Author: nationalpoint

As the 2023 general elections draw close, the Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union Journalists (NUJ) wants politicians and candidates participating in the elections to commit to peaceful conduct and avert the bloodletting that greeted previous polls in the state. That was thus the focus of the chapel, whose membership is drawn from correspondents of national print and electronic media organizations based outside Rivers State, in its Correspondents’ Week activities held Monday January 23 through Sunday January 29th, 2022 in Port Harcourt. Chairman of the chapel, Comrade Amaechi Okonkwo, said at the opening ceremony, that politicians and political parties should…

Majority of Nigerian are living below standard. Poverty in this country is becoming a norm. The citizenry are complaining, lamenting, crying and suffering, all because of the situation we have found ourselves in. Even the rich are equally crying. And where do we go from here? Since the inception of the present administration; since President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) took over the leadership of this country, Nigeria has ceased to be what it was known for. Yes, there is no doubt about the poverty rate that has befallen this country which has worsened by the day.…

Nigerian voters will be stepping out on February 25 and March 11 this year to elect a new President, governors and national and state legislators in what has become the most crucial general election in the last 24 years of the return of the country to democratic rule. It will be the seventh time since the electorate have trooped out to the polls in the new democratic dispensation. But it is the first time that electoral awareness had reached a feverish point. The need for the people to fully and actively participate in the process to choose who run their…

With just a couple of weeks left for Nigerians to go to the polls again, the fear of election violence has gripped the people and residents of Rivers State following consistent attacks on the campaign trains of opposition parties in the state. Only on Monday, some gunmen attacked the campaign party of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, Senator Magnus Abe, as they visited communities in Ahoada West Local Government Area. Rivers State Police Public Relations Officer, Mrs. Grace Iringe-Koko, who confirmed the incident, said, “There was a Pre-rally attack by unknown armed men on the campaign convoy of Senator…

The Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Pastor Tonye Cole, has praised Nigerian journalists for the significant roles they have played in the struggle and sustenance of democracy in Nigeria. In a message he sent to the dinner and closing of the 2022 Press Week of the Correspondents’ Chapel of Rivers State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Port Harcourt on Friday, Cole said right from the beginning of the struggle for Nigeria’s independence, Nigerian journalists have been at the forefront in fighting colonialism and dictatorship. “The media in Nigeria’s history has…

The attempts by soldiers last week to forcibly remove security men and women from Amama Security, a private security firm, owned by Niger Delta activist, Mujahid Dokubo Asari, which has been providing security on the dangerous Emohua-Kalabari road, is raising concern among locals and other users of the road. National Point investigations reveal that the men who have provided badly needed security services on that road since September, 2022 during funeral rites for four-time minister, Alabo T. O. Graham- Douglas in Abonnema from September 8, 2022, face threat of removal from their positions on the stretch of the road. Last…

Edo State Government has restated its determination and commitment to end the spate of human trafficking and illegal migration in the state. The government said it has so far secured the conviction of seven human traffickers with 47 others undergoing prosecution. Executive Secretary of Edo State Task Force Against Human Trafficking, Itohan Okungbowa, disclosed this at a press conference ahead of the International Community Unites programme to support the campaign against sex trafficking in Nigeria with the screening of ‘Oloture,’ which held at the Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub, Benin City. Okungbowa added that the government has recorded a huge success…

The Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Pastor Tonye Cole, has condemned the abortion of the Town Hall meeting called by the Catholic Diocese of Port Harcourt with candidates in the forthcoming general elections in Rivers State. Cole, who spoke to journalists shortly after the meeting was called off, said there was no clear reason why the Town Hall meeting was aborted given that it was not a party event, but an opportunity for candidates across lines to debate and tell the electorate what programmes they had in stock for them should they win the…

With less than six weeks to the all-important 2023 governorship election in Rivers State, concern is growing in the oil and gas rich Kingdom/clan of the Ijaw ethnic nationality over the splintered Kalabari front for the election which holds March 11, 2023. Six out of 18 candidates in the race to Brick House are Kalabari. Among them, three candidates are considered front runners likely to win the race against the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Siminalayi Fubara, handpicked by the governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, whose second tenure expires May 29, 2023. The six candidates of Kalabari extraction are…

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa needs to be acquainted with an African proverb that says “when your father scolds you in the public, a well-brought up child, does not exchange words with him, but goes home to reflect on the words of the old man”. At nearly 96, Chief Senator (Chief) Dr. E.K. Clark, OFR, CON is not only our national leader and elder statesman, but, more significantly, is old enough to be a father and even grandfather to most of us. PANDEF, thus, finds it stunning that less than 24 hours after Chief Clark wrote an open letter to the governor,…