Two different Speakers emerged in the seventh Nasarawa State House of Assembly on Tuesday.

They are the immediate past Speaker, Ibrahim Balarabe-Abdullahi, who is seeking a third term as Speaker and Daniel Ogazi, a member representing Kokona East constituency in the Assembly.

While Balarabe-Abdullahi was elected at a sitting which took place at the Ministry for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Ogazi emerged as Speaker from the proceedings at the State Assembly complex.

Before the elections which produced both Speakers, a press statement was earlier issued by the acting Clerk of the House, Ibrahim Musa, indicating that the inauguration of the 24 members-elect and the election of a new Speaker of the Assembly had been postponed indefinitely.

Security operatives barricaded the entrance and prevented everyone, including 13 out of the 24 members-elect from gaining access to the assembly premises.

The 13 members-elect are believed to be supporters of Ogazi, who is a member of the All Progressives Congress but collaborating with members-elect from the opposition political parties, while 11 members were loyal to Balarabe-Abdullahi, who is also a member of the APC in the state.

Punch

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

War zone villagers flee after massive Ukraine dam destroyed

A torrent of water burst through a massive dam on the Dnipro River that separates Russian and Ukrainian forces in southern Ukraine on Tuesday, flooding a swathe of the war zone, forcing villagers to flee and prompting finger-pointing from both sides.

Ukraine said Russia had committed a deliberate war crime in blowing up the Soviet-era Nova Kakhovka dam, which powered a hydroelectric station. The Kremlin blamed Ukraine, saying it was trying to distract from the launch of a major counteroffensive Moscow says is faltering.

Some Russian-installed officials said the dam had collapsed on its own, while Washington said it was uncertain who was responsible. But Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Robert Wood told reporters it would not make sense for Ukraine to destroy the dam.

Neither side offered immediate public evidence of who was to blame. The Geneva Conventions ban targeting dams in war because of the danger to civilians.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address that his prosecutors had already approached the International Criminal Court about the dam incident. Earlier, he claimed on Telegram that Russian forces blew up the power plant from inside.

Buses, trains and private vehicles were marshalled to carry people to safety while some people waded in knee-deep water, carrying pets and luggage.

"Residents are sitting on the roofs of their homes waiting to be rescued.... This is a Russian crime against people, nature and life itself," Oleksiy Kuleba, a senior official on Zelenskiy's staff, said on Telegram.

Ukrainian officials reported well over 1,000 people rescued from Kherson city along with residents evacuated from flooded towns and villages.

A Russian-installed official said some 22,000 people in the Kherson region were at risk, RIA news agency said. Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram that 80 settlements were in the flood zone.

"More and more water is coming every hour. It's very dirty," Yevheniya, a woman in Nova Kakhovka on the Russian-controlled bank of the Dnipro, said by telephone.

It was not immediately clear if anyone died but U.S. spokesman John Kirby said it had probably caused "many deaths".

"Our local school and stadium downtown were flooded," Lidia Zubova, 67, told Reuters as she waited for a train out of Ukrainian-controlled Kherson city after abandoning her inundated village of Antonivka. "The road was completely flooded, our bus got stuck."

Ukrainian police released video of an officer carrying an elderly woman to safety and others rescuing dogs in villages being evacuated as the waters rose. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko accused Russia of shelling areas where people were being evacuated and said two police officers were wounded.

The flooding caused waters to rise by 3.5 meters (11-1/2 feet), Ukrainian official Kuleba said. Flooding would crest on Wednesday then levels would start to fall within three to four days, Ihor Syrota, head of Ukraine's hydroelectric power authority, told the U.S-funded radio station Donbas Realii.

Residents in Russian-controlled Nova Kakhovka told Reuters that some had decided to stay despite being ordered out.

"They say they are ready to shoot without warning," said one man, Hlib, describing encounters with Russian troops.

The Kazkova Dibrova zoo on the Russian-held riverbank was completely flooded and all 300 animals were dead, a representative said via the zoo's Facebook account.

The dam supplies water to a wide area of southern Ukrainian farmland, including the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, as well as cooling the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

The vast reservoir behind the dam is one of the main geographic features of southern Ukraine, 240 km (150 miles) long and up to 23 km (14 miles) wide.

