Senate Leader, Senator Ali Ndume representing Borno South has said that suffering citizens of the country have faith in President Muhammadu Buahri-led administration.
In a recent interview with Daily Trust, Ndume stated that, “If you go to various churches and mosques, you’ll still find people saying, “We are suffering but we should endure because the result will come”.
He further stressed that, “If you say the popularity of government has gone down from those you’ve access to get their responses, well, I agree with that, but the majority of Nigerians, who are the poor, still have faith in this government, and that is the most important thing. Yes, people are going through hard times but the government is working; working in the sense that it’s still focused on the three key issues that it came in with, and is still focused to address.
“One is security, and you’ll agree that it is not only in the Northeast in terms of winning the war against insurgency and specifically Boko Haram, the government is fighting other wars in terms of kidnapping, armed robbery and vandalization of pipelines.
“The bunkering of our crude oil has gone down, but nobody is talking about that. The vandalization of oil pipelines you will now only hear intermittently, which is normal in every society. The militancy in the Niger Delta has gone down tremendously.
“Even the so-called Biafra struggle is personalized and centered on Kanu, and when Kanu was arrested – and he is presently going through trial – it went down. So, government is working in the area of security.
“Government is also working in the area of putting certain infrastructures on ground; government is working and fighting corruption which is a big problem. Government came in and removed subsidy indirectly and yet, petroleum products are available all over the country at a lower price”.
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Iain Duncan Smith quit due to Treasury refusal to consider pensioner cuts
Iain Duncan Smith resigned from the cabinet because he was frustrated that Downing Street and the Treasury refused to consider controversial cuts to universal pensioner benefits, it has been claimed.
Friends of the former work and pensions secretary said he was fed up of being asked “again and again” for cuts to working age benefits and those for disabled people, while the money spent on older voters remained untouched.
Stephen Crabb appointed new work and pensions secretary
That led him to write a furious resignation letter, pointing the finger at the chancellor, George Osborne, and questioning his claim of “we are all in it together”.
David Cameron responded by saying he was “puzzled and disappointed” because reforms to personal independence payments (PIP) had been accepted by the Department for Work and Pensions.
The prime minister said a decision to back down on the changes was also “agreed” after Tory MPs threatened to rebel. The ally of Duncan Smith said: “The letter is insincere in saying that ‘we’ve agreed not to go ahead’ – they have been very clear that they still intend to make those savings from welfare.”
On Saturday, Cameron replaced the Eurosceptic Duncan Smith with the Welsh secretary, Stephen Crabb, who supports Britain’s membership of the European Union.
Philippa Stroud, who co-founded the Centre for Social Justice with Duncan Smith and worked by his side implementing welfare reforms in government, said the minister felt the time had come to consider cutting pensioner benefits. She said his resignation should be seen as a “clarion call” to ministers to rebalance their cuts.
“It was not appropriate to be giving away tax incentives to the middle classes, freezing fuel duty and protecting universal benefits and pensioner benefits at the time that you were making cuts to disability benefits,” Lady Stroud told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. She said Duncan Smith had come into government to “deliver a social agenda ... to protect the poorest”.
He wanted to protect pensioners, she said, but the degree to which they were being supported at the expense of the poorest workers and disabled people had become too extreme.
She also argued the cuts were still going to fall on the DWP, despite yesterday’s backing down on the policy. “The way the Treasury score these savings is that £1.3bn is still sitting on balance sheet. They would be coming back for more.”
Senior figures inside the DWP said the PIP reforms were the “least worst” option handed to the department. The Guardian understands that one of the possibilities being discussed was a cut to benefits for disabled children that would have saved £0.5bn.
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Frank Field, who chairs the work and pensions select committee, agreed the balance had become difficult for Duncan Smith to stomach. “The pensioner element of that very large [DWP] budget – the biggest part of budget – was safeguarded and increased and therefore all these cuts were on people of working age and it is this point that Iain felt the social contract was being broken,” said Field.
But campaigners and Labour MPs asked why Duncan Smith had supported policies for so long – arguing he had been a driving force for many of the cuts. Rachel Reeves, who was shadow work and pensions secretary under Ed Miliband’s leadership, tweeted: “Man who introduced bedroom tax, tax credit cuts and 10 fold increase in food banks finds conscience? Or maybe this is about Brexit.”
