By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

Two and a half months from a general election, political surrogates have become Nigeria’s hommes du jour. These are people trusted to represent or advocate the positions and platforms of principals running for office. They inhabit many spaces and perform in many theatres.

Political surrogates are not supposed to be found presiding over courts of law as judges. Nigeria’s constitution prohibits that. It requires in section 36(1) that courts should be “constituted in such manner as to secure their independence and impartiality.” A court presided over by a political surrogate would surely be devoid of the constitutive standards of independence and impartiality.

Put differently, a judge who acts as a surrogate for a political party or politician is unlawful.

There was a time when it was a common law crime to even dare to suggest that a judge could be a party-political surrogate. This arose in an interesting case decided by the High Court of Australia on 7 June 1911.

Two months earlier, on 7 April 1911, a newspaper, The Mercury, in Hobart, Tasmania, published an article under the title “A Modest Judge”. It took aim at Mr Justice Higgins, a senior judge of the High Court of Australia who was also the first President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration.

According to the records, in a case presided over by Justice Higgins in the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, a lawyer, Mr Starke, accused a labour union of impunity, alleging that “they are encouraged…. by the government of this country.” On hearing this, Justice Higgins prohibited the lawyer from uttering such words. When counsel protested his right to vigorously advance the case of his client, the judge retorted “(Y)ou are not entitled to speak disrespectfully of those above us.”

In response, The Mercury wrote of Justice Higgins that he was “we believe, what is called a political Judge, that is, he was appointed because he had well served a political party. He, moreover, seems to know his position, and does not mean to allow any reflections on those to whom he may be said to be indebted for his judgeship.”

The Attorney-General of Australia charged the newspaper with the common law crime of “scandalizing the judiciary.” Dismissing the charge, Samuel Walker Griffith, Australia’s inaugural Chief Justice, decided: “I am not prepared to accede to the proposition that an imputation of want of impartiality to a Judge is necessarily a contempt of Court. On the contrary, I think that, if any judge of this Court or of any other Court were to make a public utterance of such character as to be likely to impair the confidence of the public, or of suitors or any class of suitors in the impartiality of the Court in any matter likely to be brought before it, any public comment on such an utterance, if it were a fair comment, would, so far from being a contempt of Court, be for the public benefit, and would be entitled to similar protection to that which comment upon matters of public interest is entitled under the law of libel.”

Nigeria’s judiciary began as wholly-owned surrogates of the Royal Niger Company in the last quarter of the 19th century. Frederick Lugard, who served the Imperial British East African Company (IBEAC) in colonial Uganda before joining the staff of the Royal Niger Company, liked things that way and said clearly enough in his Amalgamation report in 1919 that he preferred his judges beholden to the executive.

After independence, the early politicians desired to continue this trend. Ladoke Akintola, then regional premier, suffered disappointment in his expectation that, Samuel Okhai Quashie-Idun, Chief Justice at the onset of the political crisis in the old Western Region in 1961, should have been his judicial surrogate.

In the 1980s, the military regime of Ibrahim Babangida recalibrated judicial appointments to advance judicial surrogates for military rule. By 1989, then Chief Judge of Lagos State, Ligali Ayorinde, ruled that the soldiers had become constitutional Kabiyesi.

It could, nevertheless, be said then that most judges under military rule in Nigeria appeared largely inclined to do right most of the time. Those who wanted to turn themselves into surrogates for the ruling soldiers were the exception, not the rule.

Today, the reverse seems to be the case, especially in the High Courts, including at the state level, the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, and the Federal High Court. In many of these courts, the preservation of judicial integrity has been replaced with the pursuit of judicial impunity, and it can safely be said today that there are many judges in Nigeria who do “not mean to allow any reflections on those to whom [they] may be said to be indebted for [their] judgeship.”

In many court systems, some parties can now pick and choose their own judge. The charges in the trial of senior lawyer, Joseph Nwobike, leading to his conviction in the High Court in 2018 were that he specialised in “inducing court registrars to ensure that his cases were assigned to his preferred judges so he could obtain favourable judgments.” Nwobike, the charges read, also offered bribes to Mohammed Yinusa (now late) and Hyeladzira Nganjiwa, both judges of the Federal High Court. The Supreme Court set aside his conviction on a technicality but did not overrule these findings of fact.

The Federal High Court and the FCT High Court have become notorious as two forums where judicial careers get waylaid into political surrogacy.

In the Federal High Court system, for instance, the assignment of political cases now follows a predictable pattern. Political cases routinely end up before a settled slate of judges.

With astonishing insouciance, two young judges from the class of October 2023 appointments to the Federal High Court, for instance, have now established themselves as ambitious members of this gang of judicial surrogates of known political interests. One is in Lagos. Another is in Abuja. The political cases go to them thick and fast. Their decisions almost routinely read like judicial scandals on Steroids.

Obviously, the only reason these cases keep being assigned in this way is because the Chief Judge who does the case assignment is himself unperturbed that his conduct makes him a judicial surrogate of known political interests.

There was an example of this in a case in the High Court of Anambra State in the past year. The judge was relatively young on the bench. The case was primed by political paymasters. It concerned a high-profile statutory office, a matter over which the National Industrial Court of Nigeria has exclusive jurisdiction.

This was a matter in which the State High Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, and the plaintiff manifestly lacked standing. The judge surely knew this. It was instituted on 15 September 2025. The judge handed down his judgment exactly 10 days later, granting mutually contradictory orders that he had no power to. It is one of those judgments that give you the vibe of having been drafted anywhere but in the judge’s chambers or study.

These are the kinds of things that destroy judicial careers even before they begin. Stanley Nnaji, the now late judge of the High Court of Enugu State was an early judicial surrogate of politicians in the Peoples’ Democratic Party when the party was in power. It cost him.

The archetype among this species was Wilson Egbo-Egbo, the former judge of the Federal High Court, who, in a unique season of judicial rampage 23 years ago, single-handedly and “ex parte installed a Senate President, impeached a Governor, replaced this Governor with his deputy, and [carried] on with the air of a judicial untouchable.”