POISED FOR COUNTEROFFENSIVE

The dam's destruction threatened a new humanitarian disaster in the centre of the war zone and transformed front lines just as Ukraine prepares a long-awaited counteroffensive to drive Russian troops from its territory.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said his forces had thwarted the first three days of the offensive in battles that had left more than 3,700 Ukrainian soldiers dead or wounded.

Ukraine dismissed the Russian statements as lies but gave no details on the attacks.

Russia has controlled the dam since early in its 15-month-old invasion, although Ukrainian forces recaptured the Dnipro's northern bank last year. Both sides had long accused the other of plotting to destroy the dam.

"Russian terrorists. The destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam only confirms for the whole world that they must be expelled from every corner of Ukrainian land," Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called the dam's destruction "an outrageous act, which demonstrates once again the brutality of Russia's war in Ukraine".

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the United Nations had no independent information on how the dam was breached, describing it as "another devastating consequence" of Russia's invasion.

The U.N. Security Council was meeting to discuss the dam at the request of both Russia and Ukraine.

Russia cast it as an "act of sabotage carried out by Ukraine", according to the request seen by Reuters.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also blamed "deliberate sabotage by the Ukrainian side".

Earlier, Russian-installed officials had given conflicting accounts. Some said Ukrainian missiles hit the dam overnight, others said it collapsed due to earlier damage.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog said the Zaporizhzhia power plant, upriver on the reservoir's Russian-occupied bank, should have enough water to cool its reactors for "some months" from a separate pond, even as the huge reservoir drains out.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia holds West responsible for dam disaster – UN envoy

Ukraine destroyed the Kakhovka dam in an “unthinkable crime” intended to harm Crimea for choosing Russia in 2014, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council on Tuesday.

The Russian diplomat brought up US media reports documenting the Ukrainian attacks on the Kakhovka dam in December 2022, using the US-supplied HIMARS rockets.

“Feeling its total impunity and being encouraged by Western sponsors, the Kiev regime decided to carry out this terrorist plot this time,” Nebenzia said. He noted that the Ukrainians had significantly increased the discharge of water from the Dnepropetrovsk hydroelectric power station, leading to even greater flooding downstream, “which indicates that this sabotage was planned in advance.”

The terrorist act was intended to free up Ukrainian forces for the “counter-offensive” currently getting bogged down in Zaporozhye, while inflicting massive humanitarian damage on the population of Kherson Region, Nebenzia said.

Not only did the flood render a dozen towns along the Dnieper River uninhabitable, it has also reduced the levels of water in the North Crimea canal, which supplies water to the Russian peninsula. Ukraine had shut off the canal after Crimea voted to rejoin Russia in a 2014 referendum. It was only reopened last year, when Russian troops took control of the area.

According to Nebenzia, Kiev “once again decided to take revenge on the Crimeans for their choice in favor of Russia and leave the population of Crimea without water.”

Nebenzia called the claims by Ukraine, US and EU officials that Russia was responsible for the dam’s destruction a “well-coordinated disinformation campaign,” in the same vein as previous allegations that Moscow was behind the shelling of its own people at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, or the destruction of Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea.

According to the Russian envoy, Kiev has fully embraced terrorist tactics, from the bombing of the Crimean Bridge to the targeted assassinations of journalists Darya Dugina and Vladlen Tatarsky, and the attempt on Zakhar Prilepin – which none of the Western governments said a word to condemn.

“The Kiev regime has good teachers, responsible for destroying the Nord Stream [pipeline] and the deliberate targeting of the Tabqa dam in Syria. The West is used to doing the dirty work with other people’s hands,” the Russian envoy told the Security Council.

“We also do not rule out an attempt at provocation against the Zaporozhye NPP,”Nebenzia said, given that the UN has persistently refused to condemn Ukrainian attacks on the facility, “although it is obvious to everyone which side they are coming from.”

** Ukraine rebuffs Vatican peace attempt

The only end to the conflict that Kiev considers acceptable is the Ukrainian “peace formula,” President Vladimir Zelensky told the Holy See envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi in a meeting on Tuesday. 

