Former Special Adviser on Political Matters to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, Babafemi Ojudu, has said ex-governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose lacks honour and can’t spell the word “politics.”

Ojudu made the remark while recounting how he defeated Fayose during the 2011 senatorial election in Ekiti State.

He alleged that Fayose became governor after his impeachment because he engaged in vote-buying and the people of Ekiti State were hungry.

The former presidential aide disclosed this during an interview on Edmund Obilo’s podcast, State Affairs on Thursday morning.

Ojudu said despite Fayose having money to prosecute the election, he defeated him with 68,000 votes while the former governor had 28,000 votes.

According to Ojudu: “Fayose has no honour now, he is a man of dishonour, he became governor again because people are hungry, vote for a pot of soup and N5000, everybody will vote in an environment of poverty.

“I have been the only one who defeated him in an election; he stood against me during the Senate election, he had 28,000 votes and I had 68,000 votes.

“This is also a story of how I defeated him, he had the money to spend but I didn’t have the money to spend.

“Then, a radio station organized a debate between me and him which was actually an unfair competition. When we got there, I went in my Agbada while he came in a Tee shirt and jeans.

“As soon as he entered, I saw an inscription on that Tee-shirt “Politics is Serious Business” and I saw that politics was wrongly spelt.

“I was happy that I had this guy today. I called my photographer, ‘please snap his chest, which he did,’ we went on and he accused me of all sorts of things.

“He called me a road side journalist and I was just waiting. After we had thrown all kinds of barbs at each other, the moderator said ‘we have come to the end of the debate but I will give you two minutes each. Who is going to start?’

“And I said my governor must start, he thought I was actually being civil but I needed to talk last so that he would have no reply.

“When he finished, I said ‘today is my saddest day because I don’t know what to tell my 13-year-old daughter when I get back home – that the man who was my governor, who wants to go and represent Ekiti in the Senate does not know how to spell politics.

“People at home, I’m calling your attention to the chest of this former governor of yours who wants to go to the Senate and can’t spell politics – are we going to continue having illiterates in power? He just put his hands on his chest and ran out of the studio, that was a killer punch.”

The Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, has confirmed that Nigeria’s telecommunications tariffs will soon increase.

He, however, assured Nigerians that it will not be the 100 percent that telecom operators are pushing for at the moment.

TIjani disclosed this at the end of a stakeholders meeting with Mobile Network Operators, MNOs on Wednesday in Abuja.

He said that very soon, the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, would approve the new tariffs and make it public to Nigerians.

“You have seen over the past weeks that there has been agitation from some of these companies to increase tariffs. They are requesting a 100 percent tariff increase.

“But it will not be by 100 percent. We are still looking at that study, and NCC will come up with a clear directive on how we will go about it.

“We want to strike the balance as a government to protect our people but also protect and ensure that these companies can continue to invest significantly.

“We need to ensure that as a sector, we get our acts together and ensure that from the regulation side, we put the right regulations in place that can ensure the growth of this sector.”

The minister also noted that the federal government would no longer leave investments in infrastructure in the sector to private companies alone.

“As a country, over time, we have left this investment in the hands of the private sector. They typically invest where they can see returns in the short to medium term.

“We will not want this conversation to just be about tariff increase. I think what the world is talking about today is meaningful connectivity.

“You want to have access to very good quality service.

“A part of it that the consumers may not be aware of is the investment that needs to go into the infrastructure that is used to deliver these services,” he said.

The Executive Vice-Chairman, EVC, of the NCC, Dr Aminu Maida, said the meeting with stakeholders was about the sustainability of the industry.

“We have looked at all of these factors, and that is why, like the minister said, it is not likely that we are going to approve a 100 percent tariff increase.

“I know that Nigerians are agitated to hear the exact percentage approved. There is still some stakeholder engagement that we are going through, but you will hear from us within a week or two.”

He said that the NCC had put a number of tools and instruments into place by revising its quality of service regulations for compliance service quality.

He noted that the MNOs must comply with simplified templates to show Nigerians charges per minute for voice calls, SMS, and a megabyte of data.

“We are moving away from the regime where you will have a main rate, and then you will now have a bonus that is at a different rate.

“It makes it often complicated and difficult for Nigerians to actually understand what they are being charged for.

“This is one of the things that, when we took a lot of time over the past year looking at data, there was this agitation that the MNOs are stealing our data,” he said.

Earlier, we reported that Tijani was meeting with telco stakeholders amid increased pressure for a telecom tariff hike.

Meanwhile, telecom subscribers had also urged telcos to consider alternatives to tariff hikes.
This comes as telcos, including MTN and Airtel, had recently written to the NCC for fresh tariff hike approval.

We recall telcos recently threatened a shutdown of the sector if telecoms tariff hike is not approved.

Meanwhile, telecom subscribers had also urged telcos to consider alternatives to tariff hikes.

The Lagos State Special Offences Court, on Wednesday, dismissed an application filed by former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, challenging the court’s jurisdiction to entertain the $4.5 billion and N2.8 billion fraud charges brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Justice Rahman Oshodi, in his ruling, held that the court had the jurisdiction to try Emefiele and his co-defendant, Henry Omoile.

The judge, however, struck out four of the 26 counts filed by the EFCC against the defendants for lack of jurisdiction.

“The objection challenging the court’s territorial jurisdiction over counts eight to 26 fails and is hereby dismissed.

“The prosecution has established sufficient territorial nexus in this case,” the court held.

To this end, the judge subsequently adjourned the case for trial continuation on February 24, 2025.

The EFCC had arraigned Emefiele on 26 charges, bordering on abuse of office and illegal allocation of $4.5 billion and N2.8 billion.

At the last adjourned date on December 12, 2024, Emefiele’s counsel, Mr. Olalekan Ojo (SAN), argued that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case in Lagos.

The embattled Emefiele was suspended as CBN governor on June 14, 2023, by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government.