Top 10 news from Nigerian Newspapers this Wednesday morning

Beautiful morning TopNaijarians! Here is today’s summary from Nigerian Newspapers:

1. Nigeria’s former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has officially declared his intention to run for the 2019 presidential election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Atiku made the declaration while addressing stakeholders of the PDP from the 23 Local Government Areas of Rivers State at Government House, Port Harcourt. He said he decided to announce his intention in Rivers state because of Governor Nyesom Wike, who he described as the strength of the PDP.

2. President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday shocked members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of his party when he called for the cancellation of tenure extension for party officials. Speaking shortly before the commencement of NEC meeting on Tuesday, Buhari told the party leadership to consider cancelling the tenure extension decision because it is against the party and Nigerian constitution.

3. The Federal Government on Tuesday declared Friday, 30th March and Monday 2nd April, 2018 as public holidays to mark the Easter celebration. The announcement was made on Tuesday in a statement by the Minister of Interior, Lieutenant Gen. (Rtd) Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau.

4. The Super Eagles were defeated 2-0 by Serbia in an international friendly played in London on Tuesday. Both goals were scored by Aleksandar Mitrovic. Similarly, all goals were scored in the second half of the game after the Eagles made changes to their side.

5. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says its apology to Nigerians was to renew the people’s trust in its rebranded party. The party in a statement on Tuesday by its spokesperson, Kola Ologbodiyan, said it was deeply sad that people were suffering because of the party it voted for to replace it, saying the APC has wrecked the economy and inflicted on Nigerians hunger, starvation and daily bloodletting.

6. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Tuesday said ongoing Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) for the first quarter in 2018, which began on January 8, has successfully ended. Mrs. Ndidi Okarfor, Head, Voter Education and Publicity of INEC in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) told newsmen in Abuja that the exercise ended for the quarter on March 22.

7. The Lagos State Government has announced that Thursday, March 29 will be a work-free day in the state. According to the State, the decision is to enable Lagosians come out enmasse to welcome President Muhammadu Buhari.

8. The Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC ) has suspended 205 staff over various malpractices in the 2015 general elections. INEC’s Chairman, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, disclosed this in his keynote address at the national colloquium organised by the Independent Service Delivery Monitoring Group ( ISDMG ) on Tuesday in Abuja.
He said that the suspension was the highest so far.

9. The National Assembly has postponed the passage of this year’s budget till May 2018.
This is contrary to expectations that the 2018 budget estimates of N8.612 trillion would be passed in April. Chairman, House Committee on Appropriations, Mustapha Dawaki, made this known at the 2018 National Budget Hearing in Abuja on Tuesday.

10. A youth wing of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has advised Shehu Sani, the Senator representing Kaduna Central, to dump the All Progressives Congress (APC). A joint statement signed by the National Coordinator of the PDP National Youth League, Honourable Inioribo Tamunotonye and the National Publicity Secretary, Zainab Al-Amin, said the lawmaker had become an internally displaced person in the ruling party.