The newly elected National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ini Ememobong, has condemned Tuesday’s violent standoff at the party’s Wadata Plaza headquarters in Abuja.

Ememobong, who was elected at the party’s National Convention in Ibadan, spoke in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Tuesday.

The lawyer said the crisis was a pointer to the disturbing decline in Nigeria’s democratic culture and questioned the process surrounding the disputed meeting.

“Is that a NEC meeting? Every NEC meeting must be monitored by INEC. It’s very shameful and a pity that this is happening after six election cycles

“Democratic consolidation should be firm. Democratic norms should be valued. They should form part of our way of life. Sadly, every election cycle seems to be getting worse.

“In a democracy, the majority will have their way, and the minority will have their say. But what you have now is a minority trying to impose its will on the majority,” he said.

Ememobong warned that the incident exposed party members to serious danger.

“Today, people could have been killed. People were injured. The canisters were shot directly at people. Many elderly people have comorbidities. Some have asthma. Some are hypertensive,” he said.

He noted that several Nigerians had died from inhaling tear gas in the past and accused the ruling party of enabling hostility against the opposition.

“When it gets to the point where it looks as though all the ruling party wants is blood to water democracy, what the chairman is saying is that if it means our blood watering it, then so be it,” the factional PDP spokesman said.

He said the president appeared unbothered by the crisis and insisted that political actors must confront these issues through lawful means.

“It looks like until blood falls, the President does not understand. This happened less than 400 metres from where the President is. An opposition party is being stifled. Almost every opposition party has faced one problem or another.

“Until people stand up and confront these things within the ambit of the law, it will amount to electoral authoritarianism,” he said.

Ememobong also addressed conflicting court orders regarding recent party decisions, explaining that several courts had taken positions on the matter.

“No court has jurisdiction over internal affairs of the party. That is the Supreme Court’s position. But if a court, suo motu or after argument, assumes jurisdiction, we respect the court.

“Two Federal High Courts assumed jurisdiction and gave judgments. The court in Ibadan assumed jurisdiction. It’s not my duty to determine correctness. Lawyers will canvass arguments. The courts will rule,” he said.

He added that the appellate courts would eventually determine the issue.

“It is now the duty of the Court of Appeal to sit on appeal over those judgments. The Supreme Court will then give final clarity. All of this will enrich our jurisprudence,” he noted.

Supporters of Senator Samuel Anyanwu tried to block the arrival of Governors Seyi Makinde and Bala Mohammed, who came with the Turaki-led group.

FCT Minister Nyesom Wike stayed in his car for over 30 minutes during the chaos.

Anyanwu insisted he remained National Secretary and said he invited security to handle “intruders.”

After hours of confrontation, Kabiru Turaki declared he had taken control of the secretariat as National Chairman.

A pro-Wike NEC later expelled Makinde, Mohammed, Dauda Lawal, Bode George, Wabara and Turaki, and dissolved six state excos.

The move followed the Ibadan convention, where 11 members, including Wike, Fayose and Anyanwu, were expelled. Some governors opposed the expulsions.

Anyanwu later blamed PDP governors for worsening the crisis but said the party was not dead.

The Kebbi State Government has clarified the number of abducted schoolgirls still in captivity, saying two of the kidnapped students have escaped from their abductors.

The Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Halima Bande, made the clarification while speaking to Channels Television in Zuru on Tuesday.

Bande explained that bandits abducted 26 girls during the invasion, and although two managed to escape, 24 schoolgirls remain in captivity.

She identified the students who escaped as Salma and Hauwa’u Liman, confirming that they are now back and safe.

“Only two have escaped so far,” she stressed.

“This is a tragedy that has put everyone around us in trauma. We don’t know where they sleep, the food they eat, or the environment they are in,” Bande said.

The Commissioner also urged the general public to avoid spreading misleading information about the abduction, noting that there has been a lot of unauthentic information circulating about the incident.

“Therefore, I implore journalists and media outlets to rely only on authentic information regarding the incident,” she said.

