State, he said that efforts were made to ensure that everyone was carried along.

“Some people felt not carried along, but we gave each governoship aspirant the opportunity to nominate five people into the campaign structure.

“We also ensured that one of such nominees headed one of the Direcorates.

“I did not shut people out. I couldn’t have done that when we needed all hands on deck to win the elections.

“The problem is that everyone wants to be a leader, but we have always said that people should strive to deliver their areas of operation so that, collectively, we shall achieve success.”

He also spoke on the Nov. 13 governorship elections in Imo, Bayelsa and Kogi.

“We believe that the PDP has a good chance of picking the three seats.

“We cannot overrule the role that incumbency could on matters like this, but INEC does its job well and every vote counts, PDP shouldn’t have any problem in the three states,” he said.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

Mr Felix Hyat, Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna State, has said that the inconsistencies in the decisions of the election petition tribunals were hurting the nation’s democracy.

“The electoral law and the guidelines are the same, but we keep getting different rulings even with same facts and circumstances.

“Situations like that breed confusion,” Hyat told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday.

He opined that the tribunal rulings in many cases appeared to be “just the opinion of the Judges.

“Sometimes you feel that the judgments are based on their thinking. You get a feeling that they are not applying the law that is there for everyone to see”.

Hyat particularly expressed surprise at the contrasting rulings in Plateau even when all the facts, claims and circumstances were the same.

“The case of Plateau is rather strange. The petitioners are claiming that the PDP had no structure when the primaries were conducted.

“The petitioners tabled the same complaints, but while one tribunal dismissed their claims and ruled that PDP had a structure having complied with a court order to conduct a repeat Congress, another insisted that it did not have.

“I am not a lawyer, but we all know that the issue of primaries is purely an internal matter of the party.

“The Supreme Court has also ruled that the tribunals are not set up to listen to pre-election matters.

“The apex court has also declared that only an aspirant who participated in a primary election is qualified to challenge its outcome.

“So, you wonder; on what ground would a tribunal rule in favour of an opposing party that is alleging that the opponent did not hold a Congress? How does that become an outsider’s concern?”

Hyat also spoke on the rulings of the governorship tribunals in Kaduna State.

“Kaduna, Kano and Nasarawa States had the same complaints about irregularities in INEC calculations of votes during the governorship polls.

“Our complaints were simple. Let the illegal votes be discountenanced and deducted, and the winner is then announced after calculating the genuine and lawful votes.

“In Nasarawa, the right thing was done and the winner given his prize. It was the same thing in Kano.

“But in Kaduna, the tribunal only opted to call for fresh elections in some polling units even when we brought videos of scenes where votes were mutilated.

“We believe something went wrong. But we see that as a product of genuine mistakes and that is why we have gone to the appellate court.

“We are not lawyers, so we cannot sit somewhere and criticise. We must promote confidence because we are confident that the judiciary will right the wrongs.

“We believe that election is about votes. The winner is determined by numbers. We believe the PDP won in Kaduna and that is why we have approached the appeal court.

“The judgment was a split one with two Judges favouring the PDP while one was against. We believe that the higher courts have the final say,” he said.

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

The Namibian Police Force (NamPol)’s Deputy Inspector-General for Operations, Major General Elias Mutota, has commended the collaboration between the public and law enforcement agencies in the combating of crime.

Speaking to the media in Windhoek on Friday, Mutota attributed the success of a high-profile police operation last week to public’s trust in law enforcement.

During a sting operation in the capital on Tuesday, NamPol arrested 20 foreign nationals who allegedly recruited Namibian youth to conduct cryptocurrency scams on foreign nationals.

During the intelligence-led operation, the police raided six residences in the upmarket suburbs of Auasblick, Klein Kuppe, Klein Windhoek, as well as the offices of Raylon Investment at Shapumba Towers in the city centre.

Mutota said the suspects included 11 Chinese, five Zimbabweans, two Namibians, a Singaporean and a Cuban national.

In addition, 88 Namibian youth have been arrested for being accomplices to the crime.

He said the police received a tip-off about an alleged fraudulent scheme concerning a pig butchering cryptocurrency investment scheme.

“Young Namibians, mostly students, were recruited by suspected foreign nationals and trained to create false profiles on Facebook and Instagram to lure unsuspecting United States citizens into the scheme,” Mutota said.

The students, who were accommodated at various residences across the city, worked at night from 17h00 to convince American clients that the scammers were indeed in America.

“The students’ movements were strictly controlled, and they were also provided with company cellphones, which were collected when they went off duty—twice a week,” Mutato explained, adding that they were paid salaries ranging from N.dollars 3 000.

The suspects face criminal charges ranging from human trafficking to money laundering, fraud, and tax evasion. However, a total of 50 youth, aged between 20–25, have since agreed to collaborate with the police.

