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2027: Coalition’s bid to unseat Tinubu faces setback as PDP suffers mass exodus

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With two years to the next presidential election, mixed reactions have trailed the gale of defections by high-profile politicians from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, into the All Progressives Congress, APC.

This comes as it was hinted that the coalition spearheaded by former PDP’s presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar may not succeed against the President Bola Tinubu-led APC due to moves by some Fulani interests to escalate the Fulani war that has birthed itself in Nigeria.

Recently, Atiku, his counterpart from the Labour Party Peter Obi, Babachir Lawal, former Kaduna State governor Nasir El-Rufai, announced the formation of the coalition under the Social Democratic Party.

Since the announcement, no political bigwig has joined the party in their push to wrest power from Tinubu in 2027.

This is as the PDP and Atiku’s camp lost two major stakeholders from the South-South, Ifeanyi Okowa and Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State.

Okowa, who was Atiku’s presidential running mate in the 2023 election, had dumped the PDP for the APC alongside Oborevwori at a stakeholders’ meeting in Asaba, Delta State.

It was observed that Oborevwori’s defection now puts the APC in the lead in the Nigerian Delta region, Delta, Edo, and Cross River states are APC, while the governors of Akwa Ibom and Rivers states have backed President Tinubu, leaving only Bayelsa State with the PDP.

In the Southwest, the APC may likely retain votes from the region because Tinubu hails from the area.

For the North, there have been agitations over the region’s political leaning ahead of the 2027 presidential election, with former presidential aide Hakeem Baba-Ahmed saying the North will decide its political direction in the next six months because the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari made the region wiser.

Baba-Ahmed said, “In the next six months, the North will decide where it stands. If the rest of the country wants to join us, fine. If not, we will go our own way.”

While Baba-Ahmed, a former spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), El-Rufai has been trying to galvanize the North to tilt their votes towards the opposition coalition with his visit to the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi, and former presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, Rabiu Kwankwaso amid talks with other prominent politicians from the rregion.

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Reps minority caucus confirms authentic version of tax laws passed by NASS were altered

This is a clear case of the Executive undermining legislative powers by illegally altering an already passed law to drag more taxpayers into the net,” the report read.

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The House of Representatives Minority Caucus said that its investigation has confirmed that the tax federal government’s tax reform laws were altered after they had been passed by the National Assembly.

“This is a clear case of the Executive undermining legislative powers by illegally altering an already passed law to drag more taxpayers into the net,” the Cacus said, warning that the actions amount to a direct assault on the constitutional authority of the National Assembly and a threat to democratic governance.

In an interim report, released on Friday the Cacus, under the leadership of Kingsley Chinda, said that it set up a 7-man Fact-finding Committee on January 2nd “to get to the root of the scandal” after public outrage over allegations of discrepancies in the passed and gazetted tax.

The ad-hoc committee set up by the caucus is independent of the committee set up by the House leadership.

It is led by Afam Victor Ogene. Other members of the committee include Aliyu Garu – Bauchi, Stanley Adedeji – Oyo, Ibe Osonwa – Abia, Hon. Marie Ebikake – Bayelsa, MB Shehu Fagge – Kano and Gaza Gbefwi Jonathan – Nasarawa.

The Cacus said that as part of its investigations, it’s Ad-hoc committee compared the Certified True Copies of the Acts released officially by the House of Representatives as directed by the Speaker, with the already gazetted version already in circulation before the alarm was raised by the House, and confirmed that there were some alterations as alleged by Dasuki on the floor of the House of Representatives, especially in the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, 2025;

The Cacus also confirmed that there were three different versions of the documents in circulation, particularly the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, 2025.

According to the interim report by the caucus, the Nigeria Tax Administration Act (NTAA), 2025, has a number of discrepancies from the version passed by the National Assembly and the version earlier published in the official gazette. These discrepancies are obvious, going by the released Certified True Copies (CTCs) by the House referenced earlier.

..i. Section 29(1): On Reporting Thresholds: While the NASS Certified version provided for a tax compliance reporting threshold of N50 million for individuals and N100 million for companies, the gazetted version lowered the reporting thresholds for individuals to (N25 million from N50 million) and (N100 million from N250 million) for companies.

ii. Section 41: Introducing new subsections (8) and (9) prescribing a mandatory 20% Deposit for Appeals:The gazetted version introduced new subsections 41(8) and 41(9), which required taxpayers to deposit 20% of the disputed tax amount as a condition for appealing Tax Appeal Tribunal (TAT) decisions to the High Court.

These sections were not in the authentic version passed by NASS.


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TCN records National grid collapses first time in 2026

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which manages the national grid, had yet to disclose the cause of the collapse as of the time of filing this report.

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The national grid collapsed on Friday for the first time in 2026.

The system failure occurred around 1 pm, when load allocation to all electricity distribution companies (DisCos) fell to zero.

Data obtained from the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) showed that power generation dropped to zero megawatts (MW), leading to a total shutdown of electricity supply across the country.

A review of the national distribution load profile at the time of the incident indicated that all DisCos — including Abuja, Eko, Benin, Enugu, Ibadan, Ikeja, Jos, Kano, Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Yola — recorded zero load, confirming a nationwide outage.

The collapse came shortly after grid operators reported strong electricity demand in major urban centres.

Before the system failure, Abuja Electricity Distribution Company was receiving about 639 MW, while Ikeja Electric drew approximately 630 MW, reflecting what officials described as robust demand across key cities.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), which manages the national grid, had yet to disclose the cause of the collapse as of the time of filing this report.

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Awujale stool: Protest rocks Ijebu Ode over imposition plots

The protesters marched through Awujale Palace Road on their way to the Ijebu Ode Local Government Secretariat to register their displeasure over the development.

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• Awujale stool protesters, Friday 23 January, 2026.

A peaceful protest broke out on Friday in Ijebu Ode over alleged plans to impose the next Awujale of Ijebuland.

The protesters marched through Awujale Palace Road on their way to the Ijebu Ode Local Government Secretariat to register their displeasure over the development.

Earlier, the Ogun State Government, on Tuesday, in a statement signed by the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Ganiyu Hamzat, halted the Awujale selection process following a flood of petitions received from security agencies and other stakeholders.

The nominees for the stool were mandated to report to the Department of States Security (DSS) office in Ogun State.

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