“Ukraine welcomes the willingness of other states and partners to find ways to achieve peace, but since the war is on our territory, the formula for achieving peace can only be Ukrainian,” Zelensky said after meeting the papal emissary in Kiev.

Zelensky added that he discussed the situation in Ukraine and the humanitarian cooperation with the Vatican “within the framework of the Ukrainian peace formula,” and urged the Holy See to join the efforts to pressure Russia.

Zuppi arrived in Ukraine on Monday, in what the Vatican called a “search for paths to a just and lasting peace.” In addition to Zelensky, he met with other Ukrainian officials, including parliamentary commissioner for human rights Dmitry Lubinets.

“The results of these talks, like those with religious representatives as well as the direct experience of the atrocious suffering of the Ukrainian people as a result of the ongoing war, will be brought to the Holy Father’s attention,” the press office of the Holy See said in a statement on Tuesday evening.

This is the second time in two months that Zelensky has declined an offer by Pope Francis to mediate in the conflict with Russia. After his meeting with the pontiff at the Vatican last month, the Ukrainian president told Italian media outlets that Kiev was only interested in its own vision of peace.

“It was an honor for me to meet His Holiness, but he knows my position: the war is in Ukraine and the [peace] plan must be Ukrainian,” Zelensky told talk show host Bruno Vespa. 

The “peace formula” in question is a list of Zelensky’s demands first revealed in November 2022, ranging from Russia’s withdrawal from all territories Ukraine claims – including Crimea and the Donbass – payment of reparations, war crimes trials for the Russian leadership, and Ukraine’s membership in NATO. 

Moscow has rejected Zelensky’s “peace platform” as delusional. Russia understands that any peace talks will not be held “with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters last month.

Reuters/RT

Sudanese warring factions to resume indirect talks as clashes intensify

Sudan's warring military factions are restarting ceasefire talks sponsored by the United States and Saudi Arabia, Al Arabiya TV reported on Tuesday, as they clashed by air and on the ground in the capital Khartoum.

The fighting between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, now in its eighth week, has caught civilians in the crossfire, cutting of their access to basic services, and spread lawlessness.

Saudi Arabia and the United States had brokered talks that had led to imperfectly-observed ceasefires with the aim of providing humanitarian assistance. But talks collapsed last week after the mediators said there had been numerous serious violations.

Saudi-owned Al Arabiya said the two sides had agreed to indirect talks without providing details. The army and RSF did not immediately comment.

Earlier in the day, army leader General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan spoke with Saudi foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan, a statement from the Sovereign Council he leads said.

Burhan emphasized the need for the RSF to exit hospitals, public facilities, and homes and to open safe pathways in order for "the Jeddah platform" to succeed, the statement said.

RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo said on Sunday he had spoken with Farhan and expressed his support for the Jeddah platform. Neither leader mentioned restarting talks.

Artillery and air strikes continued overnight, with residents in southern and eastern Khartoum and northern Bahri reporting sounds of artillery and gun clashes on Tuesday morning.

STREET FIGHTING IN OMDURMAN

Overnight, the two forces clashed in the streets of the city of Omdurman, around the army's Engineers Corps base. The army, which tends to prefer air strikes to ground fighting, was able to maintain its positions around the base but could not push back the RSF, which controls most of the rest of the city.

"Our neighbourhood has become a war zone. There are fierce clashes and strikes all around us because our house is next to the Engineers' Corps," said 45-year-old Jawahir Mohamed.

"We are scared of dying but we are also scared of leaving our house and being burgled," she added.

Looters, some of whom Khartoum residents and neighbourhood committees said belong to the RSF, have pillaged neighbourhoods, stealing cars, breaking open safes, and occupying homes.

Aid groups have struggled to provide extensive assistance to Khartoum residents, who face electricity and water shortages as well as dwindling supplies in shops and pharmacies. Neighborhood-based resistance committees have tried to fill the gaps.

"We could not distribute medicines because of the air and artillery bombardment," said one activist who asked not to be identified.

The island of Tutti, which lies just north of main battlegrounds such as the presidential palace, has been besieged by the RSF, according to Emergency Lawyers, a rights group.

The RSF had blocked access to the island for eight days, cutting off food supplies and healthcare, the group said in a statement. It also said RSF members had shot at anyone who tried to leave the island, leading to the death of one man.