George Osborne is regarded as being damaged by Duncan Smith’s resignation.
Certainly many in Downing Street believe that Duncan Smith has walked out in part because of tensions over the EU referendum, in which he is opposing Cameron by calling for Brexit. They have previously criticised his dismissal of government reports into the impact of leaving the EU as “dodgy dossiers”.
Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, also questioned Duncan Smith’s resignation, calling it a “puzzle” because the PIP reforms had been agreed. He defended Osborne’s claim that “we’re all in it together” when it comes to austerity.
Fallon said: “In two weeks’ time, everybody’s tax-free allowance goes up to £11,000 ... Every pensioner is getting biggest ever real-terms increase in pension ... Everybody under 40 is entitled to the lifetime savings allowance, everyone on low incomes will get a new living wage.
“We weren’t taking more money away from poorer disabled money – the budget on disability has been increasing.” Thanks for reading.
Brazil judge strips Lula of office amid mounting political crisis
A supreme court judge in Brazil has blocked the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s appointment to cabinet, paving the way for him to face corruption charges in court.
Judge Gilmar Mendes wrote that Lula’s appointment to cabinet was clearly designed to allow him to avoid possible imprisonment by a lower court judge.
Lula’s appointment to cabinet on Wednesday, which sparked protests in several cities, means only the supreme court can investigate him, placing him beyond the reach of a crusading judge heading Brazil’s biggest ever graft probe into corruption at state oil company Petrobras.
“The goal of the falsity is clear: prevent the carrying out of preventative arrest order” against Silva being considered by a lower court, Mendes wrote in his ruling.
“It would be plausible to conclude that the appointment and subsequent swearing-in could constitute fraud of the constitution.”
It puts an end, temporarily at least, to the legal ping-pong of the past 36 hours that saw Lula win and lose ministerial status several times, as judges from across Brazil filed over 50 injunctions against his appointment to cabinet
The solicitor-general, José Eduardo Cardozo, said the government would appeal Mendes’ decision to the entire supreme court.
The court’s next meeting is scheduled for 30 March.
The ruling to block Lula’s appointment came minutes after he rallied tens of thousands of supporters behind his embattled successor Dilma Rousseff.
In front of a crowd of 95,000 in São Paulo’s Avenida Paulista, Lula made a conciliatory speech that eschewed criticism of his opponents and called on his supporters to avoid provocations. He said said that he only accepted the government position to help Rousseff for the remaining two years of her mandate.
“I want a country without hatred,” he shouted over the crowd’s chants of “there’s not going to be a coup.”
“What we need to do is bring back peace and hope, and to prove that this country is better than anything on earth,” he said.
One of those listening was Marilia Fernandes, a 37-year-old history teacher: “There are criticisms to be made against the [ruling] PT [Partido dos Trabalhdores],” she said.
“A lot of the left was forgotten. But they improved the lives of the neediest. I was an adolescent in the 1990s. Brazil was a very different place back then. Brazil managed to eradicate starvation and infant mortality,” Fernandes said.
Many of those present at the rally criticised the coverage of this week’s developments by TV Globo, Brazil’s dominant television network that thrived during the country’s period of military rule from 1964-1985. In contrast to the extensive airtime given to the opposition protests over the past week, the coverage of Friday’s demonstrations – thought to have included 275,000 people across the country – was relatively low-key.
Earlier in the day, police had used water cannon to clear anti-government protesters from the street in São Paulo in an attempt to avoid confrontation between competing groups of demonstrators.
But opposition activists were largely absent from the streets, though one government sympathiser was punched in the face on his way home by a man claiming the crowd were all thieves.
In the capital, Brasília, a crowd of government supporters and sympathisers marched towards congress, which held its first session to discuss the impeachment of Rousseff earlier in the day.
The president has 10 sessions in the lower house to present her defence and the decision to hold a session on Friday meant the clock has started on those, even though the special impeachment committee did not meet.
A vote on Rousseff’s fate is expected by mid April.
The case against her centres on allegations that Rousseff broke budget rules to boost spending as she campaigned for re-election in 2014. Lula and Rousseff both deny any wrongdoing.
Rousseff’s main coalition party, the fractious Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), has brought forward to March 29 a meeting of its executive to decide whether to break with her government and seek her impeachment.
Amongst the crowd of government supporters outside congress in Brasília was 29-year-old teacher, Rodrigo Santaella, who said that he had never voted for the ruling party, Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), but that he was participating in support of democracy.
“I consider myself left-wing, but I am not here to support the government,” he said. “I am here to deter fascism and the rise of the right in Brazil.” Thanks for reading.
Jacob Zuma denies influence of wealthy Gupta family in South African cabinet
The South African leader, Jacob Zuma, has denied letting a family of wealthy industrialists hand out posts in his cabinet, as he battles to contain a snowballing corruption scandal that could threaten his presidency. Ahead of a key meeting of the ruling party’s leadership this weekend, a top power-broker from Zuma’s own African National Congress has warned that the country risks becoming a “mafia state” if corruption is not tackled. At the heart of the controversy is the relationship between Zuma, his allies and associates, and the wealthy, influential and colourful Gupta family, who once used a military airforce base to fly in guests from India for a glitzy wedding. On Wednesday the country’s deputy finance minister, Mcebisi Jonas, said in a public statement that members of the Gupta family had offered him the ministerial post in December, after the incumbent, Nhlanhla Nene, was abruptly sacked. He said he had rejected the job “out of hand”, because the offer of a cabinet post from someone outside government “makes a mockery of our hard-earned democracy”. The Guptas denied the allegation, saying it was “totally false” and “just more political point scoring between rival factions” within the ANC. Nene, who had a combative relationship with Zuma, was instead replaced by a virtually unknown backbencher, but he lasted for less than a week. As the rand and government bonds were battered on global markets, top ANC powerbrokers reportedly forced Zuma to backtrack and appoint an experienced former finance minister. Jonas’s claim this week prompted one of the ANC’s top power brokers to warn that the country risked sliding into a “mafia state” if a web of corruption and influence peddling that critics say has been spun around the government was not untangled. “We need to deal with this. It will degenerate into a mafia state if this goes on,” the ANC secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, told Bloomberg. “The fact we are talking about this so boldly now shows that things are going to change.” But in a combative appearance before parliament, Zuma rejected accusations that he had delegated control of the finance ministry to the Gupta family. “I am in charge of the government, I appoint in terms of the constitution,” Zuma said, to cheers from ruling party parliamentarians. “There is no minister who is here who was ever appointed by the Guptas or by anybody else.” Jonas is not the only politician to allege the Guptas brokered top jobs in South Africa. Former ANC member of parliament Vytjie Mentor earlier this week said in a posting on Facebook that she had been offered the post of minister of public enterprises while she was in the Gupta mansion in 2010, when Zuma was in a nearby room. Zuma’s office have denied this, Reuters reported. Opposition party members have also claimed that the sports minister was helped into his job by the Guptas, allegations he has denied. The Gupta family emigrated from India in 1993, seeking business opportunities in post-apartheid South Africa, and now preside over a wide range of corporate interests from mining to IT and media. They have denied any role in deciding any ministerial jobs. In their statement on Wednesday they said: “Any suggestion that the Gupta family or any of our representatives or associates have offered anyone a job in government is totally false.” Thanks for reading.
South Africa playing a high-stakes game as president and treasury square off
South Africa’s political landscape is shifting almost by the hour. The gloves are off in a power struggle that pits the president, Jacob Zuma, against a group of reformers led by the finance minister, Pravin Gordhan. It is a high-stakes drama that has profound implications for the country’s beleaguered economy at a time when the international rating agencies are circling, smelling blood.
In a potentially seminal moment in this unfolding soap opera, the deputy finance minister, Mcebisi Jonas, has issued an extraordinary public statement claiming that a business group close to the president offered him the job of finance minister late last year.
At the heart of the political economy that now surrounds Zuma, and which Gordhan has set out his stall to confront, lies the infamous Gupta family – Indian expats with wide-ranging business interests spanning tech, mining, uranium and the media.
