Vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, has expressed confidence that the party will overcome its ongoing legal challenges, urging members and supporters to remain calm and committed ahead of the 2027 general elections.

Kwankwaso gave the assurance on Sunday through a post on his official X platform following a courtesy visit to the National Leader of the NDC, Seriake Dickson, at his Abuja residence.

According to the former Kano State governor, the meeting was part of broader consultations aimed at strengthening party unity, resilience and strategic preparations for the next electoral cycle.

“Today, I paid a courtesy visit to the National Leader of our party, the NDC, His Excellency Seriake Dickson, at his residence in Abuja,” he wrote.

“The engagement forms part of our ongoing efforts to strengthen the party’s unity, resilience and strategic readiness as we prepare for the 2027 general elections.”

Kwankwaso stated that the party remained fully committed to democratic principles and the rule of law, while expressing confidence in the judicial process despite the legal issues confronting the party.

“As true democrats, we remain committed to the rule of law and have absolute confidence in the judicial process. No temporary setback can weaken the spirit of a movement built on hope, justice, equity, and the collective aspirations of the Nigerian people,” he said.

He further appealed to party faithful, supporters and Nigerians to remain steadfast and optimistic, insisting that the party would emerge stronger from the current situation.

“I urge all party members, supporters, and well-meaning Nigerians to stay calm, resolute, and focused on our shared mission. Together, we will rise above every challenge.

“Nigeria will be OK,” he added.

Zamfara State chapter of the Action Alliance, AA, has condemned the attack on its 2027 presidential candidate, Aare Adekunle Rufai Omoaje, describing the incident as an assault on democracy.
The party made its position known in a statement issued on Sunday in Gusau by its state chairman, Shehu Hussaini Waziri.

According to the statement, the attack occurred on Saturday during a burial ceremony at Ekusa in Odo Otin Local Government Area of Osun State.

Waziri described the incident as an attempt to intimidate opposition political parties and undermine democratic principles.

“This cowardly act is a direct assault on democracy and an attempt to intimidate the opposition,” he said.

The party called on security agencies to investigate the incident and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice.

Waziri maintained that Omoaje and his supporters would remain committed to the pursuit of justice, peaceful coexistence and national development despite the attack.

He also urged party members and supporters to remain calm, law-abiding and peaceful while allowing security agencies to carry out their investigations.

The AA chairman further stressed the need for adequate protection of political actors and citizens, describing safety and security as essential to the country’s democratic process.

National Leader of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, Seriake Dickson, has commended the move by president Bola Tinubu on the creation of state police.

Speaking during an interview on ‘Sunday Politics’, a programme on Channels Television, Dickson, however, said the president should slow down the process of state police creation.

According to him, attention should be focused on fighting terrorism and insecurity, adding that the business of implementing state police should be left for the next government.

“President Tinubu should slow down the process of state police creation.

“I commend the move to decentralise policing, but we should also decentralise mineral rights. That’s what we call resource control.

“The president has done this (state police), and it has my support, but my prescription would have been to decentralise it to the zonal levels first.

“Then, we amend the constitution to give governors power to appoint the commissioners of police working with the Police Service Commission, PSC, and then putting them to the Houses of Assembly for screening and oversight,” he said.

The NDC presidential candidate, Peter Obi, had also said that he is suspicious of the timing of state police.

“You can’t amend the constitution and give powers to the governors when there’s an upcoming election,” Obi had said.

Thursday, June 26 was another black day in Lagos. A day that started like any other normal day but before noon was enveloped in agony of pains and sorrows for many families.

A two-storey building at Alakija Bus-stop, along Old Ojo Road, Satellite Town, in Oriade Local Council Development Area, LCDA, of Lagos State, had suddenly collapsed, killing nine persons. It, indeed, brought an unending nightmare to scores of families, friends and well-wishers.

A statement by the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) noted that after the rescue operations were concluded at the site, 27 persons were saved and taken to hospital for treatment.

“Twenty-seven persons were rescued alive through coordinated efforts by the LASEMA Response Team, sister agencies, and members of the community.

“Victims received immediate pre-hospital care from LASAMBUS and were transferred to nearby hospitals for further treatment,” the statement from LASEMA Head of Public Affairs, Afolabi Olawale, read.

“Nine fatalities recovered, including four adults confirmed dead before responders’ arrival, and five additional victims, including a two-year-old baby girl.

“All deceased were respectfully bagged and handed over to the State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit, SEHMU, for identification and onward release to families,” it added.

Giving a breakdown of the rescue activities, LASEMA said its “Director of Operations, Olanrewaju Akinsanya, and Cappa Base Coordinator, Salami, led operations on the ground.

“LASEMA’s heavy-duty excavator was deployed to augment two CCECC excavators already on site, enabling safe access to trapped victims and accelerating the operation to ground zero,” it said.

