The African Democratic Congress, ADC, on Tuesday questioned who is exercising Nigeria’s presidential powers as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima remain outside the country. The opposition party said Tinubu’s absence had crossed the 21-day period referenced in Section 145 of the Constitution, raising questions over whether the constitutional procedure for transferring presidential functions had been followed. In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC asked whether Tinubu had transmitted the required written declaration to the President of the Senate and Speaker of the House of Representatives. “President Tinubu left Nigeria on 30 August and has now been away for more than 21 days. We therefore demand to know whether the required declaration was transmitted by the President. If he did not, we would like to know why the National Assembly has ignored Section 145 of the Constitution,” the ADC said. The party...
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has urged Nigeria to tap its agricultural potential instead of relying heavily on imports. According to him, part of the reason Nigeria is poor is because it has failed to properly harness agricultural production. The former president spoke during an interview on C-Suite Cafe, hosted by Ikem Okuhu. He said Nigeria has the land, water, rainfall and human resources needed to produce enough to meet its needs and create wealth. “Give me one reason why Nigeria should be poor. Is it the land that we don’t have or the desert that we are in or the people that we don’t have or the water that we don’t have or the rain that we don’t have?” he said. Obasanjo cited his experience during his tenure as chairman of the African Union, when he travelled to Guinea-Bissau with John Kufuor, then chairman of the Economic Community of West African States. According to him, the two leaders observed that the country had abundant agricultural resources but relied o...