Mutota paid tribute to the police officers and stakeholders for their dedication to crime prevention.

“Moreover, to the public, because their trust and cooperation plays a vital role in assisting law enforcement officers in the execution of their mandate. May this success serve as a reminder of the importance of stakeholder, community and police collaboration. Together, we can create a safer Namibia,” he said.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency

A group of disgruntled residents from Okahandja’s informal settlements took to the streets on Friday to demand their petition back from the town’s Mayor, in order to submit it to the head of state, following an alleged lack of interest from the town’s leadership in addressing their concerns.

Led by their community activist leader, Sethy Gariseb, chanting ‘We want land! Down councillors!’ the group marched from the town’s informal settlement to the municipality building in the central business district, demanding the return of their petition. The petition urged the municipality to address their plea for land and municipal services.

In the petition submitted to the municipality in July 2022 and the minister of urban and rural development in March 2023, residents demanded the provision of water, electricity, and all other basic municipal services in the informal settlements. The petition also calls for relevant authorities to clarify who is entitled to own a piece of land and who qualifies for municipal services.

‘We are tired, and because they are not acknowledging the petition, we want to take our petition to the President… so that the President can see which doors we have exhausted. The streets are dark, our children are being raped,’ stressed Gariseb.

Land grabbing continues unabated in the once eminent ‘Garden Town,’ with many landless people occupying unserviced municipal land in the fast-growing illegal informal settlements, including Promise Land, Virgenoeg, Dom Lokasie, Oshetu, RCC camp, Five Rand, and Sweet Village.

At the protest, Okahandja Mayor Kaunapawa Fillemon handed over the petition while refusing to make any comments on the matter. ‘I am just here to hand over the petition… I don’t have anything to say,’ she said.

Anna Fredricks, a resident of Promise Land and one of the first settlers on the unserviced land since 28 June 2020, shared that eviction from their former landlord due to nonpayment led them to occupy the unserviced municipal land illegally.

‘I had nowhere to go as a mother of four. So, my aunt and I decided to set up our caravan here, and we started living here. Since then, many landless people have found their homes in Promise Land. People are calling us illegal since we don’t have Erf numbers, so when are they planning to legalize us?’ she asked.

Gariseb said that they are planning to hand over the petition to the Office of the President in two weeks’ time.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency

Swapo Vice President and Deputy Prime Minister, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, has urged people to stop tribalism and build a Namibia that will bring prosperity to everyone.

Nandi-Ndaitwah said this during the Swapo party’s rally in Omuthiya on Saturday.

She said tribalism forms part of the things that can bring down a country that is trying to develop itself.

“Tribalism and regionalism destroy this country and our lives,” she said.

She said a tribalist person will never have personal peace of mind, which is a status that can affect one’s health and overall wellbeing

“It is true as a nation, we are made up of different ethnic groups, with different cultures and traditions. However, those different cultures and traditions must not be used to divide us but must be our strength,” Nandi-Ndaitwah said.

She referenced the injustice fought against during the liberation, saying that racism had relegated some residents to second-rate citizens, suggesting that tribalism could have similar implications.

“It is even worse when a black person is considered a foreigner in any part of Namibia, when considering that belonging to the dominant tribe group in that specific region,” said Nandi-Ndaitwah, adding that for prosperity for all to be assured, tribalism should be discarded.

“In fact, we are giving an opportunity to those who want Namibia’s resources not to serve our people and will take advantage of our tribal tendencies to divide us further, with the aim of destroying the Swapo party and taking over the country through any group they are able to control, in order to benefit from our resources,” she said.

She said it is more worrisome when the tribal tendencies are growing at a time when strategic resources such as oil and gas are being discovered in Namibia.

“We must safeguard our country by being united for a common purpose, as we are taught by our Founding President and Father of the Namibian Nation, Dr Sam Nujoma,” she added.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency

A Farmer from the Mangetti area lost eleven goats worth N.dollars 14 300 due to theft at his Farm between June and October this year.

According to a crime report issued by the Namibian Police Force’s Deputy Commissioner for the Oshikoto Region, Inspector Peter Nakadhilu on Friday, an known adult suspect allegedly stole eleven goats from the complainant’s farm in the Mangetti area of the Oshikoto Region.

The case was opened after the 57-year-old farmer from Etombe village in Ohangwena reported the matter to the police. The suspect has not yet been arrested and none of the was recovered.

In a separate incident, two goats worth N.dollars 3 600 were allegedly stolen and slaughtered without the owner’s consent on Wednesday, 27 September 2023 at Farm Oerwoud in the Tsintsabis area.

Nakadhilu reported that pieces of one goat carcass were recovered and the suspect has not yet been arrested because he/she is unknown by the complainant at this stage.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency