Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Interior, Dr. Magdalene Ajani in a statement on Monday in Abuja said the Minister of Interior, Dr. Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, made the declaration on behalf of the Federal Government.

According to her, the minister extended warm greetings to all Nigerians, urging them to use the festive period to reflect on the values of love, peace, and unity that the season signifies.

Dr. Tunji-Ojo emphasized the importance of the season as a time to foster harmony and strengthen bonds across families and communities.

The Minister also called on Nigerians to remain committed to the peace, unity and progress of the nation for national development.

“The Christmas season is a good moment for both spiritual reflection and national renewal. As we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, let us demonstrate kindness and extend goodwill to one another, irrespective of our differences,” said Dr. Tunji-Ojo.

He assured citizens of the Federal Government’s continued commitment to ensuring peace, security, and prosperity across the nation.

“While wishing Nigerians a merry Christmas and a prosperous 2025, the Minister expressed his confidence in the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Tinubu’s Administration ushering in the new year, a better and prosperous economy that will be the envy of the world”, the statement added.

The post Breaking: FG Declares 3-Day Public Holidays appeared first on Daily Dates Nigeria.

In a press release issued on Sunday by Special Adviser to the President on Media & Publicity, Chief Ajuri Ngelale, Television, radio, and other electronic media outlets are enjoined to plug into the network services of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s broadcast.

The broadcast will be repeated on the network services of the NTA and the FRCN at 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm on the same day.

The post Tinubu To Address Nigerians On Sunday Amid #EndBadGovernance Protests appeared first on Daily Dates Nigeria.

Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced this in Abuja on Thursday, Daily Dates Nigeria reports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had announced a military operation in Ukraine on Thursday with explosions heard soon after across the country and its foreign minister warning a “full-scale invasion” was underway.

Weeks of intense diplomacy and the imposition of Western sanctions on Russia failed to deter Putin, who had massed between 150,000 and 200,000 troops along the borders of Ukraine.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been reassured by the Nigerian Embassy in Ukraine of the safety of Nigerians in that country and measures being undertaken to keep them safe and facilitate the evacuation of those who wish to leave.

“The Federal Government wishes to assure the families with loved ones in Ukraine that as soon as the airports in the country are opened, it would assist in facilitating the evacuation of Nigerians who are willing to leave.

“In the meantime, the Nigerian Mission has confirmed that military action by the Russians has been confined to military installations.”

Earlier, the House of Representatives had called for the immediate evacuation of Nigerians in Ukraine.

The lawmakers were concerned there are many Nigerian students in Ukraine who could be caught in the crossfire.

The motion was moved by representative Ahmed Munir during the plenary on Thursday.

But some lawmakers feared that it may be too late as the evacuation should have been done long ago.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, agreed with a lawmaker, Leke Abejide, to interact with the Chairman of Air Peace, Allen Onyema to evacuate Nigerians from Ukraine by Monday, February 28.

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs was then mandated to liaise with the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

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INEC’s Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye in a statement said: “the CVR online pre-registration portal was launched at 7 am on Monday, June 28, 2021. By 7 am, June 29, 2021, twenty-four hours after the launch, 59,331 accounts were created. Within the same period, 42,211 applications were received out of which 27,759 individuals applied for new voter pre-registration services.

“11, 177 requested for voter review record; 1, 669 applied for voter transfer; 853 asked for information update; 335 applied for replacement of lost or damaged PVCs; while 418 applicants requested for uncollected PVCs. These statistics have been uploaded to the commission’s website and social media platforms.”

He assured citizens that the commission will provide them weekly updates on the activities on the portal and the online registration status.

The statement read further, “It is imperative to remind Nigerians that physical CVR will commence on 19th July 2021 at INEC state and local government offices nationwide. Those that are unable to register online will be attended to from the scheduled date. Every eligible Nigerian will have an opportunity to register. The CVR process will continue for at least one year.

“Scheduled appointments for online registrants will also begin on July 19, 2021, while the commencement date for physical CVR in all the 2, 673 registration centres nationwide will be determined based on the evaluation of the security situation in the country.

“We encourage those that can register online to do so, while all other Nigerians will commence their registration on the 19th July 2021.”

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Daily Dates Nigeria recalls that the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) had planned nationwide Democracy Day protest on June 12.

The National public relations officer of NANS, Comr. Ezenagu Victor while addressing Journalists in a press conference to mark Nigeria’s Democracy Day in Enugu, South-East, Nigeria, said the student body suspended the protest immediately it discovered that some politicians with different agendas had perfected plans to hijack the protest to cause mayhem in the country.

