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Barely 24 hours after a dramatic plenary culminating into the suspension of the Chairman of the Northern Senators Forum, Senator Abdul Ningi, Southern Senators have revived their forum, electing Senator Adetokunbo Abiru representing Lagos East, as Chairman. The inauguration of Abiru who replaces the Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele as well as the Vice Chairman, Senator Victor Umeh representing Anambra, comes nine months after commencement of the 10th Senate. The 51 Senators from 17 southern states, who met on Wednesday to revive the forum, also elected six executives under Abiru’s chairmanship. Bamidele noted that like the northern forum, the southern…

President Bola Tinubu has asked the Senate to screen and confirm Ruby Onwudiwe as a member of the board of directors of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The president’s request was contained in a letter read by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, during the plenary on Wednesday. In the letter, Mr Tinubu noted that Mr Onwudiwe is a replacement for the former South-east nominee, Urum Eke, who declined his nomination due to his current engagement at the World Bank. Mr Eke, a consultant to the World Bank and native of Abia State, rejected his nomination as a member of…

Niger State government has renamed the State Polytechnic, Zungeru to Abubakar Imam Kagara Polytechnic after removing his name from Minna International Airport. The last administration of President Muhammadu Buhari had named the airport after the late writer and journalist Abubakar Imam Kalgara. But last week Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago changed the name to Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Airport, which attracted mixed feelings. To calm frayed nerves, Governor Bago announced yesterday that the state polytechnic will be named after the late Hausa writer and first editor of Gaskiya Tafikobo (Hausa version of New Nigeria Newspaper). Bago said the renaming of the…

Senate leader Opeyemi Bamidele has alleged that northern senators always attempt to abruptly unseat a Senate president from southern Nigeria. “I’m speaking as a Southerner for the first time. The attempt to take the election of the leadership of this Senate beyond June 13, 2023, must stop,” Mr Bamidele, representing Ekiti Central, said during Tuesday’s plenary. Mr Bamidele reacted to Senator Abdul Ningi’s claim that the 2024 budget was padded from N25 trillion to N28.7 trillion and that the executive was implementing the inflated budget. The Ekiti lawmaker accused the Bauchi Central senator of trying to instigate an impeachment plot…

Islamic scholar Sheikh Ahmad Gumi has expressed his readiness to engage with the terrorists responsible for kidnapping 287 school children from Kuriga Government Secondary and LEA Primary Schools in Chikun local government area of Kaduna State. In a press statement from his media team, Gumi stated that he is willing to facilitate negotiations between the federal government and the bandits to secure the release of all abducted Nigerian citizens. Gumi proposed that the government should adopt a similar approach used to recover passengers kidnapped from the Abuja-Kaduna train on March 28, 2022. He encouraged the administration of President Bola Tinubu…

President Bola Tinubu has approved the appointment of Dr. Dayo Mobereola to serve as the Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) for a renewable term of four years. The appointment follows the exit of Mr. Bashir Jamoh, whose tenure recently expired. Dr. Mobereola holds a Ph.D, and an M.Sc in Transport Economics from the University of Wales, United Kingdom. He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Transport, England, and a fellow of the same institute in Nigeria. He was the Managing Director of Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) from 2003 to 2015 and…

The Senate Majority Leader said a few persons want Senate President Godswill Akpabio impeached before June 2024. Senator Opeyemi Bamidele from Ekiti Central Senatorial District has described as a “civilian coup”, claims made by Senator Abdul Ningi that the 2024 Budget passed by the Senate was padded. A furious Bamidele, who is also the Majority Leader of the upper chamber, alleged that Ningi, who represents Bauchi Central Senatorial District, attempt to unseat Senate President Godswill Akpabio by allegedly inciting the Northern Senators’ Forum against Akpabio, a southern senator, who took over from Ahmad Lawan. Bamidele said, “What my big brother,…

The suspended lawmaker representing Bauchi Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Abdul Ningi has resigned from his position as the chairman of the Northern Senators Forum. In a letter dated March 11, 2024 addressed to the secretary of forum and obtained by The Whisperer, Ningi said “his decision was necessitated by unfolding events in the National Assembly, the North and the Nation at large.” The Senate under the leadership of Senate President Godswill Akpabio on Tuesday suspended Senator Abdul Ningi over allegations of padding in the 2024 Budget. Ningi, from Bauchi Central Senatorial District, was suspended for three months…

The Senate under the leadership of Senate President Godswill Akpabio on Tuesday suspended Senator Abdul Ningi over allegations of padding in the 2024 Budget. Ningi, from Bauchi Central Senatorial District, was suspended for three months after a long stormy session in the red chamber. A member of the Appropriation Committee in the Senate, Jimoh Ibrahim, first moved the motion for Ningi’s suspension for 12 months over allegations of criminal misinformation and breach of peace in the National Assembly and the country by extension. However, other lawmakers like Senator Asuquo Ekpenyong moved for the amendment of the motion by Ibrahim. Ekpenyong,…

Federal lawmaker representing Cross River North, Senator Jarigbe Agom-Jarigbe, has said that some senior senators received the total of N500 million each from the 2024 budget. Jarigbe made this disclosure during a plenary session on Tuesday in the Red Chamber in Abuja. This revelation is coming on the heel of the ongoing controversy of an allegations of budget padding made by Senator Abdul Ningi in an interview with BBC Hausa. Ningi had earlier accused the Senate of paddling the 2024 budget, saying the National Assembly added an extra N3.7 billion to the initial budget. Reacting to the development, the Cross…