Buhari Biggest hint that President will seek re-election in 2019 is here

A top ranking Aso Villa official has revealed that Buhari will seek re-election in 2019. It's the biggest hint yet

For months on end, the grapevine didn't exactly know what to make of feelers from the Presidency regarding a President Muhammadu Buhari re-election.

Very little was given away by Aso Villa.

But there's finally some cast-iron proof from the Presidential palace that 73-year-old Buhari who is tending to his health in a London apartment, will seek four more years once he's done with the first four.

It's a likely prospect now.

The hint came from a most unlikely source, but a strong enough one no less.

Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, still retains the president's trust  and confidence, in spite of being linked with ripping off internally displaced persons fleeing Boko Haram terrorists in the Northeast.

playL-R: APC Chairman Odigie-Oyegun, SGF Babachir Lawal, ex VP Atiku Abubakar and President Buhari (The Nation)

At the Unity Fountain in Abuja on Tuesday; where a crowd had gathered to bleat their support for the President in the face of a faltering economy and spiralling inflation, Lawal revealed what everyone has been discussing in hushed tones for a while.

“I’m here to thank you for the support you have been giving to this government. As a government, we are encouraged by your support. It is this type of support that encourages the President to do more.

“We want to assure you that this government is on top of the situation. As much as we understand the challenges that we are facing, there is no cure without medicine.

“It is for no reason that quinine is very bitter, but after you have taken it, you get well. I assure you that by the grace of God, in the next one year, Nigeria will have a booming economy. We know what they were doing to try to sabotage the activities of government to bring Nigeria back to economic prosperity. They will fail.

“Nigeria will never go back to the position it was before 2015. The foundation being laid by the government is solid. And nobody, even after the President has finished his eight years, can ever take us back to the pre-2015 days.”

"His eight years".

Presidency sources have told Pulse in the past that Buhari may consider himself too frail to seek another term, given his health battles.

playBuhari and El-Rufai (ekekeee)

There have been suggestions in certain quarters that Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai is being groomed for the plum job in 2019.

Neither El-Rufai's camp nor the Presidency has refuted this widespread speculation.

Nigeria's peculiar power zoning formula between North and South, means that two Northerners would be fielded by the two major political parties in the land should Buhari choose not to run again.

The North has to complete its two term of eight years, by the letters of an unwritten zoning agreement.

playFormer President Goodluck Jonathan (360Nobs)

"It's too early to talk about a re-election. We just want to do the job for which we were elected for four years", a spokesperson in the Presidency who craved anonymity for this story, told Pulse.

But if Lawal's comments are anything to go by, a re-election for Buhari is being mooted and discussed in the Presidency.

And maybe with the President's blessings.

Buhari unseated Southerner Goodluck Jonathan in the spring of 2015 with over two million votes.

Buhari promised to tackle corruption, defeat terrorist sect Boko Haram and provide jobs.

But the President's job approval ratings have been plummeting in recent times following a slump in the global price of oil, a faltering economy and dwindling value of the local currency.

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We asked 11 media outlets how their coverage has changed since Trump's election — here's what they said

Between his declaration of the press as the "opposition party" and his adviser's use of "alternative facts," President Donald Trump's contempt for mainstream media outlets has drawn the relationship between journalists and the nation's commander-in-chief into murky territory.

While Trump boasts about his war with the media, his casual relationship with facts and outright hostility toward many reporters has inspired industry leaders to reflect on the nature of political journalism during the Trump administration.

Newsrooms including The New York Times and Reuters sent letters to their employees about their coverage of the new administration and the political currents that have shaken the post-Cold War world order.

Journalists have proposed both symbolic and more consequential change for journalism in the Trump era.

Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, cited the president as the reason his publication decided not to host a party for this year's annual White House Correspondents Dinner. Media ethicists such as New York University's Jay Rosen suggested fighting back against the administration's falsehoods by halting interviews with Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway and sending interns to White House press briefings.

Regardless of whether they're frightened, unfazed, or motivated by the new administration's declaration of war on the press, many journalists are examining, and doubling down, on their coverage of the new administration.

Business Insider spoke with a number of media leaders about whether their coverage changed after the election. Here's what they said:

Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron

"We’re covering this president as we’ve covered presidents in the past. We haven’t changed how we do our jobs," Baron said.