Fighting has extended to the Darfur region to the West, where the RSF originated and maintains a power base. Also hit by fighting was El Obeid, a city between Khartoum and Darfur.

More than 400,000 civilians have been driven across Sudan's borders and more than 1.2 million out of Khartoum and other cities. At least 175,000 have made the journey to Egypt, where many have experienced days and weeks-long delays in border towns with few services.

On Tuesday Burhan's special envoy Ambassador Dafallah al-Haj discussed the difficulties facing Sudanese refugees with Egyptian foreign ministry officials and received assurances that border roadblocks would be relieved, a Sudan foreign ministry statement said.

Reuters

In the roughly 250 years since the Industrial Revolution the world’s population, like its wealth, has exploded. Before the end of this century, however, the number of people on the planet could shrink for the first time since the Black Death. The root cause is not a surge in deaths, but a slump in births. Across much of the world the fertility rate, the average number of births per woman, is collapsing. Although the trend may be familiar, its extent and its consequences are not. Even as artificial intelligence (ai) leads to surging optimism in some quarters, the baby bust hangs over the future of the world economy.

In 2000 the world’s fertility rate was 2.7 births per woman, comfortably above the “replacement rate” of 2.1, at which a population is stable. Today it is 2.3 and falling. The largest 15 countries by GDP all have a fertility rate below the replacement rate. That includes America and much of the rich world, but also China and India, neither of which is rich but which together account for more than a third of the global population.

The result is that in much of the world the patter of tiny feet is being drowned out by the clatter of walking sticks. The prime examples of ageing countries are no longer just Japan and Italy but also include Brazil, Mexico and Thailand. By 2030 more than half the inhabitants of East and South-East Asia will be over 40. As the old die and are not fully replaced, populations are likely to shrink. Outside Africa, the world’s population is forecast to peak in the 2050s and end the century smaller than it is today. Even in Africa, the fertility rate is falling fast.

Whatever some environmentalists say, a shrinking population creates problems. The world is not close to full and the economic difficulties resulting from fewer young people are many. The obvious one is that it is getting harder to support the world’s pensioners. Retired folk draw on the output of the working-aged, either through the state, which levies taxes on workers to pay public pensions, or by cashing in savings to buy goods and services or because relatives provide care unpaid. But whereas the rich world currently has around three people between 20 and 64 years old for everyone over 65, by 2050 it will have less than two. The implications are higher taxes, later retirements, lower real returns for savers and, possibly, government budget crises.

Low ratios of workers to pensioners are only one problem stemming from collapsing fertility. As we explain this week, younger people have more of what psychologists call “fluid intelligence”, the ability to think creatively so as to solve problems in entirely new ways.

This youthful dynamism complements the accumulated knowledge of older workers. It also brings change. Patents filed by the youngest inventors are much more likely to cover breakthrough innovations. Older countries—and, it turns out, their young people—are less enterprising and less comfortable taking risks. Elderly electorates ossify politics, too. Because the old benefit less than the young when economies grow, they have proved less keen on pro-growth policies, especially housebuilding. Creative destruction is likely to be rarer in ageing societies, suppressing productivity growth in ways that compound into an enormous missed opportunity.

All things considered, it is tempting to cast low fertility rates as a crisis to be solved. Many of its underlying causes, though, are in themselves welcome. As people have become richer they have tended to have fewer children. Today they face different trade-offs between work and family, and these are mostly better ones. The populist conservatives who claim low fertility is a sign of society’s failure and call for a return to traditional family values are wrong. More choice is a good thing, and no one owes it to others to bring up children.

Liberals’ impulse to encourage more immigration is more noble. But it, too, is a misdiagnosis. Immigration in the rich world today is at a record high, helping individual countries tackle worker shortages. But the global nature of the fertility slump means that, by the middle of the century, the world is likely to face a dearth of young educated workers unless something changes.

What might that be? People often tell pollsters they want more children than they have. This gap between aspiration and reality could be in part because would-be parents—who, in effect, subsidise future childless pensioners—cannot afford to have more children, or because of other policy failures, such as housing shortages or inadequate fertility treatment. Yet even if these are fixed, economic development is still likely to lead to a fall in fertility below the replacement rate. Pro-family policies have a disappointing record. Singapore offers lavish grants, tax rebates and child-care subsidies—but has a fertility rate of 1.0.