Jonas’ statement said he was contacted by the Guptas and offered the finance ministry job before Zuma summarily dismissed Nhlanhla Nene, the respected incumbent, in December and replaced him with a rank non-entity ANC backbencher, David van Rooyen. The fall-out was so shocking that local reporters and commentators now refer to it as “9/12”.
Jonas says he declined the offer out of hand because only the president has the constitutional authority to appoint cabinet ministers.
Pro-democracy group the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution said his disclosure showed the extent to which the country is under threat from a patronage network that has grown ever more insidious since Zuma came to power in 2009.
To understand the significance of the moment, it is necessary to take at least two steps back.
Like Brazil and Russia, South Africa’s ANC-led government has struggled to offer convincing evidence that it has not run out of ideas in the fight against structural economic constraints which limit the prospects for the growth needed to reduce poverty and inequality.
This growing gap between haves and have-nots threatens stability and adds to the sense of social precariousness and racial unease increasingly at play in Africa’s second-biggest economy.
The international investment community and other market analysts have looked on as South Africa dug itself ever deeper into a rut, asking what it might take for the country to propel itself ahead of other emerging market economies.
The answer came, ironically, from Zuma himself. Regarded as a large part of the problem because he has allowed himself to be captured by vested commercial interests, such as the Guptas, it was Zuma who dropped the bombshell on 9/12. The ripple effects will be felt for a long time to come.
First, it woke up the “silent majority” within the ANC’s moderate middle and social democratic left. Asked on the evening of Nene’s dismissal what the ANC thought of the decision, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe replied: “The ANC has no comment because the ANC was not consulted.”
This was the first of a number of seminal, game-changing moments. Mantashe, a key powerbroker within the ruling party, and crucial to the organisational structures and power that will determine who succeeds Zuma, was furious. It was immediately apparent that Zuma had made an enormous political error of judgement.
Never mind the reaction of the markets, which for the remaining two days of that tumultuous week battered the currency and South African bonds. Zuma had committed a cardinal sin. He had failed to consult the fellow leaders of his party, showing just how desperate he was to please his benefactors and serve his own interests.
Nene had stood up to Zuma on a number of highly controversial issues, including restructuring and governance of the state-owned airline South African Airways and the procurement of nuclear power, where Zuma, his relatives and friends, such as the Guptas, have vested interests that need protection.
As a result Nene was fired and replaced by a political weakling who would be beholden to Zuma and, apparently, the Guptas. On his first and – so it would turn out – only day in the National Treasury, Van Rooyen turned up with two advisers in the pay of the Gupta family.
Within four days Zuma had been forced to replace Van Rooyen with Gordhan, who served as finance minister during Zuma’s first administration between 2009 and 2014. Senior ANC leaders, such as Mantashe and the increasingly influential treasurer-general, Zweli Mkhize, had made it clear to Zuma that what he had done was politically unacceptable.
So Gordhan returned to the treasury with far stronger political backing than previously, and remains all but unsackable. Going into the new year the country was asking: who runs the government - the president or the finance minister?
Within minutes of Zuma’s state of the nation address on February 11, the answer was clear. The treasury was back at the helm.
Gordhan’s budget speech that followed shortly afterwards was a political masterpiece. He managed to do enough to suggest that South Africa would avoid a rating agency downgrade to junk status – at least until December. He also offered glimpses of the sort of innovation needed to propel a stubbornly sluggish economy towards growth.
It was an act of political leadership. Gordhan made it clear that state-owned enterprises would be reformed and new rules brought in to prevent “predatory” attempts to capture state institutions for the purposes of self-enrichment.
In response, Zuma resorted to type. He reignited an old investigation against Gordhan over a so-called “rogue” unit established by the South African tax service while he was commissioner more than a decade ago. Using loyal placemen at the revenue services and the Hawks, a specialist investigative unit within the police, Zuma has waged a proxy war against Gordhan for nearly a month.
Gordhan seems to be up for the fight. He refused to answer the 27 questions that the Hawks sent to him until he was ready to do so, saying he could not be distracted from either his preparations for the budget nor a whirlwind roadshow in which he met investors, fund managers and market analysts in London, New York and Boston.