Following the incident, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has directed the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) to commence immediate structural integrity assessment of adjoining buildings and enforce compliance with building codes in the area.

The incident occurred less than 24 hours after another building collapsed in Rivers State.

The Rivers State incident involved a four-storey building, still under construction along Peter Odili Road.

Several workers were trapped under debris, leading to a large-scale rescue operation involving emergency agencies and security personnel.

Three persons were rescued and taken to nearby hospitals for treatment.

Indeed, incidents of building collapse have become so rampant in the country.

The situation has become worse such that a person who wakes up hale and hearty in the morning and leaves for work may not return home alive.

Some others will still be in their homes and death will come calling. It is that bad.

A sympathiser at site of the Alakija incident captured the scenario thus: “They leave home in search of daily bread. They bid goodbye to their children and loved ones as they leave for work. Most often, they never knew they were bidding the final goodbye as they never always returned alive.

“They are labourers hired at building construction sites across the country. Others meet death right inside the comfort of their homes due to poorly constructed structures.”

Experts have attributed the rising spate of structural collapses to several factors, including poor building materials.

An estate agent, Anthony Chukwudi described the scourge as a nightmare, which has refused to go away.

He said: “In the last couple of years, the menace of building collapse has become one of the biggest nightmares facing the country. The list of such incidents across Nigeria is endless.

“It is believed in some quarters that every week, a building would collapse somewhere in Nigeria but most of them are not always reported.

“However, more worrisome is the fact that each time it happened, promises would be made by the government to look into the cause of the incident and punish offenders but it never stopped.”

Genesis

Before now, building collapse was viewed as a calamity because it rarely happened. People adhered to the building laws because flouting them would attract severe punishment.

But in recent times, everything seems to be on the contrary. Building collapse has become a recurring decimal with its attendant loss of both human and material resources.

The situation has given credence to Andit Nehru’s assertion that evil unchecked grows and evil tolerated poisons the whole system.

However, as a punitive measure to arrest the ugly trend, the Lagos State government through the State House of Assembly had enacted a law, which empowers the state to assume ownership of any collapsed building.

Much as the implementation of the new law in the state had put landlords on their toes, with regard to the quality of raw materials they use when building new houses and the need to properly maintain the existing ones, buildings are still collapsing in Lagos and elsewhere.

Lagos State government, since the law became operational, has demolished a couple of houses and acquired such plots of lands across the state.

“The demolition of a two-storey building that partially collapsed after a heavy down on Freeman Street, Oyingbo area of the state and the subsequent revocation of the ownership of the property comes to mind.

“The same fate awaits the Alakija building that collapsed last week. The state government would take ownership of the property according to the existing law in the state.

Experts react

Expressing his thoughts on the ugly trend, a structural engineer and developer, Kunle Adegbenro, pointedly laid the bulk of the blame on the government.

He blamed the governments at all levels for failure to enforce the existing building laws due to corruption.

He said: “When an individual wants to build a house, there are laid down procedures to be followed. First, a surveyor has to be engaged to take measurements of the site, then a soil test expert who will determine the texture of the soil to be able to know the kind of structure that could be erected on such lands.

“Also needed in the picture are the architect who will draw the design of the building and the structural engineer who will ensure that materials such as rods are of the best quality standard.

“The structural engineer, apart from ensuring that cement, gravel, sand and water are all in the right quantities before mixture, also ensures that the instructions of the surveyor, soil test expert and architect are strictly adhered to.

“But today, nobody who wants to build a house adheres to the procedures; they would rather cut corners by bribing their way.

“Town planning authorities whose responsibility is to ensure that the procedures are adhered to don’t do anything about it.

“They are so corrupt that even when they discover that a particular building has not complied with the building code and is likely to collapse after building, they would close their eyes as long as the owner of the building is ready to oil their palm.
“They collect huge sums of money from the builders and allow them to continue with the building which already has defects from the foundation.”

He accused agencies of the government charged with the responsibility of ensuring that builders comply with the building laws of failure to carry out proper monitoring.

“Even when they monitor, they take bribes and allow construction works to continue on buildings that deviate from the building law. For instance, during the monitoring exercise, if the town planning officials discover that the building plan approval does not correspond with the structure being erected on the site, the normal thing is to issue the contravention order, followed by a stop-work order before the demolition.

“But you find out that when they issue the contravention order followed by the stop-work order, the property owner would quickly approach them, negotiate with them, pay an agreed sum and the construction continues,” said.

Apart from lack of monitoring and corruption of town planning officials, he said most personnel of the town planning authorities are not professionals.

“A situation where town planning personnel are mostly people who studied administration and other social science courses, what do you expect from them when they go to a construction site?