Unleashing the potential of the world’s poor would ease the shortage of educated young workers without more births. Two-thirds of Chinese children live in the countryside and attend mostly dreadful schools; the same fraction of 25- to 34-year-olds in India have not completed upper secondary education. Africa’s pool of young people will continue to grow for decades. Boosting their skills is desirable in itself, and might also cast more young migrants as innovators in otherwise-stagnant economies. Yet encouraging development is hard—and the sooner places get rich, the sooner they get old.

Eventually, therefore, the world will have to make do with fewer youngsters—and perhaps with a shrinking population. With that in mind, recent advances in ai could not have come at a better time. An über-productive AI-infused economy might find it easy to support a greater number of retired people. Eventually ai may be able to generate ideas by itself, reducing the need for human intelligence. Combined with robotics, ai may also make caring for the elderly less labour-intensive. Such innovations will certainly be in high demand.

If technology does allow humanity to overcome the baby bust, it will fit the historical pattern. Unexpected productivity advances meant that demographic time-bombs, such as the mass starvation predicted by Thomas Malthus in the 18th century, failed to detonate. Fewer babies means less human genius. But that might be a problem human genius can fix.

Leading a team can be a lot of work, and for many business owners and leaders their first real experience leading a team is when they start their own businesses. This is why it's imperative that you take the time and energy to hone your management skills along the way to help your business grow and thrive. 

Today I want to share with you the theory of the elephant and the rider and discuss how you can use this idea to become a more in-tune manager with your team. 

The Happiness Hypothesis

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has authored several books over the years, but one of my favorites is The Happiness Hypothesis. And in that book the author came up with a theory called "the elephant and the rider" which can be applied to modern management strategies. 

He said that all of us have multiple parts of our brain, the first of which is the "rider", which is what you would consider your higher brain. This is the hyperrational part of our brain where most of our cognition is observed, and where we develop awareness or self-awareness. 

When we talk about your brain in day-to-day conversation, this is the part of the brain that we are referring to. On the other end of the spectrum we have the part of our brain that is the "elephant." Now the elephant stands for our limbic system or mammalian brain.  

This is the part of us that is emotional and oftentimes irrational.  

It's a part of us that deals with certain primal drives like sex, food and power. And evolutionary-wise, this is the first part of humans that develops - and one that ultimately has a huge impact on our day-to-day lives, whether we want to admit it or not. 

Managing the Elephant and the Rider

How does this relate to management, you ask? When in a rhythm, the elephant and the rider can go long distances and get a lot accomplished. But if they aren't on the same page, little, if anything, will get accomplished. 

The rider can influence, cajole, bribe, threaten, and even train the elephant but ultimately, if our limbic system decides that it has other more important things to attend to, the driver is out of luck. We're not going to have a 200-pound person directing a 4-ton elephant to go somewhere the elephant doesn't really want to go.  

And so when we think about it this way, the key to managing the elephant is to harness our limbic system every single day. 

If you manage with emotion, using storytelling, metaphors and community, the elephant will be more willing to go with the driver to their end goal. And they need ongoing action with regular, reliable, and consistent feedback. 

Putting It Together

In summary, just telling your team to do a certain task won't be nearly as effective as getting them emotionally engaged and invested in the end goal for that project or task. So, try to incorporate both for optimal effect. Good luck! 

Inc

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) have suspended the planned strike to commence on Wednesday over the removal of the petrol subsidy. 

The organised labour announced the suspension of the proposed nationwide strike and mass protest after a meeting of its leaders and representatives of the federal government.

The labour centres and the federal government are to reconvene on June 19 to further the negotiation.

Joe Ajaero, president of the NLC, and his team arrived at the presidential villa at about 5:45 pm on Monday.

The NLC was absent at the meeting between the government representatives and organised labour on Sunday.

Representatives of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) were however in attendance.

Shortly after the commencement of Monday’s sit-down, the national industrial court restrained TUC and NLC from embarking on the industrial action.

