Bwala knocks Keyamo over Tinubu’s defence
Daniel Bwala, the spokesman for the Atiku/PDP presidential campaign, has condemned Festus Keyamo, the spokesman for the Tinubu/Shettima presidential campaign council, over his defence of Ahmed Bola Tinubu, the All Progressive Congress presidential candidate on Channels TV Politics Today, which aired on Wednesday.
Bwala, a lawyer with years of experience in criminal and constitutional matters, provided facts to counter Keyamo’s claims over Tinubu’s innocence of the forfeited monies in his U.S. bank accounts that generated much discussion during the week.
As a guest on the programme on Thursday, the legal luminary argued that Keyamo was in it to deceive Nigerians over the state of the drug cases involving Tinubu and faulted the idea that he could be separated from the forfeited monies.
“Everything he said yesterday was wrong,” he said. “See, I taught in the law school. I am sorry that I have to say that.There are several courses we teach in the law school — professional ethics is one of them.”
He frowned at the psychological attack that Keyamo used during the show to try to intimidate Seun Okinbaloye, the anchor, into succumbing to his argument.
“It is not enough for you to know the law; how you dispense the law and how you argue the law is as important as the knowledge of the law itself,” he said. “And once you are losing an argument in court, the next thing to do is to descend into the legal gutters to begin to challenge.”
Read also: U.S. court judgement indicts Tinubu for drug trafficking
FG disbursed N785bn to MSMEs in 4 years — Minister
Richard Adebayo, the minister of industry, trade and investment, on Thursday said the Federal Government has disbursed N785 billion to over 10 million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) across the country.
Adebayo stated this at the end of the 14th meeting of the National Council on Industry, Trade and Investment held in Bauchi. He added that MSMEs benefitted from the gesture in the past four years. A gesture that came through its partnership with the Bank of Industry (BOI) between 2019 and 2022.
The minister said the government had revised the MSME policy to drive the growth and competitiveness in the sector, adding that it has successfully increased the nation’s capacity to fund tech-driven MSMEs.
The BOI, he said, had deepened its capital base to $5 billion dollars along with its international partners like the African Export-Import Bank (Afrireximbank) and Credit Suisse, among others. NAN reported.
“This was done through our collaboration with the African Development Bank (AfDB) to secure the $500 million dollars Technology Fund.
“Furthermore, the MSME Survival Fund Initiative was launched in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of the Nigerian Economic Sustainability Plan, which protected MSMEs from the shock of the pandemic.
“As of July 2022, N67.5 billion had been disbursed to over 1.2 million beneficiaries, thus protecting at-risk jobs and creating new ones,” he said.
PDP to lodge formal complaint to police over attacks on its campaign rallies
The Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council has said that it has convincing evidence to lodge a complaint to security agencies on recent attacks on the party’s campaigns in Kaduna and Borno states.
The council’s Director, Strategic Communications, Dele Momodu, told newsmen on Thursday in Abuja, that the party was worried by frequent attacks on its campaign trail.
According to NAN, Momodu said that the campaign council would also be reporting the ugly incidents to the National Peace Committee under the leadership of retired Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar.
“On Wednesday, we were attacked in Borno. We’ve been attacked in Kaduna
“It is so unfortunate because there was a peace accord that was signed by most of the presidential candidates.
“We plan to report formally to security authorities; we plan to report to the Peace Committee because democracy is not by force, it is a game of choice.
“So, if I choose to support my candidate, there shouldn’t be any problem about that. Firing Dane guns; throwing stones and all manner of weapons is a very unfortunate development,’’ he said.
He expressed surprise that the police debunked the Wednesday attack on PDP campaign trail in Maiduguri, even when a journalist was also injured during the process.
Around 100,000 UK civil servants vote for strike action
The UK government is facing “sustained industrial action” by civil servants after around 100,000 union members working for the civil service voted to strike in a dispute over pay, pensions, and jobs.
According to the Epoch, the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said on Thursday that the legal threshold for industrial action had been reached in 126 separate areas, covering workers ranging from driving test examiners to Border Force officials.
The union warned that unless it receives “substantial proposals” from the government, it will announce a programme of “sustained industrial action” on Friday November 18.
Elon Musk ends remote work at Twitter, warns of troubles ahead
Elon Musk has emailed Twitter employees, most working remotely, ordering them to return to the office immediately for at least 40 hours a week which amount to 8 hours a day and warning of “difficult times ahead”.
Musk message is the first since he laid off nearly half of the staff working at Twitter after his takeover. Many have had to rely on the Tesla CEO’s public tweets for clues about Twitter’s future.
“Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message,” wrote Musk, before he described a dire economic climate for businesses like Twitter that rely almost entirely on advertising to make money.
“Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn,” Musk said. “We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription.”