“Where do you expect them to borrow brain from at the site to know what they do not know? It is not possible. Until the monitoring team of the various town planning authorities are made of professionals in different building fields, the noise about monitoring will just be a mirage.

“They will just go to the site and negotiate with the builders and once they are ‘settled,’ construction will continue, even if the building collapses before completion.”

He was of the view that unless various town planning authorities begin to include in their monitoring teams, professionals like surveyors, architects, soil test experts and engineers, there will be no meaningful result and the issue of building collapse will continue to occur.

Although he traced the causes of building collapse to such factors as poor quality of building materials, he equally stressed that failure to determine what he referred to as live load and dead load of a structure and the soil texture also contribute.

He said: “Every building has a life span. It is contained in the building design, which was done by the architect. Even in the event of fire, the design contains how long materials like a rod will resist fire before it is consumed if help does not come.

“And the owners know the life span of their houses because it is in their design. But, when the town planning officials mark such houses that have lived out their life span for demolition, the owners will meet them in secret and after money has changed hands, such houses would continue to exist, thereby endangering the lives of the occupants.

“So, to a large extent, the issue of building collapse should be blamed on the government and its agents who refuse to do their jobs and even when they want to, corruption will not allow them to do the right thing.”

He absolved the building professionals, even though he admitted that high fees charged by professionals for supervision, accounts for why some builders engage the services of non-professionals.

He, however, advised that people should be informed and educated on the need to always engage the services of professionals when building their houses.

He believes that when a prospective builder presents his case before a professional, such a professional will always consider the financial capacity of the person involved and charge accordingly.

He agreed that all fingers are not equal but insisted that people should first appreciate the need to engage professionals while building their houses.

He also charged the government at all levels to work on their agencies, even as he urged Nigerians to always adhere to the life span of their structures to avoid the wanton loss of lives and property.

Also, Mr. Chudi Ubosi of the Ubosi Ele and Co, Estate Surveyors and Valuers, maintained that the failure of Nigerians to engage the services of professionals while building is a major cause of building collapse.

He argued that as long as people refuse to acknowledge the role of building professionals, cases of building collapse would continue to plague the nation.

On who should be blamed for the development, he said the first person to take responsibility is the owner of the house, who, instead of engaging professional builders, prefers to cut corners by engaging quacks.

He also blamed non-professional, who instead of advising their clients on the best thing to do, would keep a blind eye so long as they make their own money.

He further informed that the third person to take the responsibility is the government, but insisted that before the government, individuals should do their jobs first.

He said: “It is expected that before you build, you must get approval from the government but most people don’t do that. They just go ahead and start to build.

“And when the government agencies responsible for enforcement get to know, they are bribed and they allow work on such buildings that, most often, do not meet the required standard to go on.”

He advised builders to understand that when professionals give advice, it is not just for fancy, stressing: “they do so because they are professionals who want to avert future disaster, which always comes in the form of building collapse.”

Abia State Government has appealed to its citizens to cooperate with State authorities mandated to enforce the ban on commercial motorcycle operations within designated areas of Umuahia, Aba and Ohafia metropolis.

The Commissioner for Information, Okey Kanu made the appeal in a statement he issued on Sunday to announce the formal enforcement of the ban on commercial motorcycle operations.

The State government while acknowledging that thousands of Abia citizens depend on commercial motorcycle business as means of livelihood, said that the policy was designed for security and safety of lives and property, adding that the decision was applied in the overriding interests of all citizens.

The State further promised to be fair and professional in the enforcement exercise.

It said that defaulters of the policy would now pay N20,000 fine, as against the earlier N50,000 it previously announced.

Under the policy, all private and commercial motorcycles and tricycle (Keke) in the State are to be registered and duly documented, while private motorcycle operators are not allowed to carry a passenger.

Also, all motorcycles impounded by law enforcement agencies are to to released to their owners after the registration, verification, documentation and other statutory requirements.

The State government further urged all the citizens to report any extortion, abuse or other forms of misconduct by Task Force officials to the State, using provided phone lines.

The Leader of Njiko Igbo Forum, Rev. Dr. Okechukwu Christopher Obioha, has warned that Nigeria may not successfully conduct the 2027 general election if Peter Obi is prevented from appearing on the presidential ballot.

The remark followed Friday’s Federal High Court ruling directing the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to deregister the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, as a political party.

DAILY POST reported that Justice Isah Dashen, who delivered the ruling in Lokoja, held that the court’s earlier judgment affected the rights of the Peace Movement Party, PMP, which claimed ownership of the logo adopted by the NDC.

The judge ruled that the PMP was not joined as a party in the original suit despite its claim over the disputed logo.

Speaking with DAILY POST, Obioha alleged that public confidence in the judiciary had declined due to what he described as inconsistent decisions and accused the current administration of weakening the institution.