The assailants attacked the Government Girls Comprehensive Senior Secondary School (GGCSS) in Maga, Kebbi State, taking away over 20 students.

A 13-year-old student of Igando Senior High School, Lagos, Master Ebunoluwa Seth Oluwatimilehin, has emerged winner of this year’s National Essay Competition organised by the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc among senior secondary school students nationwide.

He was announced the winner at the grand finale of the competition and award ceremony held at UBA House, Marina, Lagos, on Tuesday.

Interestingly, Ebunoluwa is the first male student to win the star prize in the last eight years as female students have been winning the prize back to back in the past seven years.

From right: UBA Group Managing Director/CEO, United Bank for Africa, Oliver Alawuba; Winner, 2025 National Essay Competition, Ebunoluwa Seth Oluwatimelehin; and Managing Director/CEO, UBA Foundation, Mrs Bola Atta, during the grand finale held at UBA House, Lagos, on Tuesday.


UBA National essay competition, which is an annual event and with this year’s edition, 15th in the series, is one of the major UBA intervention initiatives on education domiciled under its social arm, UBA Foundation. And it is free for participants.

Ebunoluwa , an SS2 student and first child of his parents defeated 15-year-old Emarald Njoku of Christian International School, Owerri, Imo State and Fatima Bayero, a 14-year-old student of Conerstone Montessori School, Abuja to second and third places, respectively and the rest out of a total of 7, 000 students who participated in the competition across the country this year.

While Ebunoluwa was rewarded for his effort with a N10 million scholarship grant to study at any university of his choice in Africa, a trophy, laptop, certificate of merit, and a school bag, Emerald and Fatima on their part, won N7.5 million and N5 million scholarship grants respectively also to study at their choice universities in Africa and equally received a laptop, certificate of merit, and a school bag each.

The money prizes were increased to these amounts this year from N7.5 million, N5 million and N3.5 million for the top three respectively.

Ebunoluwa who was accompanied to the event by his mother, Mrs Comfort Oluwatimilehin, a teacher, told Nigerian Tribune that winning the competition was really tasking as he burnt night candles to read and research to put down the winning essay.

It was his first attempt to participate in the competition.

This year’s topic was “Nigeria is characterized by diverse cultures, ethnicities, and religions. How can young Nigerians deploy diversity to build a united nation?”

While commending UBA Foundation for providing the platform, Ebunoluwa said he had gained additional knowledge about contemporary issues in the country and that hard work and commitment are certainly rewarding.

In his remark at the event, the Managing Director/CEO of UBA Plc, Mr Oliver Alawuba, said UBA is particularly excited to be using the platform to boost education and reading culture and also encourage healthy competition among secondary school students in Nigeria and other African countries, noting that the annual event is designed to positively change the world.

According to him, we believe so much in quality education and we believe that the future of the world is in Africa and that could only be achieved by preparing youths well for the future

He noted that the competition has produced so many winners with many of them now contributing meanigfully to the national development.

He promised that the bank through the competition would continue to invest in the education of African youths who want to study in any of the African universities.

Also speaking, MD/CEO, UBA Foundation, Bola Atta congratulated and commended the winners for their exceptional performance, urging those who did not win the major prize this year not to be discouraged but be more committed to enable them to do better in future.

She said the foundation decided to increase the scholarship money to N10 million, N7.5 million and 5 million for the first, second and third place respectively this year because of the high inflation in Africa.

She noted that the competition had been extended to many other African countries where UBA operates including Ghana, Senegal, Mozambique and so forth as a way of giving back to them.

Atta, however, pointed out that the competition had really improved students wriiten prowess, confidence, critical thinking and also knowledge on social issues in their environment.

In her part, one of the panel of jurists, who assessed all the entries, Prof Asabe Kabir Umar from Usman Dan Fodio University Sokoto, said even though there were better entries this year, many of those entries were actually poor as many students wrote out of contexts and also used slangs in their essays.

She said their entries showed that many of the students are too engrossed with social media and things that would not add value to them rather than be committed to their studies.