Delivering the ruling on Monday, Olufunke Anuwe, the presiding judge, said the unions should halt the planned strike pending the hearing and determination of the ex parte motion filed by the federal government.

During his inauguration speech on May 29, President Bola Tinubu declared that “petrol subsidy is gone”.

The president’s pronouncement immediately led to a resurfacing of queues at petrol stations and a hike in the pump price of the product across the country.

Organised labour had subsequently met with the government team but the sit-down ended in deadlock and was rescheduled for Sunday.

The labour unions are insisting that the new price template from the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) should be reverted to the old pump price before there would be any meaningful negotiation.

Federal government representatives at the last meeting included Dele Alake, spokesperson for the government’s delegation; group CEO of NNPCL Mele Kyari; governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Godwin Emefiele; and Adams Oshiomhole, former governor of Edo state.

George Akume, secretary to the government of the federation (SGF); Zacch Adedeji, executive secretary of the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC); and Yemi Adetunji, executive vice president, downstream, of the NNPCL, were also in attendance.

RESOLUTIONS REACHED AT THE MEETING

At the end of the meeting, organised labour and the government team agreed to establish a joint committee to review the proposal for any wage increase or award and establish a framework and timeline for implementation.

Part of the resolution also was for the federal government, the TUC and the NLC to review the World Bank-financed cash transfer scheme and propose the inclusion of low-income earners in the programme.

Others are that the federal government and organised labour would revive the CNG conversion programme earlier agreed with Labor centres in 2021 and work out detailed implementation and timing.

They are to review issues hindering effective delivery in the education sector and propose solutions for implementation as well as look into and establish the framework for completion of the rehabilitation of the nation’s refineries.

The federal government is to provide a framework for the maintenance of roads and the expansion of rail networks across the country.

The Cable

Kwara State Government on Monday directed that work days be reduced from five days to three per week for every worker in the state.

This according to the government is following the astronomical hike in transport fares.

This is contained in a statement in Ilorin, by Murtala Atoyebi, Chief Press Secretary to Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazak.

The State Head of Service, Susan Oluwole, therefore directed all Heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies to immediately work out a format indicating the alternating work days for each worker under them.

Oluwole said that the government took the temporary measure to ease the burden on public workers in the state.

She also said that it was part of measures to relieve the state workers of the hardship being experienced as a result of the fuel subsidy removal announced by the Federal Government.

She, however, warned the workers not to abuse the magnanimity of the governor, stressing that the regular monitoring of MDAs by her office would be intensified to ensure strict compliance.

Punch

Rivers State presidential election coordinator for the Peoples Democratic Party, Abiye Sekibo, on Monday alleged infringement on the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 on the use of electronic transmission of results.

Sekibo appeared at the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja as a witness in aid of the PDP’s petition challenging the victory of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.

The witness told the court during cross-examination by counsel for Tinubu, Akin Olujimi, that results from polling units across Rivers State were not captured on the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System.

He said, “All the polling units I went to, they could not upload the results.”

He however admitted that the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, did not poll up to 25 per cent of votes in the Federal Capital Territory.

Also, the Nassarawa State collation officer for the PDP, Ibrahim Hamza, alleged electoral malpractices in the state.

Hamza told the court that he signed the presidential poll results under duress.

He said, “Due process was not followed…I had to sign to obtain a copy of the results because there was this intimidation that if I did not sign, I would not be given the result. I signed it under duress.”

Punch

Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, on Monday tendered election results from six states at the Presidential Election Petition Court.

Obi, who came third in the February presidential election, is claiming Nigeria’s presidency as the winner of the 25 February election.

Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is similarly challenging the victory of President Bola Tinubu of the APC  in the election.

Tinubu was sworn in on 29 May as Nigeria’s 16th Nigerian leader, although the suits filed by Obi and Atiku to challenge his victory continue in court.

Obi and Atiku predicated their petitions on the premise that the election was marred by widespread irregularities ranging from non-compliance with the electoral laws to alleged manipulation of results favouring Tinubu.

At the resumption of proceedings on Monday, Obi’s lawyers – Ben Anichebe and Valerie Azinge – tendered result sheets from seven states of Nigeria.

