Author: PeakNews

Former president of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa has returned after seven weeks from Thailand after fleeing the country amid national crisis.

The 73 year old former leader fled the country in July after tens of thousands of protesters stormed his home and office in a display of anger over ravaging economic hardship

Rajapaksa flew into Colombo’s Bandaranaike international airport around midnight Friday from Bangkok via Singapore. On being welcomed by lawmakers in his party, Rajapaksa left the airport in a motorcade heavily guarded by armed soldiers and reached a government-owned house allocated to him as a former president, at the center of the capital, Colombo.

On July 13, the ousted leader, his wife and two bodyguards left aboard an air force plane for the Maldives, before traveling to Singapore from where he officially resigned. He flew to Thailand two weeks later.

Rajapaksa has no court case or arrest warrant pending against him. The only court case he was facing for alleged corruption during his time as the secretary to the ministry of defense under his older brother’s presidency was withdrawn when he was elected president in 2019 because of constitutional immunity.

For months, Sri Lanka has been in the grips of its worst economic crisis, which triggered extraordinary protests and unprecedented public rage that ultimately forced Rajapaksa and his brother, the former prime minister, to step down. The situation in the bankrupt country was made worse by global factors like the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but many hold the once-powerful Rajapaksa family as responsible for severely mismanaging the economy and tipping it into crisis.

The economic meltdown has seen monthslong shortages of essentials such as fuel, medicine and cooking gas due to a severe shortage of foreign currency. Though cooking gas supplies were restored through World Bank support, shortages of fuel, critical medicines and some food items continue.

The island nation has suspended repayment of nearly $7 billion in foreign debt due this year. The country’s total foreign debt amounts to more than $51 billion, of which $28 billion has to be repaid by 2027.

On Tuesday, President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over after Rajapaksa resigned, and his administration reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a $2.9 billion bailout package over four years to help the country recover.

Rajapaksa, a former military officer, was elected on promises to uplift the country’s economy and ensure national security after Islamic State-inspired bomb attacks killed some 270 people in churches and hotels on Easter Sunday 2019. He relinquished his American citizenship when he contested the election because laws at the time made dual citizens ineligible from holding political office.

As a top defense official he is accused of overseeing human rights violations by the military during the country’s three-decade civil war with the now-defeated Tamil Tiger rebels who fought for an independent state for the country’s ethnic minority Tamils.

In April, protesters started camping outside the president’s office in the heart of Colombo and chanted “Gota, go home,” a demand for Rajapaksa to quit, which quickly became the rallying cry of the movement.

The demonstrations dismantled the Rajapaksa family’s grip on politics. Before Rajapaksa resigned, his older brother stepped down as prime minister and three more close family members quit their Cabinet positions.

But the country’s new president, Wickremesinghe, has since cracked down on protests. His first action as leader included dismantling the protest tents in the middle of the night as police forcibly removed demonstrators from the site and attacked them.

There is genuine fear among people who want to protest now, said Bhavani Fonseksa, with the independent think tank Center for Policy Alternatives.

“Whether people will take to the streets to demonstrate again is still to be seen, especially since there’s been so much repression since Ranil Wickremesinghe came to power. Several protesters have been arrested so there is genuine fear,” she said.

“There is no way Gotabaya will be forgiven for his transgressions but I think now there is more bitterness than public rage that awaits him,” Jayatilleka added.

For Nazly Hameem, an organizer who helped lead the protest movement, the former president’s return isn’t an issue “as long as he is held accountable.”

“He is a Sri Lankan citizen so no one can prevent him from coming back. But as someone who wants justice against the corrupt system, I would like to see action taken there should be justice, they should file cases against him and hold him accountable for what he did to the country.”

“Our slogan was ‘Gota, go home’ we didn’t expect him to flee, we wanted him to resign. As long as he doesn’t involve himself in active politics, it won’t be a problem.”

The Peoples Democratic Party,PDP, Osun State chapter, has expelled a 2022 governorship aspirant, Dotun Babayemi from the party.

Babayemi, who  emerged governorship candidate in a parallel congress and currently contesting the emergence of the state governor – elect, Senator Ademola Adeleke as the flag bearer of the party  at the supreme court, was accused of anti-party activities by local executives of PDP.

The Ward Executive members of Otun Balogun 2, Ayedaade local government area of the State made the pronouncement during a press briefing at the State Party secretariat in Osogbo.

Presenting the decision of the Ward EXCO, the Secretary, Ogunleye Bukayo said the factional governorship candidate was expelled as a result of a petition filed against him by some party members.

The Ward Executive Committee of the party stated that Dotun Babayemi seizes to be member of the party at his Ward and local government, forthwith.

A group based in the southeast called Committee of Friends G5 South East Zone, has concluded plans to deliver one million votes for the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, in Abia State.