Vox Editor-in-Chief Ezra Klein

"We're heavily staffing up to cover policy under the Trump White House. We think the nuts-and-bolts of policy details often get neglected for covering Trump's tweets, fights, and obsessions. So we're focusing there, and hiring to make sure we can do it," Klein said.

The site is hiring several junior and senior policy reporters, including one to cover the effect of economic policy on Americans and one to cover distressed communities.

Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief John Avlon

"Every major event brings out new opportunities and obligations, and obviously we need to recalibrate based on the challenge of the time," Avlon said by phone.

"Part of our calculation was, regardless of who was elected president, world news and national-security coverage would be more on the front-burner than it necessarily was in a presidential-election year. Because the first year of a presidency is when global challengers, whether they’re other nations or terrorist organizations, test the new president."

Avlon said The Daily Beast made several staff hires to address that challenge, including new military and White House reporter Kim Dozier and conservative columnist Matt Lewis.

"It’s really important to me that The Daily Beast stands out from the pack of partisan news. And that’s part of ensuring that we’ve got credibility on both sides of the aisles to have the credibility to criticize," Avlon said. "Because if it’s all just sort of easily dismissed as representing one predictable political viewpoint, it loses some of its punch."

The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg

After Trump's election, The Atlantic poached a number of journalists, including BuzzFeed's McKay Coppins and Rosie Gray, Politico's Julia Ioffe, and former New Republic editor Frank Foer, to cover the new administration.

"Like everyone else, we've allocated more resources than usual to cover this novel experiment in governance," Goldberg said.

The Atlantic editor added that he was unfazed by Trump's rhetorical barbs.

"Like all self-respecting journalists on the planet, rhetorical attacks only tend to motivate us," Goldberg said.

New Yorker Editor David Remnick

Though he acknowledged in a phone interview that Trump's ascendance caused him grave concern, Remnick told his newsroom after Hillary Clinton's concession speech that the magazine "had a job to do" following the election.

"We are going to be tough, we are going to go deep, we are going to be fearless, but we are going to be fair," Remnick said he told his magazine's staff.

BuzzFeed News Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith

"One difference is obviously Trump's unusually close and obsessive relationship with the media, particularly TV, which is why we brought Steven Perlberg in on a Trump and media beat on our politics team," Smith said.

"More broadly, though, we plan to continue the tough, fair coverage that we began on the campaign."

CBS News Washington Bureau Chief Chief Chris Isham

Isham said CBS was making a "very modest supplementation of our staff" in response to the sheer volume of news, which he said was typical for a new administration, and which CBS was planning to do no matter who was elected.

Though some observers have expressed concern about Trump's war on the free press, Isham dismissed the Trump administration's barbs, maintaining that it is not journalists' job to "get all wrapped-up in how they feel about us."

"Our job is to report on the administration and what they’re doing and not to get caught up in a tit-for-tat with the White House on how they feel about us," he said. "Our job is to report on what they’re doing. So my advice to our folks is to keep the eye on the ball, keep focused, continue to report accurately, fairly, objectively the way you’ve been doing."

Daily Caller Editor-in-Chief Vince Coglianese

"We're covering the media a lot more now. The reflexive hysteria among the mainstream press has been deeply revealing and totally intriguing to document. We'll keep following it," Coglianese said.

The editor doubted that media outlets were evaluating their own coverage after the 2016 election.

"Have you actually found any outlets doing genuine soul searching? I'd be impressed, if so. Everyone's acting like the election merely confirmed all of their existing biases," he said.

Mic Chief Strategy Officer Cory Haik

"We are adding dedicated staff, both in New York and DC, which we never had before," Haik said.

"Because of the election, there was a need to clarify what Mic's role would be for our audience, and that is to help them navigate the changes in policy, and the impact on underrepresented communities of color, immigrants, women, and those interested in social justice and issues there within. This was always our focus, but a line of reporting in service to those groups, as well as generally reporting on the daily news of the administration, is more important than ever."

Mic launched a newsletter, "Navigating Trump's America," and said it will aggressively cover protests across the US.

"We are very much positioned to cover this groundswell in an important way," Haik said.

