Daily Watch – No voting in 240 PUs, Chad begins prosecuting rebels

The PDP Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), Rivers chapter, confirmed that its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, would no longer hold his scheduled rally in Rivers because of the crisis between the council and Rivers chapter of the PDP led by Governor Nyesom Wike. Senator Lee Maeba, chairman of Rivers PCC, said the volatile atmosphere created by the governor’s foot soldiers led to the cancellation. Maeba said the governor berated them and cancelled the approval given to them for their presidential rally in the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium in Port Harcourt. In other election-related news, the vote will not be held in 240 polling units in 28 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). This is because no voter chose the polling units during the last Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) between June 2021 and July 2022. The PUs was part of the over 56,000 newly created polling units. With this development, the 25 February and 11 March exercises will be held in 176,606 PUs.

30 state governors who are leaving office on 29 May or seeking re-election have increased their states’ debts to ₦4.8 trillion, according to the data from the Debt Management Office (DMO). Amid declining allocations from the Federation Account as well as meagre internally generated revenue flows, checks by BusinessDay showed some state governors increased their debt profile in Q3 2022 despite having a few months left in office. DMO’s data shows that the FCT recorded an increase of 48 percent, from ₦75 billion to ₦112 billion, followed by Niger with an increase to ₦98 billion from ₦80.9 billion. Other states of concern are Ebonyi and Gombe. Ebonyi recorded an increase from ₦59 billion to ₦67 billion while Gombe also recorded an increase from ₦123.6 billion to ₦144.2 billion. Bauchi saw an increase to ₦144 billion from ₦129 billion; Kaduna, an increase from ₦78 billion to ₦86 billion. Lagos from ₦797 billion to ₦877 billion; Akwa Ibom, from ₦203.9 billion to ₦219.6 billion and Plateau, from ₦144.6 billion to ₦151.9 billion.

The Ghanaian government will likely pass the 80 percent target needed for the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP). The programme is part of the requirements before it can secure a $3 billion economic bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Some persons close to the team who worked on the programme told Joy Business the target was met on 10 February. Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta is expected to make an official announcement on how the programme fared this week. The government was able to achieve the target despite the exclusion of pension funds from the programme. Despite the protest by the Individual Bondholders Forum, one of the programme’s biggest opponents, some individual bondholders voluntarily participated in the programme.

Chad on Monday began trying the 150 rebels accused of causing the death of President Idriss Déby. The trial will take place in Kléssoum, in a high-security prison, a local news website reported, citing judicial sources. The suspects belong to the Front for Concord and Change in Chad (FACT), the rebel movement which launched an offensive to overthrow Chad’s government from rear bases in Libya in 2021. They are being charged with terrorism, enlisting child soldiers, and mercenaries, undermining state security and assassinating a sitting president. Idriss Deby was killed on the frontline in April 2021 while overseeing the army’s operations to drive back the rebels. He had just won a new mandate in a vote criticised as fraudulent. With the help of France, Chad’s new military rulers were able to stop the rebel advance. Nearly two years since Deby’s death, negotiations between the rebel movement and the government have stalled. The group has boycotted peacebuilding talks, demanding the release of its members.