At the beginning of the new judicial year last month, Chief Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun pleaded for judges to be spared from “personal attacks, ridicule, threats and harassment.” That comes with the responsibility on the part of the National Judicial Council (NJC) that she heads to take strong and urgent measures, especially in this political season, to stop this growing rabble of wholly-owned judicial surrogates of known politicians. They must not sit on election petition tribunals. If the NJC proves unwilling or unable to accomplish this, then the only avenue left to citizens is to treat them as political hustlers or unlawful judges.A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu

By Phrank Shaibu

Thunderous Nationwide Jubilation, As “Incoming President” Atiku Abubakar Announces The End Of The Era Of Band A, B, C, D And E Electricity Tariffs System, The End Of VAT On Electricity, And The End Of 5 Percent Surcharge On Fossil Fuels In The Nigeria Tax Act; Declares That Under The Atiku 2027 Presidency, “No Nigerian Family Will Have To Weigh The Cost Of Electricity Against The Cost Of Food, And No Business Will Be Left To Pay More, While Receiving Less Electricity”

The 2027 Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has on Sunday night, accused the All Progressives Congress, APC, 2027 Presidential Campaign Council, PCC, of trying to cover-up President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s unfulfilled Electricity promise, with Laws, Committees, Bonds and Projects; declaring that it will not work, ahead of the 2027 Presidential election.

In a statement by Phrank Shaibu, the Director of Strategic Communication of the ADC 2027 Presidential Campaign Council, PCC, Atiku warned that the ruling party should stop celebrating paperwork, while Nigerian homes and businesses remain in darkness.

According to him, after three and a half years, Nigerian families still struggle to light their homes, while small businesses spend heavily on alternative Power supply.

His exact words: “Nigerians are billed for Electricity they cannot rely on. President Tinubu promised steady Power and an end to estimated billing. That promise has not been kept.”

The ADC Presidential Candidate speaking further, faulted the Electricity Tariffs Band System, where Nigerians in Bands A, B, C, D and E, pay different rates and receive different hours of Power supply daily; with Band A paying about ₦209.50 per unit before VAT in many areas, but still suffer the same blackout as the rest of the other lesser Bands.

Atiku declared: “No family should have to weigh the cost of Electricity against the cost of food. No business should be left to pay more, while receiving less.”

He questioned the President Tinubu Federal Government’s plan to end Electricity subsidies from 2027, while claiming no immediate tariff hike; and vowed to work with the State Governments and Regulators, under his 2027 Presidency, to abolish the Band System, and replace it with a fair, transparent and affordable framework, instead.

Atiku recalled President Tinubu’s 2022 promise: “If I do not give you constant Electricity for four years, when I come back for a second term, do not vote for me”; saying that, Nigerians have now lived through those four years, and can judge for themselves.

The former Vice President noted that the President Tinubu administration has not built any new generation infrastructure to increase capacity, but has floated a multi-trillion naira Bond, to settle old debts owed to Generating Companies, GenCos, without showing how it improved supply.

“Paying old debts is not the same as building new power infrastructure. Bonds cannot be presented as a substitute for Power in people’s homes”, Atiku said.

He also faulted the VAT on Electricity and the 5 percent surcharge on fossil fuels in the Nigeria Tax Act.

Atiku concluded: “Dele Alake’s statement cannot light a home. Signing a Law is not Electricity. Raising a Bond is not Electricity. Nigerians cannot cook, study, work, or sustain a business, on announcements. What they seek is simple: Reliable Electricity they can afford, and a government that keeps its word.”

#AtikuIsForThePeople #TheAtikuMovement

The Federal Government of Nigeria/ International Fund for Agricultural Development assisted Value Chain Development Programme (FGN/ IFAD—VCDP) has distributed empowerment items to benefiting People With Disabilities (PWDs) in Ebonyi state.

The State Programme Coordinator (SPC) of FGN/ IFAD—VCDP, Chief Sunday Ituma said that though the programme has been supporting farmers through various interventions, it gives special support to the PWDs. christened “People With Determination”.

Ituma said the programme encourages the PWDs not to see their physical conditions as barrier to achieving greatness in life, as they can still attain every desired status in life.

“We are empowering you to stand financially because we believe that it is not necessarily how big the support is, instead aim big but start small.

“The programme conducted necessary Needs Assessment before supporting you with the items as the Rural Institution Gender Youth Mainstreaming Officer (RIGYMO) was mandated to call you individually to ascertain your actual needs.

“The items given to you might not be up to what you desire but it is meant to jump–start you to attain economic vialbility.”

The SPC noted that the support was to enable the beneficiaries grow in their various businesses and advised them to make judicious use of the items.

“We expect that by the time we come to assess how far you have faired next year, we would get encouraging results of how you have succeeded in your various businesses.”.

The Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources in Ebonyi, Mrs Nkechinyere Iyioku, thanked the FGN/ IFAD–VCDP for its various interventions which have greatly supported farmers in the state.

Iyioku represented by the Director of Livestock and Fisheries in the ministry, Mrs Ngozi–Emeka Anosike urged the beneficiries to thank God for the gift of the FGN/ IFAD–VCDP which has been used to empower them and make them economically sel-sustaining.

“You did not succumb to societal pressure occasioned by your physical conditions but stood tall and reaping the fruit now .

“I tbank the wonder working Governor of Ebonyi state, Rt. Hon Francis Nwifuru for his support to the FGN/ IFAD—VCDP which has brought several life-enriching interventions to Ebonyi farners.

“I also thank the SPC of FGN/ IFAD–VCDP in the state; a man who knows how to do what he knows best and the management for their sterling works in the state agricultural sector,.”

The RIGYMO of the FGN/ IFAD—VCDP in Ebonyi, Mrs Fransisca Anya said the day was special for the PWDs as it shows the programme has them in mind and committed towards uplifting them.

Anya advised the beneficiries to make judicious use of the items so that there would positive outcomes and reports when the programme comes to asses their performances.

“Those who got one–stop agro food shop for instance should not consume them but use them as starting points to successful business endeavours.”

Mr Patrick Udu, a beneficiary from Edda Local Government Area (LGA) thanked the programme for remembering them in their time of need and pledged to judiciously utilise the items.

The items distributed to the PWDs include: bags of general purpose grinding machines, one–stop agro food shop, cassava pounder, generators, Point of Sales (POS) machines etc .

Some renewable energy associations have called for stronger collaboration among industry stakeholders to build a more coordinated and effective African renewable energy market.

They made the call at a news conference in Lagos on Thursday, ahead of the Renewable Energy Forum Africa (REFA) 2026, scheduled for Nov. 25 and 26 in Lagos.