The states are Ebonyi, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Imo, Ondo, Sokoto and Kogi.

The court admitted the results as exhibits.

But Tinubu’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun and APC’s lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi, objected to the admissibility of the results.

The legal team of the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), also opposed the admissibility of the electoral documents.

The lawyers reserved their objections to Obi’s tendering of the documents until the close of arguments in the case.

After admitting the documents as exhibits, the panel headed by Haruna Tsammani adjourned the suit until 6 June to continue the hearing.

Last week, Obi tendered electoral documents comprising result sheets from 12 states of the federation.

Despite winning the presidential election in Lagos, Nasarawa, Delta, Ebonyi, Imo and other states, Obi argued that votes accruing to him were significantly suppressed in favour of Tinubu.

Also, in aid of his case, the Labour Party candidate has called one witness.

He had indicated his intention to call 50 witnesses and tender tons of electoral documents to substantiate his claims of rampant fraud during the presidential election on 25 February.

Obi has three weeks to prove his case against INEC, Tinubu and the APC respondents in the suit.

PT

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

NATO-supplied tanks destroyed in failed Ukrainian offensive – Russian MOD

Russian forces have repelled a renewed large-scale attack by Ukrainian troops in several parts of Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions, the Russian Defense Ministry said in the early hours of Tuesday, claiming that Kiev’s armed formations and military units suffered “significant losses.”

“Having suffered heavy losses the day before, the Kiev regime reorganized the remnants of the 23rd and 31st mechanized brigades into separate combined units, which continued the offensive operations close to Novodarovka and Levadnoye,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov. 

The renewed offensive mainly focused on the village of Vremevka in Donetsk Region, but was stopped by missile, artillery and heavy rocket- propelled flamethrower strikes, according to Konashenkov.

“The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ total losses in south Donetsk direction were over 1,500 servicemen, 28 tanks, including eight German-made Leopard tanks and three French-manufactured AMX-10 wheeled tanks, as well as 109 other armored fighting vehicles,” the Russian military spokesman said.

It was unclear if the tally included the losses from Sunday's botched attack, which was described as “large-scale” yet “unsuccessful” by the Russian military. In that attempt alone, Kiev lost more than 250 service members, 16 tanks, three infantry vehicles, and 21 armored vehicles, according to the ministry.

Some videos circulated by military bloggers on Telegram did show what appears to be several abandoned French AMX-10 light tanks, but did not include visual confirmation of the German-made Leopards lost in battle.

The Russian Defense Ministry has yet to release footage of the latest strikes on Ukrainian military vehicles. On Monday, it published a video of Ukrainian heavy equipment, supplied by the Western nations, being destroyed by Russian strikes the day before.

Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Anna Maliar confirmed that Kiev’s forces were moving to “offensive actions” in some areas, but provided no comment on the failed attacks and claimed that Moscow’s talk about the Kiev’s “counteroffensive”blunders was an attempt to to “divert attention” from its own alleged failures.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia says it thwarts another major attack in Ukraine, inflicting heavy losses

Russia said on Tuesday it had thwarted another major Ukrainian offensive in Donetsk, inflicting heavy losses, while Ukraine hailed progress in fighting in the east, although it was unclear if it marked the start of a long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive.

On Monday, Russia said Ukrainian forces over the weekend had begun a major offensive in the southern part of the Donetsk region, which it had also thwarted.

Ukrainian officials have made no mention of any broad, significant new campaign, although in his nightly address on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was enigmatic, hailing "the news we have been waiting for" and forward moves in Bakhmut in Donetsk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year in what the Kremlin expected to be a swift operation, but its forces suffered a series of defeats and regrouped in the country's east.

Tens of thousands of Russian troops dug in over the winter, besieging Bakhmut for months and bracing for an expected Ukrainian counter-attack to try to cut Russia's so-called land bridge to the Crimean Peninsula.

The latest Russian defence ministry statement said Russian forces had inflicted huge personnel losses on attacking Ukrainian forces and destroyed 28 tanks, including eight Leopard main battle tanks and 109 armoured vehicles. It said total Ukrainian losses amounted to 1,500 troops.