Talking Points Memo Editor-in-Chief Josh Marshall

"TPM has always been far less wedded to 'false balance' than other publications, particularly large corporate news outlets. So we have less to adjust to. We've always been ready to call a lie a lie, a falsehood a falsehood. Trump just makes it a more useful skill," Marshall said.

"The big change — one that is in the process of coming online as we onboard a series of new hires — is that we are deepening our investment in investigative reporting because we can already see that this administration is uniquely opaque and likely to be uniquely corrupt."

Washington Free Beacon Editor-in-Chief Matthew Continetti

"We're doing what we've always done: reporting accurate stories that otherwise wouldn't see the light of day, and having fun in the process," Continetti said.

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Goodluck Jonathan Nigeria's ex-president denies receiving oil deal kickbacks

Eze also countered prosecutors' contention that an agent named Abubakar Aliyu had collected money for the then president.

Nigeria's former president Goodluck Jonathan did not receive kickbacks from a $1.3 billion deal involving oil giants ENI and Shell which is under investigation in Italy, his spokesman said Tuesday.

In a statement, Jonathan said he has not been "accused, indicted or charged for corruptly collecting monies" linked to the 2011 deal for an offshore oil block in Nigeria.

Italian prosecutors late last month released court documents that outline criminal proceedings against the two oil majors and 11 people, including senior executives from the companies.

Jonathan, who left office in May 2015, and Diezani Alison-Madueke, his long-time oil minister who was also the first woman president of OPEC, do not feature on the list.

But the prosecutors alleged in court papers that they played a key role in the deal in which $466 million went to remunerate Nigerian government officials, including Jonathan and Alison-Madueke.

No formal charges have been brought and the parties usually have 20 days to respond to a preliminary investigation report before any formal prosecution.

"At no time did the former president hold private meetings with representatives of ENI to discuss pecuniary issues," said his spokesman, Ikechukwu Eze.

"All the meetings and discussions former president Jonathan had with ENI, other IOCs and some indigenous operators were conducted officially, and in the presence of relevant Nigerian government officials and were done in the best interest of the country."

Eze also countered prosecutors' contention that an agent namedAbubakar Aliyu had collected money for the then president.

Jonathan "never sent" Aliyu to "collect any gratification on his behalf", and the ex-president "does not own any bank account, aircraft or real estate outside Nigeria," Eze said.

ENI and Shell have both denied wrongdoing.

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Buhari How President chose Osinbajo as VP over Tinubu, Fashola

A list containing the names of the three nominees was said to have been forwarded to Buhari, from which he chose Osinbajo.

 

 

A new book had revealed how President Muhammadu Buhari chose Yemi Osinbajo as his running mate in the 2015 presidential election.

It was generally believed that the national leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was instrumental to Osinbajo's emergence. He was actually against it.

According to the book, an authorised biography of the President, which was launched on Monday, Buhari was to choose a running mate between Tinubu, former Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, and Yemi Osinbajo.

A list containing the names of the three nominees was said to have been forwarded to Buhari, from which he chose Osinbajo despite Tinubu's opposition.

The book titled, ‘Muhammadu Buhari: The Challenges of Leadership in Nigeria,’ was written by Professor John Paden, and presented at an elaborate event at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.

Tinubu shake hands with Oyegun after recent outburst over Ondo election primary

Paden wrote: "With Buhari coming from the North-West geopolitical zone, the Vice-Presidency had been ceded to the South-West geopolitical zone.

"Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State and political ‘godfather’ of the South-West geopolitical zone, felt he should be the vice-presidential candidate.

"His protégée and the then popular Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola, was also a possible candidate.

"Both Tinubu and Fashola were Muslims, which complicated the national balance.

"A third candidate, Yemi Osinbajo, had been Attorney General of Lagos State and a senior law professor and a pastor.

"When the three names were forwarded to Buhari, he chose Osinbajo despite enormous pressure from Tinubu."

While reviewing the book at the launch, Tinubu recalled that Osinbajo was named Buhari's running mate after much debate.

"There was the sticky issue of selecting a running mate. After careful study and discussion, it was agreed that we should field a religiously-balanced ticket given the sensitiveness of the moment," Tinubu said.

The author, however, did not disclose who forwarded the names of the three nominees to Buhari

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