The forum is organised by the African Solar Industry Association (AFSIA).

Mr Lamide Niyi-Afuye, Chief Executive Officer of the Africa Mini-grid Developers Association (AMDA), said that collaboration among associations was essential to addressing shared industry challenges and expanding access to electricity.

He said that Africa’s renewable energy ambition should go beyond providing electricity connections to supporting economic growth, industrialisation and job creation.

Niyi-Afuye explained that reliable electricity would enable farmers to process and preserve produce, help businesses increase production and improve access to healthcare, education and digital services.

He said that the success of Africa’s energy transition should be measured not only by the number of people connected to electricity but also by jobs created, businesses supported, incomes improved and economic value generated.

He noted that national grids, mini-grids, standalone systems and other distributed renewable energy solutions all had important roles to play, depending on local needs, affordability and available economic opportunities.

Also speaking, Mr Benjamin Clarke, Director of Operations at AFSIA, said that collaboration among developers, equipment manufacturers, governments, regulators, financial institutions and industry associations was necessary to make renewable energy projects attractive to investors.

He said that the stakeholders had complementary roles in developing investment-friendly policies, providing funding and ensuring that decisions reflected market realities.

Clarke said that collaboration among industry associations had contributed to the development of Nigeria’s mini-grid regulations, adding that mini-grids were increasingly recognised as essential infrastructure rather than temporary solutions.

He said that Nigeria’s longstanding electricity deficit required stakeholders to explore different approaches to expanding supply.

Miss Esther Eyenobong, Senior Sales Manager, West Africa, at Jinko Solar, said that about 86 million Nigerians still lacked access to electricity.

She said that the company was introducing modern solar technology designed to meet the country’s energy needs.

By Aare Amerijoye DOT.B

Àgbà kì í wà lọ́jà kí orí ọmọ tuntun wọ́. An elder does not sit in the market and watch a newborn’s head get twisted.

The elders of the South West are in the market. They have read the Sunday PUNCH report on the “marginalisation” of the ADC in this zone. They have watched a few men try to twist the head of a campaign that is only beginning to stand up. And they will not stay silent.

Read the report twice. The first time it reads like an indictment. The second time you see what it is: a rumour wearing a tie. Every charge in it is anonymous. Every person who agreed to be named rejected the charge. That is not a crisis in the ADC. It is a handful of men who lack the courage to speak in the open, borrowing a newspaper’s front page to say it for them.

FIVE ACCUSERS, NOT ONE FACE

Count them. “One of the governorship candidates.” “An ADC leader.” “A party official.” “Some ADC insiders.” “An ADC House of Assembly candidate in Ekiti.”

Five accusers, and not one face. Five complaints, and not one signature.

Now count those who gave their names. The Lagos State Chairman, George Ashiru, said there has been no sidelining. The Osun State chapter, through its Publicity Secretary, Oluwaseun Abosede, said there is no rancour and that the party is following a deliberate roadmap. Atiku’s Director of Strategic Communication, Dr Phrank Shaibu, called the claim untrue and described it as opposition conjecture.

The only complainant who gave his name, Adewole Ijaogbomo, did not accuse Atiku at all. His quarrel was with “some individuals” in Lagos whom he suspects of positioning themselves around campaign funds. He even said Atiku “doesn’t want to offend anybody.” When the prosecution’s only named witness testifies to the good character of the accused, the case is over before it has begun.

In the daylight, the party stands with Atiku. In the shadows, a few voices stand against him. Nigerians have learnt to trust the daylight.

A charge that will not sign its name is not a grievance. It is a gamble.

YOU CANNOT BE LOCKED OUT OF A HOUSE THAT HAS NOT BEEN BUILT

The whole story stands on one false foundation: that Atiku has shut the party out of his campaign structure in the South West.

But the report itself admits that the structure does not yet exist. State coordinators have not been announced. State campaign councils have not been constituted or inaugurated. Nobody can be locked out of a house that has not been built.

The accusers also confuse two different institutions. A party executive is not a campaign council. The party owns the platform; the candidate leads the campaign; the campaign council is the strategy engine that drives him to victory. Ashiru said it plainly: its members need not be party executives, and the party’s role is to support it. Demanding that every party officer be written into the campaign team is not party supremacy. It is a request for a seat at a table they do not understand.

And the story undermines itself. It reports that on 5 September, the day after the Ibadan meeting, Atiku met South West ADC leaders virtually, reaffirmed his loyalty to the party, and asked each state to submit 5 party members for appointment to his campaign committee. Then on 17 September the South West state chairmen sat with him in Abuja.

Two meetings in two weeks. Names requested from the party itself. If that is marginalisation, what does engagement look like? The real complaint is not that the party was ignored. It is that the appointments have not yet arrived on the accusers’ timetable.

THE TRANSPORT FARE THAT TOLD THE WHOLE STORY

Every rumour carries one line that gives the game away. In this one it is about transport fare.

A “party official” complained that state chairmen travelled to Abuja to meet their presidential candidate and he did not pay their fares. Read that again. Men who claim to defend the dignity of the party are complaining that the candidate did not hand them money at the door.

State chairmen are officers of the party, and their chapters fund their work. The era when one man carried every financial burden of a political party, down to the fares of its officials, belongs to the moneybag politics Nigerians are trying to bury. Ashiru named it exactly when he spoke of people “so focused on money coming from the presidential candidates.”

Watch how the accusers shift their ground. When Atiku keeps his long-standing allies, they say he is ignoring the party. When he refuses to pay their fares, they say he is starving the party. The constant thread is not the welfare of the ADC. It is access to the candidate’s purse.

Then there is the sneer that Atiku is “just targeting his 25 per cent in the region.” Twenty five per cent is the constitutional floor in two thirds of the states, not the ceiling of a serious man’s ambition. This is the candidate who won Osun in 2023. He is the only Northern candidate in a race where the South West vote is split among Southern contenders. He is not aiming for the floor. He is coming for the house.

Atiku is not trying to survive the South West. He is coming to win it.

ATIKU DOES NOT RENT LOYALTY

The accusers’ deepest complaint is that Atiku works with his friends. Let them hear the answer clearly.

Atiku Abubakar does not rent loyalty. He earns it, and he keeps it. Many of the men and women around him walked with him through dictatorship, exile, betrayal and three decades of storms. He has never left a friend by the roadside to buy a stranger’s applause.

