Point One

Beginning from today, 12th December, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will be making Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) of registrants available at its 774 local government area offices for collection. By Section 47(1) of the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2022, a person who intends to vote in any Nigerian election “shall present himself with his voter’s card to a Presiding Officer for accreditation at the polling unit in the constituency in which his name is registered.” That is to say, you must get your PVC ready if your intend / desire to vote in the imminent 2023 general election comprising the national elections into the Presidency and National Assembly seats on 25th February, 2023, and state elections into the governorships and houses of assembly on 11th March, 2023. The first of those elections is just 74 days away, and anyone yet to collect his/her PVC has no time to lose doing so. Many of the PVCs, according to INEC, are for persons who registered or transferred their...

Freshly-installed Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke took the reins early last week in a gale of controversy. The new ‘sheriff’, who emerged through the 16th July governorship poll on Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ticket, stepped in with a bullish swagger to reset all settings by his predecessor, former Governor Gboyega Oyetola of All Progressives Congress (APC). There had been no love lost between them. So, it was expected to be a rocky takeover and it proved to be one.  At his inauguration on Sunday, 27th November, Adeleke froze all Osun accounts in banks and financial institutions. That was anticipated as a standard tack of any incoming administration to forestall a run on state funds by persons taking advantage of momentary flux in leadership, and it would indeed have been curious if not applied. The new governor also reverted the name of the state from ‘State of Osun’ adopted by preceding administrations to ‘Osun State’ as cited in the Nigerian Constitution, and its appellat...