Victor explained that NANS seriously believed in the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) which had helped to reduce the frequency of students nationwide protests.

He also noted that the suspension of the protest is necessary to avoid a clash of interest and clash with security agencies that are on red alert to protect the nation’s infrastructures from security breaches on the proposed date as a result of many other protests slated for the same date.

He said, “All along, we chose June 12th as a day all Nigerian students would come out to protest against the insecurity in the country, especially the serial abductions of students. Very close to the planned date, some politicians with different agendas fixed their protest on the same day and demanding that “President Buhari must go”. Because that was not our plan, we decided to suspend the protest.

“Talking about the allegation of taking bribe from the federal government to suspend the planned protest, If we were bribed to stop the protest, we wouldn’t have been cruder in addressing this administration as a failed one.

“Obviously, Nigerians and Nigerian students are livid and irate because our joy has been turned to sorrows and our hearts broken by the pain and brutality that our fellow students have suffered in recent times ranging from the abduction of students of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, #ABU 7, to the abduction of over 20 students of Greenfield University, down to Niger State and several other states. So many students have also lost their lives as a result of the clashes between the security agents and unknown gun men which have led to Nigerian students living in perpetual fear.

“Painfully, we live in a nation where students numbering over 200 can be easily kidnapped and taken out of their schools/town without any form of resistance from the security agencies, this calls for serious concern. We have waited so long for the security around schools to be greatly improved to ensure our students are secured but we have seen little or no improvement.

“These incessant cases of banditry, herdsmen attacks, operations of the unknown gunmen and kidnapping of our students call for a radical and urgent move by the government to salvage the situation. We have been daunted by the unending news of killings across the length and breadth of the nation such that death appears normal in our society today. These developments are not only unacceptable; they portend great dangers to the very essence of our national unity, progress and development”.

He said it was unacceptable for the nation to be celebrating democracy “when the masses cannot enjoy the dividends of democracy.

He also called on the governments at all levels to rise up to the occasion and secure the lives and property of Nigerians which is their first and most important constitutional duty.

The post NANS Reveals Why Planned Protest Was Suspended appeared first on Daily Dates Nigeria.

The president traveled a day before the National Association of Resident Doctors, (NARD), went on strike to push home their request for improved services in the nation’s health sector. The president is also reputed to have spoken vehemently against foreign medical trips by rich Nigerians during the tenure of his predecessors. He wondered aloud why Nigerians should devote their resources to seek medical attention abroad while leaving the nation’s health sector comatose. Almost six years after, it is “audible to the deaf, and visible to the blind” (apology to Patrick Obahiagbon), that president Buhari’s words were the usual political rhetorics anchored on deceit to hoodwink the hapless voters. Those words have become the subject of hypocrisy.

A man who does not care about his legacy will certainly go down in history, as the worst President, that Nigeria has ever had.

I am yet to draw my conclusion about president Buhari’s neglect of the health sector even to the point that the Aso Clinic that is designed to cater to the first family has been literarily abandoned.

I am yet to lay my hands on any plausible explanation as to the reason why this Buhari presidency had invested so little in a sector that he so much criticized during his campaigns. What is wrong if the president decides to revamp the health sector and make real his promise to avoid foreign medical trips? Why is it difficult for a man of supposed “integrity” to fulfill his promise of helping to stop foreign medical tourism and save Nigerians huge capital flight? Why is it difficult to replicate back home the services he often gets each time he embarks on these numerous foreign medical trips? It is becoming more like playing “kalo-kalo” with Nigerians; his wife returns from Dubai, then he took his turn to London. And just imagining the protests in London against his continued stay, gives me a thought for concern and heightens the urge for a more holistic intervention in the health sector back home. If our hospitals were in good shape, will the president find his present obsession for medical tourism? Following his initial condemnation of foreign medical trips, will it not be right to accuse him of a double standard? Is he not guilty as charged? He has stayed outside the country for medical reasons more than any public officer in recent times. It is a shame!

Nigeria, under President Buhari, has become a country drifting aimlessly like a ship on the high seas, inching ever so slowly towards a gigantic iceberg with a Captain in a seemingly drunken stupor, at the wheels. A captain either totally oblivious of the impending danger or is indeed on a suicide mission, with innocent lives at stake. A president who seems either disconnected from the plight of the people or totally incapable of showing any empathy for those he is sworn to serve.