A man who would abandon his friends to please you today would abandon you tomorrow to please someone else. Loyalty is not a weakness in a leader. It is the only guarantee the people have that he will not desert them when power arrives.

A man who discards his friends to please his critics will discard you next.

WE KNOW THE EKITI VOICE

One of the anonymous accusers needs no mask in Ekiti. The report quotes “an ADC House of Assembly candidate in Ekiti” calling the South West ADC dull and claiming “only his friends” are involved in Atiku’s campaign.

We name him, and we name him for a reason. Ekiti State has 26 State Assembly constituencies, and the ADC has a candidate in every one of them. An anonymous jibe from “an ADC House of Assembly candidate in Ekiti” points a finger at all 26. It must not be allowed to stain the 25 who have done nothing but carry Atiku’s message from ward to ward, from market to market, from church to mosque.

Ekiti needs no detective. Only one ADC House of Assembly candidate in Ekiti State has made a habit of attacking our presidential candidate on air. That man is Hon. Gboyega Aribisogan.

He resigned as Ekiti State ADC Publicity Secretary to chase a House of Assembly ticket. Hon. Gbenga Oloninla now holds that office. Yet Hon. Aribisogan still goes on Fresh FM presenting himself as the party’s Publicity Secretary, and uses that borrowed title to cast aspersions on Atiku Abubakar. A man who speaks in the name of an office he has given up has no standing to lecture anyone about respecting party structure.

The other 25 deserve to be seen for what they are. Ekiti’s governorship election is already behind us, so on 6 February 2027 our State Assembly candidates will face the voters with no governorship candidate standing above them on the ticket. In that contest they are, in every practical sense, political orphans. The one great hope in sight is the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as President on 16 January. His victory is the wave that will carry them into the Assembly, and they know it. That is why they are working day and night to take his message to every voter in their constituencies.

Which makes the conduct of one man all the more baffling. An ADC State Assembly candidate in Ekiti who works against Atiku is sawing off the branch on which he and 25 colleagues are sitting.

The party in Ekiti did not send him. The Ekiti campaign is not dull. It has a Coordinator in Prof. Olusola Eleka and a Deputy Coordinator in Chief Hon. Segun Akinwunmi, its doors are open to anyone who comes in to make it more inclusive, and it is at work. What is dull is the ambition of people who want to control the funds for Atiku’s election and hold his fate in the South West at their mercy, and who go on radio to complain when he will not let them.

Twenty five are carrying the message. One is carrying a grudge. Ekiti knows the difference.

LESS THAN 10 PER CENT CANNOT HOLD A PARTY HOSTAGE

The people behind this campaign are not the ADC in the South West. They are not 10 per cent of its members, its leaders or its voters. They are a few aggrieved office seekers who were loud in an Ibadan meeting room and silent when asked to give their names.

A group that small cannot blackmail a presidential candidate into submission, and it will not intimidate this one. Atiku stood with June 12 when standing cost lives. He faced Abacha’s guns and the loneliness of exile. He will not be pushed around by men who sulk about transport fare and feed their sulking to the press.

The real ADC in the South West is the ward member who walks to meetings on her own money, the woman leader in Osogbo, the youth mobiliser in Abeokuta, the artisan in Ado Ekiti, and the trader in Ibadan who has watched the price of everything multiply. They are not asking Atiku for money. They are asking for rescue, and they are organising to deliver it.

A party is not held hostage by the noise of a few. It is carried by the quiet resolve of many.

THE CANDIDATE CHOOSES HIS TEAM

Every presidential candidate in every democracy chooses the people who will run his campaign. That right is not a favour granted by a secretariat. It comes with the burden only the candidate carries: his name is on the ballot, and the verdict on 16 January 2027 will be his.

Atiku has exercised that right openly and within the party. The Presidential Campaign Council was announced on 25 September through the party. The party leadership in the zone has met him in person and online, and the states were asked for nominees. That is a candidate working with the party leadership, not around it.

Asking him to push aside allies who stood with him through every storm so that a few aggrieved voices can feel important is not loyalty to the party. It is jealousy, and jealousy has never won an election.

A CALL TO EVERY LOVER OF ATIKU IN THE SOUTH WEST

Having said all that, let me now speak to the family.

To every lover of Atiku Abubakar in Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti: this is not the season for camps. It is the season for one column, marching in one direction, towards one date.

We came into this coalition from many houses. Some of us came from the old PDP, a few from the APC, a few from the SDP, some from the movements, and some from nowhere but our own convictions. We have different histories, but we have one candidate. Whatever divided us before the ward primaries ended there. What unites us now is larger than any office, any committee list or any meeting room.

To the party executives: you are the backbone of this campaign, and nobody can take that from you. To the support groups and movements: you are its voice and its legs. To the women who organise the markets and the youth who own the timelines: you are its pulse. None of us wins alone. Every one of us loses if we turn on each other.

UNITY OF PURPOSE: LEADERS, CLOSE RANKS

Unity of purpose is not uniformity of opinion. We will not always agree on who should coordinate a ward or whose name should come first on a list. But we must agree on the one thing that matters: on 16 January 2027, Atiku Abubakar must be elected President, and the South West must be counted among the zones that put him there.

This call goes first to the leaders, because followers look at leaders. To our governorship, senatorial, House of Representatives and State Assembly candidates, our party officers, our elders and the founders of our movements: the ward is watching you. When leaders quarrel, the wards quarrel. When leaders close ranks, the wards close ranks.

There is simple arithmetic in this too. Every ADC candidate on the ballot on 6 February 2027 should know that the road to that ballot passes through 16 January. A strong presidential vote is the tide that lifts every boat in the party. Nobody who works against the candidate at the top of the ticket is protecting his own seat. He is drilling a hole in the boat he is sitting in.

This morning Hon. Aliyu Bello, Co-Leader of The Narrative Force and Senior Special Assistant to Atiku on Community Engagement, gave counsel every leader in this zone should take to heart. Let us find solutions that unite us, he said, and let this election season be a time for tolerance, patience and understanding with one another.

Solutions that unite are not hard to find when the will is there. Let every grievance travel through the party and the campaign, and let those channels answer quickly and fairly. Let the leaders of every stream in each state share one platform, one ward plan and one polling unit roster. Let our rallies show rivals standing side by side. And let every leader resolve that his voice in the media will promote Atiku and the ADC, never wound a fellow member.

