Five things to know to start your Saturday

Court overturns Zamfara PDP governorship primary election

A Federal High Court in Gusau, the Zamfara State Capital has declared null and void the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governorship primary election that produced Dauda Lawal as the State Governorship Candidate of the party ahead of the 2023 general election.

Honourable Justice Aminu Bappa in his judgment said that the court granted all the prayers by the plaintiff which is to nullify the primary election that produced Dauda Lawal and ordered a fresh primary election in line with the PDP constitution and guidelines.

“The court has granted the prayers submitted in this honorable court by the plaintiffs and hereby ruled in their favour,” he said.

“The 109-page judgement will be presented to the counsels of both the plaintiffs and the dependants”.

Read also: Udom Emmanuel heads PDP 326-member Campaign Council

Agbakahi disagrees with poll predicting Tinubu’s poor performance in SouthEast

George Agbakahi, a chieftain of the All Progress Party (APC), has said that he totally disagrees with the widely talked about poll predicting a poor showing of his party’s presidential candidate in the southeast.

The much talked about poll conducted by ANAP predicted that Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the APC, was going to perform poorly in the southeast in the upcoming presidential election of 2023.

While speaking on Arise TV on Friday, the APC chieftain said that his presidential candidate is making inroads in the southeast, and he is sure that he is going to win at least two states in the region.

“The Tinubu campaign would win Imo State and Ebonyi State in this upcoming election, and we would do pretty well in Abia State, Enugu State, and even in Anambra State,” he said.

He rejected in totality the idea that the outcome of elections is decided by feeds from the social media space. “Forget what you are hearing on social media,” he added. “Elections are not won on social media.”

He boasted that his party has a structure with a well-grounded base in every part of the country. “We have the structure; we have the track record. You know, the presidential election is mainly about the presidential candidate. In this upcoming election, we all know that there are major candidates, namely Peter Obi of the Labour Party, Kwankwanso of NNPP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP, as well as our great candidate—Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu of APC.

“You see, in every election all across the world, there are parameters and elements you look at, and when you look at all these candidates, their capacity, their tenacity, their sagacity, in fact, look at their track record of accomplishment. What have they done? Of all of them that are governors, Peter Obi of Anambra State, Kwankwanso of Kano, and Senator Bola of Lagos State. Tinubu outshines them in terms of infrastructural development.

“Just imagine his record in Lagos State,” he boasted of his party’s candidate who has achieved the most among all the candidates vying to become president in 2023.

He said that the former governor of Lagos State achieved tremendously by building 422 roads. “He was the first governor to build an independent power project.”

2023: Arewa Community in South-West drums up support for Tinubu/Shettima

Members of Arewa Community across the six states in the South-West zone, have declared their supports for Bola Tinubu, the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in 2023 elections.

According to NAN, the group made the declaration on Friday in Ibadan at an inaugural meeting of the APC South-West Arewa Community and Declaration of Door to Door Campaign.

In his remarks, Alhaji Sa’adu Dandare, the APC Chairman of the group in the South-West, said that it was necessary for Tinubu to emerge as the next President of Nigeria.

According to him, this became necessary at this critical stage, when insecurity was gradually threatening peaceful coexistence we have been enjoying in the South-West.

Dandare urged Nigerians to vote for competence ahead of religion, saying that there was need for the people to unite in the interest of the country.

He said that the group would mobilise support for victory of Tinubu and his running mate, Sen. Kashim Shettima, as well as other APC candidates in the country.

Ghana declares end of Marburg virus disease outbreak

Ghana on Friday declared the end of the Marburg virus disease outbreak. The country’s Ministry of Health made this declaration after no new cases were reported over the past 42 days, or two incubation periods—the time between infection and the onset of symptoms.

So far, the country has only reported a total of three confirmed cases, including two deaths, in the outbreak declared on July 7, 2022. This followed laboratory confirmation of the virus that affected the country’s Ashanti, Savannah, and Western regions. As a result, the government was able to identify 198 contacts, which were monitored and completed their recommended initial 21-day observation period. Isolation was then extended for another 21 days out of an abundance of caution by the Ghanaian health authorities.

The ministry of health not only stopped with the initial measures but followed closely with support from the World Health Organization (WHO) and other health partners, swiftly rolling out outbreak control measures. step up disease surveillance, testing, contact tracing, and clinical care as well as raising public awareness and working with communities to support disease prevention efforts.

AfDB, Cameroon partner to boost agricultural value chains with €115.05 million

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has entered into a strategically viable partnership that involves financing of €115.05 million for an Agricultural Value Chain Development Project.

According to the AfDB, the Bank Group is funding 77.6 percent of the project, the State of Cameroon is funding 21.5 percent, and beneficiaries are funding 0.9 percent.

Its objective is to help create shared wealth and jobs for young people and strengthen food and nutritional security by bolstering the competitiveness of the oil palm, plantain, banana, and pineapple sectors, of which Cameroon is one of the main exporters in Central Africa.

The agreement was signed on Thursday, September 8, 2022, in Yaounde, Cameroon, with Gabriel Mbairobe, Cameroon’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, and Léandre Djummo, the General Manager of the Commercial Bank of Cameroon, signing for the government, while Serge N’Guessan, the Director General of the African Development Bank for Central Africa, also attended the signing.

The fund will also assist in providing medium-term financing to microfinance institutions in Cameroon so that they can themselves extend flexible medium-term loans (2 to 4 years) to enterprises in the agricultural value chain.