It is becoming more like playing “kalo-kalo” with Nigerians; his wife returns from Dubai, then he took his turn to London.

A President in a true state of utter confusion apparently unwilling to take responsibility for the oath of office he swore to uphold. It makes one wonder if the sole purpose of pursuing the Presidency was simply the allure and trappings of the office of the President. While poverty is on the rise, anarchy brews in the forests, and a select few vicious vultures, waiting in the wings, ever ready to feed on the spoils that the vacuum of an absent leader creates. As the incompetence lingers, exploitation increases, bandits and kidnappers are emboldened, with monetary rewards, while the enduring flock is fed with false hope by advocating more patience. Patience for what? For the fraud on the Nigerian people to be perfected or for the incoherent President to finally regain consciousness?

But the question is when is it time to draw the line in the sand and demand accountability from a failed government?. What compounds the problem is that he is surrounded by enablers, who have no regard for the country and are strictly in power for self-enrichment. The enablers will do everything in their power to keep the President in a state of “mental paralysis” as it serves their purpose.

The President is bereft of all qualities that would have made him a good leader. He has absolutely no clear vision for the country and to date has not and is not capable of articulating what his goals are for the nation he serves. Aside from a lack of a well-defined vision, he is sorely lacking in communication skills. The only communication skill he seems to exhibit is how to seek foreign medical attention.

In addition, he obviously lacks crisis management skills, a key prerequisite for a strong, problem-solving leader in a contemporary world. He has shown time and time again that he is incapable of uniting this nation, eradicating domestic terrorism, and has zero interest in doing so. He cannot engage in constructive dialogue with his own cabinet on the way forward for this country, let alone give regular updates on the state of affairs of the nation. He makes all his predecessors look like saints and to say that his presidency has been a dismal failure is putting it lightly. A man who does not care about his legacy will certainly go down in history, as the worst President, that Nigeria has ever had.

The protests going on in London are part of the symptoms of failed leadership, the reason why leaders must ensure at all times that they live above board in delivering their responsibilities. If President Buhari had delivered on the promise, we won’t see such rejection by his own nationals in another man’s country. They would rather celebrate him and play good hosts to him as a responsible president. But his failures have become his Achilles heels haunting his past and present and preparing the way for his awful tomorrow. President Buhari would have emerged as the luckiest president in Nigeria if he was able to exploit the leadership gap he inherited, and consolidate on the opportunities around, to fulfill the expectations captured in the APC manifesto, chief of which is restructuring. Trying to play smart, he created his own manifesto in his heart, abandoned his party in the first three years, and ran Nigeria aground simultaneously. The equation of a united Nigeria began to whither away, assuming a frightening dimension, each zone talking about secession and self-determination. Protest after the protest, Nigerians keep the agonizing day in, day out as life rapidly becomes cheaper. The killing field is getting wider and wider, the killers multiplying in geometric proportion, and the stream of blood flowing from the North to the South. Our wailings are drenched in the sea of voices as our president who should offer succor is hibernating in the inner comfort of the Queen’s Orchard, “unaware” of our sullen predicament.

I have this sober feeling that president Buhari surely needs help from us, but he should be humble enough to so declare. Instead of allowing sycophantic aides to continue to glorify his failures, and calling them achievements, the president should seek penitence from a populace that has become victims of his incapacitation. Anybody can fall ill. It is nothing to celebrate about. But not being able to solve the problems for which you were so avuncular, becomes an unpardonable sin against humanity. And the neglect of the health sector is a handy reference. And for me, the Buhari presidency has since become a retirement package for him, enabled by conquistadorial aides, plowing our till and stealing our collective patrimony.

The Vice President is kept in abeyance, seen as a suspect to the throne. The president carries with him the aphrodisiac of the villa, clutching at it with religious fervor to imprint his maximum rulership. That is surely not how to cultivate power or its allure. Nigeria is burning every day. From Owerri in Imo state to the far North, it is one killing after another. The Airforce is still searching for the Alpha Jet in its pockets, churning out all manner of analysis to put a lie on Boko Haram claims, but the remnants of that plane have refused to surface.

This is Nigeria of anything goes, but the unconscionable minds have no place to hide anymore. That is why President Buhari is being ridiculed and humiliated in London, but like a man in medical trouble and trauma, he appears helpless to do otherwise. If I were in his shoes, I will join the next available flight to Nigeria and declare an emergency in the health sector. But under President Buhari, that won’t happen. The moral lesson is that there is no hiding place for the good, the bad, and ugly leaders. Not any more!.

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