Tolerance means accepting that a coalition is a gathering of people who disagree on many things and agree on the one thing that matters. Patience means trusting that the state campaign councils will be constituted; not every name can sit on every list, but every hand can win a polling unit. Understanding means hearing a brother’s complaint before answering it, and answering it inside the house.

When leaders close ranks, the wards close ranks. When leaders quarrel, the opposition celebrates.

Every grievance leaked anonymously to the press is a gift wrapped for the opposition. Every hour spent fighting over who sits closest to the candidate is an hour stolen from the polling units where this election will be won.

To those who feel unheard, the door is open. Bring your names, bring your wards, bring your structures. There are 77 days left, thousands of polling units to cover, and millions of suffering people who need to hear that rescue is on the ballot. No one who truly wants to work for Atiku will be left without work.

Let Ekiti stand with Osun. Let Ondo stand with Ogun. Let Oyo stand with Lagos. Let the South West show Nigeria that the zone that gave the nation Awolowo’s discipline and June 12’s courage can close ranks behind the one candidate who stood with it when standing was dangerous.

We came from many houses. We now live in one. Let no one burn it down from inside.

THE SOUTH WEST IS FOR ATIKU

The South West knows Atiku Abubakar. It knows the man who stood with June 12 when others ran for cover. It knows the Vice President who sat at the centre of the 1999 to 2007 economy, when Nigeria’s GDP rose from $58 billion to $270 billion. It knows the Northern leader who has spent his career building bridges to the West rather than walls against it.

And the South West knows its own pain: the hunger in Ibadan’s markets, the empty pockets in Akure, the idle graduates in Ado Ekiti, the mothers in Abeokuta doing arithmetic that never balances. It is not waiting for a transport refund to decide its future. It is waiting for 16 January 2027.

So let the anonymous chorus keep singing. The party will keep building. The candidate will keep campaigning. And the people of the South West, who have never handed their conscience to a sulking minority, will speak with one voice in their wards and polling units.

The whisper was in a newspaper. The answer will be in the ballot box.

The South West is for Atiku. 77 days. Count them, and count us.

#SouthWestForAtiku #Atiku2027 #ADCIsOneFamily #RescueNigeria #TheNarrativeForce

Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General,
The Narrative Force
thenarrativeforce.org
1 November 2026

By Uche Amadi

If billboards could vote, government would give them free. But billboards can’t vote.

Because billboards cannot vote, but Nigerians do, the price for being seen by Nigerians has been put out of reach, without some government in power considering that millions of voters already know who they are voting for, and coincidentally, there are no faces of candidates on the ballot papers!!

What is being done with political billboard advertising is no longer regulation. It is a tollgate on democracy.

Look at the published fee schedule for 2027 campaigns billboards:

Abia State: N200 million for presidential, N150m for governorship, N100m for Senate. Enugu and Kogi: N150 million for president. Cross River: N150 million. Rivers: N75 million for president, Anambra: N50 million.

Meanwhile, Kano charges N1.15 million flat and does not distinguish between political and commercial billboards. The difference between Abia and Kano is more than 170-fold.

In Rivers, it is worse. Advertising practitioners themselves cried out this year at the Port Harcourt Stakeholders Summit that some Local Government Chairmen demand as much as N30 million per billboard stand, and that opposition adverts are removed and replaced with government messages without consent.

If a for example, a presidential candidate pays Abia’s N200m in all 36 States and FCT, permits alone will gulp N7.4 billion. That is 74% of the N10 billion spending ceiling allowed by the Electoral Act 2026, and this before you hire one bus, print one poster, or hold one rally.

INEC has already said it lacks power to sanction States for this. And when opposition parties went to Court in Enugu to challenge the N150m fee, the Federal High Court in Enugu on September 1, 2026 dismissed their suit, saying the State Assembly can regulate outdoor advertising.

So what do we have?

Only President Tinubu’s billboards and the APC Senatorial candidate’s adorn the streets of Abuja.

State-owned media funded with taxpayers money becomes the governor’s personal megaphone.

Public space becomes the president and governors’ album.

Private billboard owners are intimidated into denying opposition space, claiming prime locations are “already booked”.

You say you want issue-based campaigns, but you are hiding the issues and the candidates behind a paywall.

ARCON itself has said State agencies have no authority to approve political adverts before they are displayed. The law says no one should use State apparatus to the disadvantage of any party. Yet here we are disallowing opposition parties from outdoor advertising.

If you are performing, you should not be afraid of a poster. Let all billboards stand. Let Nigerians, not signage agencies, decide who has performed.

Because at the end, it is not the billboard that votes.

It is the hungry man in Diobu, the keke driver in Mile 1, the fisherwoman in Bonny, the millions hoping for a better Nigeria, and the farmer in Benue who is scared of venturing to his farm. Yet, you price them out of seeing their choices.

The good thing about this however, is that the face of the president millions of Nigerians believe is the architect of their misery, daily smiles at them in mockery of their predicaments.

Uche Amadi
The Narrative Force

Abakaliki, Nigeria – The Ebonyi Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development has called on women and youths to embrace legitimate means of livelihood and acquire skills to avoid involvement in social vices.

The State Commissioner for Women, Mrs Felicia Nwakpuma, made the appeal on Friday, while interacting with journalists on its intervention following the recent arrest of 30 individuals, including women, during a security operation over alleged involvement in prostitution and drug-related activities.

The report recalls that the ministry of capital city development and urban planning, alongside state security operatives, conducted the raid on a guest house in Abakaliki over security concerns.

Nwakpuma said prioritising education, vocational training, entrepreneurship and other productive engagements would improve their chances of securing employment and establish independent sources of income.

She said the ministry became concerned about the possibility that underage girls might be among those arrested in the reports circulating on social media and platforms.

According to her, the ministry seeks to determine whether any of the girls required immediate protection and government assistance.

She explained that the ministry’s primary objective was to establish whether girls between the ages of 12 and 15 were involved in the incident, noting that the welfare of vulnerable children remained a major government priority.

She added that the ministry was prepared to provide rehabilitation, educational assistance and other forms of support to any minors identified during the investigation.

She stated that such assistance would include helping affected children return to formal education if they had dropped out of school, as well as provide opportunities to acquire vocational skills that could enable them to become self-reliant.

She, however, disclosed that the records available to her indicated that most of the women were in their 30s and 40s, while one of the individuals she interviewed reportedly stated that she was about 23 years old.

