2023: NSCDC charges journalists on peaceful reportage in Zamfara

Sidi Muh’d,

The Commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) Zamfara State Command,

Mohammed Bello Mu’azu, has called on the media to eschew the idea of heartbreaking reportage on election matters especially as efforts were on ground for continued relevant peace restoration in the state and the country at large.

Commandant Mu’azu made the plea during a meeting with working Journalists in the state titled; ‘Capacity Building and The Role of Media in News Reportage in the 2023 General

Elections’ held on Saturday.

The aim of the meeting according to Commandant Mu’azu, was to make a bond between the NSCDC and the working journalists to ensuring violent free elections.

By Musa Baba Adamu

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Imo State has called on the Federal Government to invoke its powers in line with the provisions of Section 47 (3) of the Fiscal Responsibility Act to stop Senator Uzodinma from destroying Imo State with an unsustainable debt portfolio.

The opposition party said it feels greatly pained by the spike in Imo’s debt profile, and states in clear terms that the administration of Senator Hope Uzodinma has mortgaged the future of unborn generations with unpayable debt stock, while also elevating treasury looting to the status of state policy

PDP in a statement signed by its state Publicity Secretary, Collins Opurozor and made available to journàlists on Monday said with a debt profile of N220 billion, Imo today has the highest Debt-to-GDP ratio in Nigeria.

The opposition party further said it therefore, alerts Ndimo, and indeed Nigerians, to a grand plot by Senator Hope Uzodinma to borrow as much as possible and plunge Imo into debt slavery, so as to flee Nigeria with enough loots upon his imminent defeat at the governorship polls in November this year.

The statement reads, “It is on record that the widelyrejected administration of Senator Uzodinma has already gotten the malleable House of Assembly to pass a bogus budget which contains nothing but a very sinister plan to borrow, just in 2023, the sum of N354 billion.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the entire receipts from FAAC to Imo State for the year 2023 would be in the region of N70 billion. The 13% Derivation Fund would total about N9.6 billion. The State’s IGR would be N13 billion. And other interventions and grants, including UBEC, would be N28 billion. That brings the total income of the State for the year to about N120.6 billion. Yet, Senator Uzodinma has planned to fritter away the sum N475 billion within the year. The deficit, which is N354 billion, would be raised through borrowings.

“Still unsatisfied with that amount, Senator Uzodinma has again sent a supplementary budget of N118 billion to the parliament. This will also be financed through loans and squandered as usual. This shows Senator Uzodinma has already perfected plans to leave behind a cumulative debt burden of over N700 billion. It will take more than ten generations to clear this mess which the unelected regime has created in just three years.

“It is curious that in all of the landmark borrowings by Senator Uzodinma, no effort has been made to redraw the industrial landscape of the State by re-jigging investments in the hugely vital agro-industrial sector where Imo