He said: “The citizens of this country, the genuine citizens of this country, who are looking up to a democracy that will have aimed to be sustained and maintained are not looking at the courts at all.

“Now we have no regard for the judiciary in Nigeria. The judiciary in Nigeria is full of inconsistencies, adding to the leadership of this country, the APC government of this country, that influenced what they have done since they came into power, particularly since Tinubu came into power.

“He has weakened the judiciary, has messed them up.

“As far as political arrangements are concerned, or pronouncement by the courts, we don’t trust them any longer, because they are one of the arms of government that are weak, that should be strengthened.

“If Peter Obi is frustrated and is not on the ballot, there will be no election in 2027. That’s not a threat. It is going to work out that way. I’m trying to… If you like, you can call it prophecy. I’m a reverend. Call it anything, but I’m just warning Nigerians.

“If Peter Obi, with all the struggles and on the level he’s now, is  frustrated not to be on the ballot, there will be no election in 2027.

“And on 29th May next year, Tinubu will not be the president because we are tired of the system. We are tired.

“We are strangulated, and the rest will be story about this country called Nigeria.”

Members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Esa-Oke, Obokun Local Government Area of Osun State, have rejected attempts to link the recent killing of an Accord Party member, Ajayi Rogba, to the Director-General of the party’s campaign council for the August 15 governorship election, Wole Oke.

Ajayi, who was an indigene of the community, was reportedly murdered on Tuesday night by suspected thugs.

During a condolence visit to the deceased’s family on Wednesday, Osun State Governor, Ademola Adeleke, allegedly suggested that the killing was carried out by thugs loyal to the APC.

The governor also reportedly criticised Oke, a member of the House of Representatives from the area, while calling on the police to thoroughly investigate the incident and bring those responsible to justice.

However, speaking at a press conference in Esa-Oke on Friday, Prof. Siji Olamiju, who addressed journalists on behalf of APC members in the area, warned against politicising the death of the Accord Party member.

Olamiju described attempts to exploit the incident for political advantage as insensitive to the grieving family and harmful to the pursuit of justice.

“APC members in Ward 7, Esa-Oke, consider it necessary to address the growing attempts by some political actors to exploit this tragedy for partisan purposes.

“We are particularly concerned that certain individuals have hastily linked this unfortunate incident to politics without allowing the Nigeria Police Force and other relevant security agencies to conclude their investigations,” he said.

According to him, justice can only be achieved through a fair and professional investigation rather than speculation or politically motivated accusations.

“Justice can only be achieved through a thorough, impartial and professional investigation, not through speculation, political rhetoric or media trials,” he added.

Olamiju also absolved Oke of any involvement in the killing, insisting that efforts to associate the lawmaker or the APC with the incident were unfounded and politically motivated.

According to him, there was no credible evidence connecting the party or its leaders to the crime.

“We respectfully urge His Excellency, Governor Ademola Adeleke, and all public office holders to exercise restraint and allow law enforcement agencies to discharge their constitutional responsibilities independently and without interference or premature conclusions,” he said.

The APC chieftain further appealed to security agencies to conduct a comprehensive, transparent and unbiased investigation into the killing.

“The APC remains committed to the rule of law, justice and accountability,” Olamiju stated.

“We firmly maintain that whoever is found culpable after a lawful and impartial investigation, regardless of political affiliation, social status or influence, must face the full weight of the law.”

He also urged political stakeholders to allow truth, due process and justice to prevail over politics and unverified allegations while honouring the memory of the deceased.

The Executive Chairman of Ukwa West Local Government Area of Abia State, Dike Briggs Nwankwo, has directed that operations of commercial motorcycles in the council be restricted from 6:am to 6:pm daily, beginning on July 2, 2026.

The restriction was in response to some security challenges around the local government area, including the recent killing of a fresh graduate, Mr. Chinye Uche, whose motorcycle was stolen by his unidentified assailants, among other criminal activities.

A statement signed by Chidi Onyedikachi, the Chief Press Secretary to the local government Chairman, explained that the decision to enforce the restriction followed some extensive consultations with the Ukwa West commercial motorcycle  (Okada) operators’ union, security agencies, and relevant State authorities.

As part of the measures, the Ukwa West West LGA, in collaboration with the Commercial Motorcycle Operators’ Union, will commence identification and registration of all motorcycle operators within the Council, to improve security and monitoring.

In addition to the policy, all commercial motorcycle operators in the Council have been directed to relocate their loading and parking activities to the designated area in front of the market, as agreed with union leadership, to reduce obstruction at junctions, and for free flow of traffic.

The council further warned that any operator or individual found violating the approved operating hours or any of the directives would face enforcement measures, including impoundment of motorcycles, arrest and prosecution.

It further explained that the security measures were applied to protect the lives and property of indigenes of the council.