According to her, based on the records reviewed, no underage girls were identified and the ministry remained committed to protecting children and other vulnerable persons from exploitation.

The official urged women in the state to explore legitimate economic opportunities such as tailoring, hair dressing, small-scale businesses, trading and other vocational enterprises.

She acknowledged that poverty and difficult socio-economic circumstances could expose some women to vulnerable situations.

She encouraged them to seek sustainable opportunities that would promote financial independence and improve their living conditions.

She also appealed to parents to provide proper guidance, education and moral upbringing to their daughters, stressing that parental involvement is essential in helping young people make responsible choices.

She described prostitution as morally wrong and drug-related offences as criminal matters.

By Adamu Lawal Toro

A face that belongs to no one should not choose who governs Nigeria. When the Independent National Electoral Commission announced that it would embed artificial intelligence in the conduct of the 2027 elections, eyebrows were raised. Who would regulate INEC’s use of a technology so powerful and so open to abuse? The commission offered assurances. The fears remained.

With the display of the preliminary voters’ register, those fears are becoming manifest. Barely a month after INEC announced that its register had crossed 103 million names, Nigerians scrolling through it found faces that did not look human. Faces with the unmistakable sheen of artificial intelligence.

INEC first called them “suspected” images and said the online register did not reflect ongoing data clean-up. Three days later, its own Director of ICT, Lawrence Bayode, went further. Some registration officers, he said, had used their official logins to add questionable records in several states. Some of the photographs were AI-generated. Others reflected “very bad registration.”

That is not a rumour from a partisan blogger. That is an admission from inside the commission.

And it raises questions INEC has not yet answered. How many records were added this way? In which states and wards? Which officers did it, and on whose instruction? Will they be prosecuted?

Silence on these questions is not an option. The commission plans to certify the final register on 15 December. Once that happens, every fake name on it becomes a legal entry, a ballot waiting for a hand. The window to clean the register is not months. It is weeks.

But care is needed. Social media is awash with figures: 20 million AI voters, even 50 million. None of these numbers has come with a method, a sample or a single verifiable dataset. Inflated claims do the riggers’ work for them.

They tell the young voter in Gombe or Ogbomoso that his vote is already stolen, so why bother? A demoralised electorate is the easiest one to defeat.
The truth is serious enough without exaggeration.

INEC has admitted that insiders manipulated the register. The scale is unknown. That alone should alarm every Nigerian, whatever their party.
It should also alarm INEC, because the commission’s credibility is its only real asset. Its chairman, Professor Joash Amupitan, has said that “algorithms will not and must never decide the 2027 votes.” But Nigerians will judge the commission by what it does before 15 December, not by what it says at conferences.

So what must INEC do?

First, publish the numbers. The commission says its Automated Biometric Identification System flagged the irregularities. Then it knows how many records were flagged. It should publish that figure, broken down by state and local government, and update it weekly until certification.

Second, purge the fakes in public view. Every record removed should be listed, with the reason for removal: duplicate, deceased, underage, fabricated image. Political parties and accredited observers should be invited to witness the process and test the results.

Third, hand over the register. The Electoral Act entitles political parties to copies of the voter register. INEC should release the cleaned version early enough for parties, civil society and the media to audit it before certification, not after.

Fourth, name and sanction the officers involved. If staff used official logins to plant fake voters, that is not “very bad registration.” It is an electoral offence, and it should be prosecuted as one.

Fifth, extend the timeline if necessary. If the clean-up cannot be completed credibly by 15 December, INEC should say so and adjust. A delayed, clean register is better than a punctual, poisoned one.

INEC cannot do this alone, nor should it be trusted to.

The National Assembly’s committees on electoral matters must summon the commission and demand a full account of every AI system it uses: what it does, who supplied it and who audits it.

The question Nigerians asked at the start remains unanswered: no law today regulates how INEC deploys artificial intelligence. That gap must be closed by regulation before the election, not by apology after it.

Political parties must stop treating the register as INEC’s business alone. Every party has agents in every ward. Let them check the names against the people they know.

And the media, including this newspaper, must do what journalism exists to do: verify. Pick the wards. Find the names. Photograph the faces. Report what is proven, and label what is not.

Ordinary citizens have a role too. Check your own details on the register. Report entries you know to be false. Collect your PVC. On election day, stay to watch the count and photograph the result sheet at your polling unit.

A fake name in the register does not steal an election by itself. Someone still has to vote it, and that vote must still survive the collation centre. But the register is the foundation. Build the election on a corrupted list, and every result that follows will carry a question mark.

Nigeria has been here before. Ghost workers on the payroll. Ghost beneficiaries in social investment programmes. Now the ghosts have learned to use artificial intelligence.

The farmer in Toro who will walk two kilometres to vote in January deserves to know that his ballot will be counted alongside real neighbours, not invented ones. That is the least a democracy owes him. INEC has six weeks. It should use every one of them.

By Aare Amerijoye DOT.B

Some men whistle in the dark because they are brave. Most whistle because they are terrified. Listen to the All Progressives Congress today and you will hear the loudest whistling in the history of Nigerian politics. It is not the music of a party marching to victory. It is the frantic noise of a party that has looked at the ground beneath its feet and seen it giving way.

When a ruling party has a record to sell, it sells the record. When it has nothing to sell, it sells figures. The APC has stopped selling the record.

THE MOST EXPENSIVE FICTION IN NIGERIA

With 78 days left to 16 January 2027, the APC has abandoned governance and taken up fortune telling.

At a press briefing in Ado Ekiti, the APC South West leadership, through its Zonal Chairman, Dr Isaac Kekemeke, read out its fantasy state by state: 570,000 votes from Ekiti, 1 million each from Ondo, Oyo and Ogun, 800,000 from Osun, and between 2 million and 2.5 million from Lagos. Total: 8 to 10 million votes for Tinubu from the South West alone.

The party’s Senate leadership followed with a plan to deliver at least 10 million South West votes. Then the national chairman of SWAGA outbid them all, announcing that Tinubu would win all 36 states.

Thirty six states. For a President who cannot fill a rally in half of them without importing the crowd. For a President whose own party candidates in the North, as you will soon see, are scraping his face off their posters.

This is no longer politics. It is fiction, and Nigerians are paying for the printing.