The group has also vowed to sway the entire South-East voters for the PDP during the presidential election.

According to a press statement made to journalists in Abuja, the Coordinator of the group, Barr. Chinyere Chigbu who was the former Abia State PDP Vice Chairman, Abia Central Senatorial Zone, said that the Committee of Friends G5 South East Zone is determined to ensure that Atiku Abubakar wins not only Abia State but the entire Southeastern states.

He recalled that during the 2019 presidential election, the PDP scored 219, 698 votes in Abia State, which, according to him, was abysmal considering the over 1,932,892 eligible voters who could have voted to sway the election in favor of Atiku Abubakar.

Bar. Chigbu however, noted that “to this end, our sensitization and campaign drive will focus on the grassroots through village-to-village and ward to ward aggressive mobilization to ensure that Atiku Abubakar secures over 1.2 million votes in Abia state and over 85 percent of the votes cast in the South East in 2023.

“We don’t see any threat to us achieving this target because the Presidential candidate of the PDP is the most experienced and most prepared to take the country out of its current woes.

“Among all the top presidential candidates, Atiku Abubakar has the capacity, the network, and the know-how to take the country to the next level and salvage Nigeria from total collapse.”

The Jigawa State authorities says it spent N192.ninety six billion to put in force its Maternal and Child Cash Transfer (MCCT) programme among November 2021 and June 2022.

Ibrahim Rabakaya, government secretary, Jigawa State Rehabilitation Board, disclosed this throughout a three-day validation of Kaduna country’s Graduation Youth-Focused Social Protection programme on Wednesday in Kano.

Mr Rabakaya stated the programme became delivered in 2021 primarily based totally at the successes of the coins switch programme that become carried out withinside the nation through a Non-Governmental Organisation, Action Against Hunger (AAH).

He defined that the MCCT, which turned into carried out beneathneath the Child Development Grant programme, furnished the wanted proof approximately the effectiveness of coins switch in addressing poverty and vulnerability.

Mr Rabakaya stated the intervention focused 5,740 beneficiaries – pregnant girls and lactating mothers, for conditional coins switch throughout the 287 political wards withinside the kingdom.

He delivered that 20 beneficiaries have been decided on from every of the 287 political wards to deal with stunting amongst kids beneathneath five.

According to Mr Rabakaya, each 5,740 beneficiaries acquired 32,000, N4,000 month-to-month from November 2021 to June 2022, amounting to N183.sixty eight billion.

He brought that N4 million became expended as more charges, N688.eight million on financial institution charges, and N4.fifty nine million on automatic teller machines cards.

The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, on Friday called on Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State to call security outfit, Ebubeagu to order in the State

IPOB said the security outfit has turned into a kidnapping ring that demands huge money from its victims.

The group vowed to use its secret strategy to stop the security outfit allegedly created by Soludo in the state.

A statement by Powerful reads: “The attention of the global movement and family of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) ably led by the great leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has been drawn to the random killing of innocent people, especially the youths of Anambra State by Nigeria Army and the secret security outfit created by Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State. The unfortunate thing is that Prof. Soludo is claiming ignorance of the dirty job committed by this criminal security outfit, as innocent lives are being wasted in Anambra Stated.

“IPOB have no problem with anyone creating a security outfit to secure the land so long as the Security outfit is not after the innocent Biafrans. It is important that Soludo call this secret Security outfit and their handlers and Military commander to order because they have turned into kidnappers who kidnap innocent citizens in the name of arrest and turn around to request huge amounts from their victims before they are released, and those unable to pay are wasted.

“Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo must look into numerous attacks, kidnapping and killing of innocent people in Anambra State committed by these Security outfits.

“Example of such killings was the reckless killing of one innocent youth at Abatete on the suspicion that he was an IPOB member by trigger happy terrorist soldier on this security outfit on the mere suspicion of being an IPOB member. IPOB is not a terrorist group even a Nigerian court and recently, the UN has confirmed so. Only in Nigeria that being an IPOB member is met with instant killing by the same government sponsoring more than four different terrorist groups in Northern Nigeria.

“Nigeria Fulani terrorist government think that they can break IPOB members with arrest and killing, but in the end, Biafra Nation will be restored.

“Soludo created secret security militia thinking that we will not know, and they are now calling themselves Ebubeagu security militia. Everybody in the State of Anambra State can see how these criminal Security outfits are attacking and killing innocent people while blaming it on faceless criminals. These hoodlums called themselves Soludo security are Ebubeagu in disguise. Their modus operandi is the same as that of Ebubeagu Imo State supreme Court Administrator Hope Uzodinma.

“Mr. Governor, you must call Nigeria military and your Ebubeagu security outfits who murder people at random to order. Otherwise, we will use our strategy to stop their madness and mindless attacks and killing of our people.”