"Having suffered heavy losses the day before, the Kiev regime reorganized the remnants of the 23rd and 31st mechanized brigades into separate consolidated units, which continued offensive operations," the ministry said on Telegram.

"A complex fire defeat was inflicted by army forces, assault and operational-tactical aviation, missile forces and artillery, as well as heavy flamethrower systems."

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv about Russia's assertions.

Russia and Ukraine have often made claims of inflicting heavy human losses on each other which could not be independently verified.

The Washington Post reported that some U.S. officials thought the counteroffensive was underway, but White House national security spokesperson John Kirby declined to say whether he thought this was the case.

"I'm not going to be talking for the Ukrainian military," he told a regular briefing.

"(But) whenever they decide to step up and whatever they decide to do, the president is confident that we did everything we could over the last six, eight months or more to make sure that they had all the equipment, the training, the capabilities to be successful."

In a promotional video released on Sunday and urging silence in regards to any military actions, Ukraine's defence ministry said: "Plans like silence - the beginning will not be announced."

HIGH STAKES

The success or failure of a counteroffensive, expected to be waged with billions of dollars worth of advanced Western weaponry, is likely to influence the shape of future Western diplomatic and military support for Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Reuters on Monday Ukraine now had enough weapons for a counteroffensive but declined to comment when asked whether it had begun.

Russia's defence ministry said previously Ukraine had launched a large-scale offensive on Sunday in five sectors of the front in southern Donetsk, an area where Moscow has long suspected Ukraine would seek to drive a wedge through Russian-controlled territory.

"The enemy's goal was to break through our defences in the most vulnerable, in its opinion, sector of the front," it said. "It had no success."

In its evening report on Monday, Ukraine's General Staff made no mention of any large-scale offensive, nor did it suggest any deviation from the usual tempo or scope of fighting along front lines that have not changed significantly for months.

Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said on Telegram Ukraine was "shifting to offensive actions" along parts of the front but dismissed suggestions of a major operation.

"The main focus now is on the Bakhmut sector," said Maliar. "This has resulted in certain successes, including advances. We have taken control of certain heights."

Russian Wagner group mercenaries captured Bakhmut last month and handed their positions there to regular Russian troops.

Writing on Telegram, Wagner militia leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has often clashed with the Russian defence ministry, said its latest statement and the huge Ukrainian losses it described was "simply wild and absurd science fiction."

Russia now controls at least 18% of internationally recognised Ukrainian territory and has claimed four more regions of Ukraine as Russian territory after annexing Crimea in 2014.

** Russian attempts to waste Ukraine's advanced air-defense missiles with cheap drones are failing, UK intel says

Russia launched more than 300 Iranian-made drones at Ukraine throughout May, in an attempt to get the country to use up its stockpile of advanced air defense missiles, but the efforts didn't work, according to UK intelligence.

In an intelligence update on Monday, the UK Ministry of Defence labeled the campaign Russia's "most intense use" of Iranian Shahed uncrewed aerial vehicles to date, and said Russia was likely firing the drones in "an attempt to force Ukraine to fire stocks of valuable, advanced air defence missiles."

But it said that Russia was "unlikely to have been notably successful: Ukraine has neutralized at least 90% of the incoming OWA-UAVs mostly using its older and cheaper air defence weapons and with electronic jamming."

Shahed drones are estimated to cost upwards of $21,000 — relatively cheap compared to the cost of missiles, which Russia has also been firing at Ukraine, and more advanced unmanned aircraft.

Russia's failure to get Ukraine to waste its advanced air defense missiles comes alongside Russia's inability to destroy Ukrainian air defence systems, the UK MOD added.

The MOD said last month that Russia was prioritizing trying to knock out Ukraine's advanced air defense systems after Ukraine shot down Kinzhal missiles that Russia had previously bragged were unstoppable.

Ukraine has a variety of air defense systems, including the advanced Patriot missile systems it received from the US and European allies.

Last month, Russia claimed to have destroyed one Patriot missile system, but the US said it was still functional and had been quickly repaired.

The UK MOD also said that Russia was likely trying to "locate and strike Ukrainian forces well behind the front line," but without much success.

"Russia remains very ineffective at hitting such dynamic targets at range because of its poor targeting processes," it said.

RT/Reuters/Business Insider