When a ruling party has a record to sell, it sells the record. When it has nothing to sell, it sells figures.

THE SENTENCE THAT DESTROYS THEM

Read this slowly, because one sentence finishes the APC’s arithmetic.

In 2023, in the entire Federal Republic of Nigeria, across 36 states and the FCT, Bola Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes.

The APC now says the South West alone will give him 10 million.

One region, six states, promising more votes than the whole country gave him in the election that made him President. If the South West could produce 10 million votes for Tinubu, where were those votes in 2023, when he was a fresh candidate, his own son, his own campaign, his own moment, with nothing yet on his record to defend? They were nowhere, because they do not exist.

That is not a projection. That is a hallucination with a letterhead.

THE GHOSTS OF EKITI, ONDO AND LAGOS

Now take the state figures one by one, because figures do not panic.

Ekiti gave Tinubu 201,494 votes in 2023. Kekemeke wants 570,000, nearly three times as many. Ondo gave him 369,924; he wants 1 million. Oyo gave him 449,884; he wants 1 million. Osun gave him 343,945; he wants 800,000. Ogun gave him 341,554; he wants 1 million.

And Lagos. Lagos, the fortress his political family has held since 1999. Lagos gave Tinubu 572,606 votes and then handed the state to another man. The APC now promises 2 million to 2.5 million there. Four times his tally, in a state he could not even win.

Add it all up. Tinubu’s whole South West harvest in 2023 was 2,279,407 votes. The entire South West, every voter, for every candidate, cast roughly 4.2 million votes. The APC is therefore promising its candidate more than double every vote the region cast for every candidate on the ballot.

Where will the extra millions come from? From the trader at Oja Oba whose capital has been eaten by rent and fuel? From the graduate in Bodija whose certificate now hangs on the wall like a funeral photograph? From the farmer in Ondo who dare not enter his own farm? From the mother in Oshodi who now buys rice in cups? Go and ask them for 10 million votes. They will tell you what they think of your projections.

A target is a work plan for the volunteer. A figure larger than the electorate, broadcast in October, is a script for the returning officer.

A PARTY THAT IS ALREADY BLEEDING

Here is what the APC will never put on its banners.

Under Buhari, the APC polled 15,424,921 votes in 2015 and 15,191,847 in 2019. Under Tinubu in 2023, it crashed to 8,794,726. In one election, with Tinubu at the top of the ticket, the APC lost about 6.4 million voters.

That collapse happened before the cost of food tripled. Before Nigerians began measuring garri by the cup. Before families sold land to pay ransoms. If 6.4 million Nigerians walked away from the APC before Tinubu had governed for a single day, how many have walked away after three years of what he has done to them?

And this is the party now promising to add millions. A man bleeding from both arms is promising to donate blood.

THE SOUTH HE NO LONGER OWNS

In 2023, the South West had one son of the soil on the ballot. In 2027 it has rivals. Seyi Makinde, a sitting South West governor, is on the ballot for the APM. Peter Obi is on the ballot for the NDC. Three Southern candidates will be carving up one Southern electorate.

You cannot cut a pie into three pieces and promise yourself a bigger slice than when you ate it alone. The APC knows this. That is precisely why it is shouting.

In the North, the opposite is happening. Atiku Abubakar is the only presidential candidate from the North. Every other major ticket is led by a Southerner. Where the South divides, the North consolidates. Even in 2023, with the full machinery of power behind him, Tinubu led Atiku in the North by only 354,284 votes, 5,587,757 to 5,233,473. That paper thin lead was built on a northern coalition that has since packed its bags.

The general who marched the North to Tinubu in 2023, Nasir El-Rufai, now sits as Deputy Chairman of the ADC Presidential Campaign Council. When the man who built your northern bridge crosses to the other side, the bridge is gone.

THE CONFESSIONS OF A FRIGHTENED CAMPAIGN

You do not need my word. The APC’s own statements are a confession.

Before its Kaduna rally had even held, the APC Presidential Campaign Council was already crying about a plot by Atiku and the ADC to discredit its campaign flag-off in Kaduna on 24 October 2026. In the same breath, the same council declared that Atiku and the ADC were incapable of winning any election.

Which is it? A man who cannot win does not frighten you into issuing alarms. Nobody posts armed guards at the gate of an empty house. You raise the alarm only when you hear footsteps.

And why Kaduna? Of all the places to open a re-election campaign, the ruling party ran to the heart of the North. That is not strategy. That is a confession that the 2027 election will be decided in the North, where the APC is haemorrhaging and where only one candidate is a son of the soil.

Then there is the candidate who will not campaign. Tinubu has said he may miss campaign rallies because Nigeria needs his attention, while governors, ministers and political allies are dispatched to beg votes on his behalf. Atiku’s answer cut to the bone: he made the promises, he took the decisions, he must face the questions.

Meanwhile the ADC has declared that Atiku is fit and ready to campaign across all 36 states and the FCT. One man walks into the market square. The other sends errand boys to explain why he cannot come.

One man is going to the people. The other is hiding behind governors.

THE FACE THEY ARE SCRAPING OFF THE POSTERS

Now look at the posters, because posters do not lie.

In 2023, APC candidates across the North fought for space beside Tinubu’s face. In 2027, in Katsina, Tinubu’s own Special Adviser on Political Matters, Ibrahim Kabir Masari, has had to scold his party’s candidates for leaving the President’s photograph off their campaign materials.

Sit with that. A politician will put a camel on his poster if he believes the camel will bring him votes. When APC candidates quietly remove the face of their own President, they are not being disloyal. They are reporting what their wards have already told them. Tinubu’s face has become a liability in the very North the APC is claiming to sweep.

Masari’s own explanation completes the confession. At a gathering in support of the President’s re-election, he suggested that Tinubu’s only fault in the eyes of some Northerners was that he was not Hausa or from the North.

So the President’s adviser admits the North is turning away, then reaches for the tribal card to explain it. It collapses at the first figure. In 2023 this same North gave Tinubu 5,587,757 votes. He was not Hausa then either. The North did not discover his ethnicity in 2026. What the North discovered was the price of food, the graves of the kidnapped, the villages emptied by bandits and the farms nobody can reach. The North is not judging his tribe. The North is judging his record, and the verdict is in.

When a party’s own candidates are hiding its President’s face, the campaign is already over in their wards.

