Jarrett Tenebe, chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo, has defended Monday Okpebholo, governor of the state.

On Tuesday, Okpebholo stuttered before lawmakers while reading figures from his 2025 budget proposal.

The governor said the N605 billion appropriation bill represents a 25 percent increase from the 2024 budget.

“The Edo state Appropriation Bill of six billion… 605 billion… 76 million…” Okpebholo began, his hands unsteady and voice quivering in the rarefied assembly.

“Let me take it again. 506 billion… 605 billion… sorry… 776 billion… sorry, it’s confusing me.”

Okpebholo’s admission elicited laughter and murmurs in equal doses from the lawmakers.

Defending the snafu, Tenebe said Okpebholo struggles with figures because he does not know how to steal public funds.

In a video, the state’s APC chair said unlike a handful of politicians from Edo, Okpebholo is no kleptomaniac.

“The social media has been agog with the governor’s budget presentation about mistake on N605 billion and the rest of it all,” Tenebe said.

“It’s a normal thing. People make such mistakes. I don’t know figures… and that’s how to know original and innocent people.

“Monday Okpebholo is not a thief and he is not familiar with figures. Anybody who wants to talk and continue to talk is nonsense.

“He is the governor of the state, he is performing and he’ll continue to perform and anybody who does not like his face should go to hell and burn to ashes. Period!”

2025 budget proposal,Edo State,Jarrett Tenebe,Monday Okpebholo,

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has assured Ondo voters that it would not disappoint them in the Saturday (today)’s governorship election in the state, expressing its readiness for the poll.

INEC National Commissioner Supervising Ondo, Ogun and Osun States, Professor Kunle Ajayi, stated this on Channels Television’s Politics Today in Akure, Ondo State capital, on Friday.

Ajayi said the electoral empire won’t disappoint them as they file out in their numbers to elect a new governor who will pilot the affairs of the Sunshine State for the next four years.

“We have done our own work, we are proud of what we have done and we will not disappoint the people of Ondo State,” he said.

Recall that on Thursday, INEC commenced the sensitive materials to various local government areas of Ondo State ahead of Saturday’s governorship election.

The distribution was carried out at the premises of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Alagbaka, Akure, Ondo State, under the watch of party agents, armed policemen, and several commercial buses hired by the Commission.

The INEC National Commissioner noted that unlike the September 21 governorship election in Edo State, all the registered areas in Ondo State have received their sensitive materials.

“I want to assure you that everything will go well. As of 3 pm, all the Registered Areas (RAs) all their sensitive materials. The next thing is to move to the Polling Unit (PU). I toured some of the RAs this afternoon,” he added.

Lere Olayinka, the Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media to Federal Capital Territory FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, has advised ex-Vice President, Atiku Abubakar to drop his ambition to be Nigeria’s president in 2027.

In a statement, Olayinka claimed Atiku was not destined to rule the country.

He said “The PDP presidential ticket will no longer be available to be wasted by serial betrayals of the party, who are obviously suffering the consequences of their past sins against the party and its members”.

Insisting that Atiku should perish the thought of contesting the 2027 presidential election as candidate of the PDP, Olayinka said “Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and those egging him on for their benefits should let the PDP breathe.”

FCT Minister, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike had said during a live media parley in his office in Abuja on Wednesday that there would be no chance for Atiku, who was the 2023 Presidential candidate of the PDP to secure the party’s ticket in 2027.

Reacting through his Media Aide, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku had alluded to his defeat of Wike to pick the 2023 PDP presidential ticket as well as the former governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, to emerge as the candidate in 2019.

However, in a statement yesterday, Olayinka, said Atiku’s “celebration of his narrow and fraudulent defeat of Wike in the 2022 PDP primary was funny and childish”, adding that “it is like Arsenal fans jumping to the rooftops to celebrate the club’s narrow defeat of Super Falcons.”

He said: “That Atiku is venerating himself for contesting PDP ticket with Wike and Tambuwal, people who were just a little above 25 as of 1993, when he contested the Social Democratic Party SDP presidential primary and came third, is the more reason he needs to go home and rest and stop acting like the proverbial cock that failed to realize that it is now elderly.”

Describing Atiku as someone not destined to be president of Nigeria, Olayinka said; “It is obvious that he (Atiku) is paying the price of betraying the PDP in 2003, 2007 and 2014. If not, the same presidency he has contested twice and lost, could have been his to just pick if he had avoided being inordinately ambitious while he was Vice President.”

“It was this desperation that made him to contest for president as candidate of Action Congress in 2007, while still serving as Vice President, elected under the platform of the PDP. A serving Vice President joining others to form another party and contesting as candidate of the new party against his own party.

That’s Alhaji Atiku Abubakar!