Two days after his budget speech the Hawks leaked information about their investigation of Gordhan, clearly an attempt to undermine the finance minister who has emerged as the head of a reformist, progressive consortium within the government and the ANC that is opposed to Zuma..
In response to the leak, the ANC heavyweights responded with unusual speed. Mantashe provided a public statement of unequivocal support for Gordhan, indicating just how the balance of power is shifting away from Zuma.
But in this high-stakes game of chicken, both sides have to step carefully along the tightrope that lies ahead of them towards the ANC’s national conference at the end of 2017 when the next ANC leader – and hence the country’s next president – will be chosen.
Any misstep could lead to disaster. If Zuma refuses to give ground, Gordhan may have to resign or push harder, forcing the president into a corner where he may be forced to lash out and cause even more collateral damage.
If Zuma pushes back too hard against Gordhan, or fires him, then the ANC heavyweights may have to lead a full revolt against Zuma that would lead to his “recall” – the fate that befell former president Thabo Mbeki in September 2008, when the ANC leadership ruled that he should resign after a court judgment suggesting he had interfered in a prosecution of Zuma himself.
The charges against Zuma were suddenly dropped in March 2009, a month before he was elected president. This decision is currently before the courts, and if it goes against him it would be another wound in his side.
With the ANC’s electoral domination likely to be challenged for the first time in important cities such as Johannesburg, Pretoria and Port Elizabeth in municipal elections in the middle of the year, it may be that the party will face the prospect of removing Zuma ahead of the end of his term – as ANC president in 2017 and South African president in 2019.
Zuma will fight to the very end; that much is clear. Jonas’s act of principled leadership is a further milestone in a gripping political narrative and adds significantly to the case against the president. Thanks for reading.
Four Britons 'held in Kenya for taking pictures at airport'
Four Britons have been detained in Kenya on suspicion of terror offences after taking pictures in an airport, according to reports.
The men were arrested in Nairobi and taken for questioning after sparking the terror alert on 12 March, the Sun said.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are in contact with Kenyan authorities following the arrest of four British nationals and are ready to provide consular assistance.”
The men, named as Ian Glover, 46, Steve Gibson, 60, Eddie Swift and Paul Abbott, both 47, are said to have been taking photos of planes taking off at Nairobi’s Wilson airport while they sat in a bar.
It is understood they thought they had been granted permission from airport officials, but were arrested by police.
The four appeared in court on Monday and were remanded in custody for a week charged with using a mobile phone app to monitor flights and trespassing, the Sun said.
Swift’s brother, Peter, told the newspaper: “Eddie and his mates are just chaps who like taking pictures of planes. It’s a very worrying time.”
He added: “It’s blindingly obvious they weren’t doing anyone any harm and weren’t plotting anything. None of them would harm a fly.” Thanks for reading
Many Egyptian pilgrims killed in Saudi Arabia bus crash
At least 19 people have been killed and 25 injured after a bus filled with Egyptian pilgrims crashed in Saudi Arabia, according to Egyptian media reports.
The bus was carrying 43 Egyptians and a driver whose nationality is not yet known when it overturned, Mena, Egypt’s state news agency, reported. The passengers included two children, Egypt’s tourism ministry said.
The bus is reported to have been travelling on a road between Medina and Mecca at the time of the crash. Pilgrims were performing umrah, a smaller Muslim pilgrimage that, unlike the annual hajj pilgrimage, can be done at any time of the year.
It comes just days after 16 Palestinian pilgrims were killed when their bus crashed in a remote southern area of Jordan on its way from the West Bank to Saudi Arabia.
. Thanks for reading
The bus was carrying 43 Egyptians and a driver whose nationality is not yet known when it overturned, Mena, Egypt’s state news agency, reported. The passengers included two children, Egypt’s tourism ministry said.
The bus is reported to have been travelling on a road between Medina and Mecca at the time of the crash. Pilgrims were performing umrah, a smaller Muslim pilgrimage that, unlike the annual hajj pilgrimage, can be done at any time of the year.
It comes just days after 16 Palestinian pilgrims were killed when their bus crashed in a remote southern area of Jordan on its way from the West Bank to Saudi Arabia.
. Thanks for reading