GOVERNORS DO NOT OWN THE VOTES

The APC’s last refuge is its boast about governors. Let us remember 2023. Atiku won Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Yobe and Gombe, five states where sitting APC governors threw the full weight of incumbency behind Tinubu. And Tinubu lost Lagos with an APC governor sitting in Alausa.

Governors do not own the votes. The masses do. And the masses have spent three years paying for this government’s experiments with their stomachs, their savings and, in too many homes, their children. On 16 January 2027 they will not vote for a governor’s convoy. They will vote for the next meal.

WHY ATIKU, AND WHY NOW

The APC’s panic is real, but Atiku’s candidacy does not rest on anyone’s failure. It rests on what he has done and what he has committed to do.

He sat at the centre of an administration that grew Nigeria’s GDP from $58 billion in 1999 to $270 billion in 2007. He chaired the National Economic Council and the National Council on Privatisation by law, not by favour. He has spent a lifetime preaching the restructuring of this federation, empowering the states to compete and attain their full potential. He has placed his committed plans before Nigerians in advance, for them to examine and own, and he has named welfare and security as the first two duties of his government.

One man is campaigning on a record of building. The other is campaigning on invented numbers. Nigerians can tell the difference.

WHAT THEIR PANIC MEANS FOR YOU

Now hear me well, because this is where the fight is won or lost.

A party that announces impossible figures is not only deceiving itself. It is preparing the public mind. When a man tells you in October that a region which cast 4.2 million votes will give his candidate 10 million, he may be planning to produce those figures in January, with or without voters. Panic breeds desperation, and desperation breeds vote buying, intimidation and padded result sheets.

Our answer is not violence. Our answer is volume and vigilance.

Collect your PVC if you have not. Know your polling unit. Bring your household, your street, your church, your mosque, your market association. Our work is not to announce figures. Our work is to fill every polling unit in this federation and guard every vote cast in it. Stay at your polling unit until the result is announced and the EC8A is signed. Photograph it. Watch it go up. A vote that is cast and guarded cannot be stolen, and a result sheet watched by a hundred eyes cannot be padded.

Let them keep their phantom millions. We will keep our count.

THE RECKONING THEY CAN ALREADY SEE

History is merciless to men who mistake noise for strength. Nigeria has seen rulers who believed they were untouchable, who counted votes that were never cast and celebrated victories that never came. The people retired every one of them.

The APC can already see its reckoning. That is why it is shouting. That is why it is inventing millions. That is why it is raising alarms about rallies that had not yet held and opponents it swears cannot win. That is why its own candidates are hiding its President’s face.

The tide has turned. The North is consolidating. The South is divided. The masses are angry, organised and watching. Atiku is winning, and nobody knows it better than the men reading out phantom figures at press briefings.

78 days. Get your PVC. Guard your vote. Bring your neighbour.

#Atiku2027 #ADC #AtikuIsComing #16January2027 #GuardYourVote

Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General,
The Narrative Force
thenarrativeforce.org
31 October 2026

The All Progressive Congress (APC) members of Badagry Local Government Area (LGA) have vowed to deliver a landmark victory for all its candidates contesting for positions in the forthcoming 2027 elections.

The APC leaders of the federation made this promise on Thursday during the inauguration of Badagry Federation Campaign Structure which held at Sunny Ajose Estate, Badagry, Lagos State.

The APC Vice Director General, West 2, Campaign Council, Mr Fatai Ayoola said that Badagry Federation was among the best performing local government among all the LGA’s in Lagos State at the 2023 elections.

Fatai said that their performance at the last elections was the reason why one of their daughters, Mrs Damilola James, emerged as the Deputy Governorship candidate in the coming elections.

“Therefore I charge you all to come out en mass, both old and young on the day of the elections and multiply our last election result by three.

“Let us maintain our position as the best performing LGA in Lagos State again, and who knows, maybe the next gubernatorial candidate, may emerge from our federation,” the campaign director said.

He said that about 300,000 people from Badagry registered for the election process and expected nothing short of a landmark victory from the federation.

The Commissioner for Youth and Social Development, Lagos State, Mr Mobolaji Ogunlende said that a good campaign structure would ensure that all the nooks and crannies of Badagry is covered.

Ogunlende said that this grassroot approach would ensure victory for all APC candidates, starting from the presidency to the governorship, senatorial, house of representatives and house of assembly elections.

“Our campaign structure will ensure that we are on the same page, hitting the ground running to ensure that all our elected officers, win their elections in 2027.

“We are supporting them to come into office to do what they are supposed to do for our people. This is the message that is crystal clear and sending across board.

“Therefore, we should all come out en masse to give them the support now,” he said.

The commissioner said that the simple task ahead was for Badagry to come out with one voice and vote-in continuity of government, to continue to enjoy the dividends of democracy.

“That is the simple message and we must do this collectively because no single individual can do it alone,” he said.

The Chairman, Badagry LG, Mr Babatunde Hunpe said that the federation was ready for the elections and promised to deliver more than expectation.

Hunpe said that the whole federation was motivated to clear the result in a landmark victory because of Damilola James given the opportunity to run as the deputy governorship candidate.

“So, we are going to show our appreciation by coming out en mass to use our votes to ensure that all candidates contesting under APC wins their selected position,” he said.

The chairman, however said that once victory is achieved, he expected infrastructural development, human development, economical development among others, to continue, to support and improve the lives of people in Badagry.

The Chairman, Olorunda Local Council Development Area (LCDA) Badagry, Mr Ajose Kumayon appreciated the state government and federal government for giving one of their own daughters the opportunity to become deputy governor.

“Therefore, we are going to pay them back at home by ensuring that all vote is casted towards the direction of APC candidates on election day.

“We know that once victory is achieved, our expectations in terms of infrastructural and human capacity development will be achieved.

“This will continue to develop Badagry in a manner that will shore up economic activities in our area and improve the standard of living of the people,” Kumayon said.

Also, the Chairman, Badagry West LCDA, Mr Rauf Yemaren said that victory was already ascertained because Badagry federation were united and spoke with one voice and moved in one direction.

“We are united and that is why I say that victory has already been achieved because we are going to come out in large numbers on election day to vote in our party candidates.

“We are going to have a well coordinated and peaceful election in Badagry because we understand one another as a people and are known as a peaceful community.

“We just want continuity in government, infrastructural development, human capacity building, economic development and development in all areas for the benefit of our constituents and constituency,” Yemaren said.