Politics
US President, Trump told to step down or be impeached
President Donald Trump was told Friday to step down or face impeachment, as the top Democrat in Congress announced she had discussed with the military how to block the “unhinged” leader from the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
As his presidency imploded, Trump signalled a final, unrepentant display of division by announcing on Twitter that he will skip the inauguration of Joe Biden on January 20.
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going,” he tweeted.
Biden responded this was “a good thing,” branding Trump an “embarrassment.”
However, Biden showed how wary he is of the growing rush to impeach Trump — and deepen the national political war — over his incitement of crowds who stormed Congress on Wednesday.
“That is a judgment for the Congress to make,” Biden said, adding that the “quickest” way to get Trump out was for him and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to take over in 12 days.
“I am focused now on us taking control as president and vice president on the 20th and to get our agenda moving as quickly as we can.”
Two days after Trump sent a mob of followers to march on Congress, his presidency is in freefall, with allies walking away and opponents sharpening their teeth.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that Democrats will launch impeachment proceedings unless Trump resigns or Vice President Mike Pence invokes the 25th Amendment, where the cabinet removes the president.
“If the President does not leave office imminently and willingly, the Congress will proceed with our action,” Pelosi wrote.
In a jaw dropping moment, Pelosi revealed she had spoken Friday with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley about “preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.”
“The situation of this unhinged President could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything that we can to protect the American people,” Pelosi wrote.
Democrats in the House of Representatives, who already impeached Trump in a traumatic, partisan vote in 2019, said the unprecedented second impeachment of a president could be ready next week.
“We can act very quickly when we want to,” Representative Katherine Clark told CNN.
Whether Republican leaders of the Senate would then agree to hold a lightning fast impeachment trial before the transition is another matter.
In the House, the senior Republican representative Kevin McCarthy said “impeaching the president with just 12 days left in his term will only divide our country more.”
Too little, too late
Trump, whose actions on Wednesday capped his relentless efforts to overturn Biden’s November 3 election win, finally conceded defeat on Thursday and appealed for calm.
“A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20. My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power,” Trump said in a short video.
However, the evidently reluctant concession, in which Trump failed to congratulate Biden or directly admit defeat, was too little, too late to calm outrage over his role in the Capitol invasion.
Five people died in the mayhem, including one woman who was shot dead and a Capitol Police officer. Flags over the Capitol were lowered to half-mast on Friday.
Senator Ben Sasse, one Republican who says he will “definitely consider” impeachment, recommended that Trump at minimum step back and let his vice president run the show in the dying days.
“I think the less the president does over the next 12 days the better,” he told NPR radio.
Government exit
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos became the second cabinet member to quit, after Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, telling Trump in a letter that such “behavior was unconscionable for our country.”
A string of lower level officials have also left. According to reports, the only reason the trickle hasn’t turned into a flood is the decision by senior figures to try and maintain stability during the transition to Biden.
Trump, however, appears to have lost the grip he once exercised on both the Republican party and his own staff as he rampaged through four years of one of the most turbulent presidencies in US history.
Speaking to CNN, retired Marine Corps general John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff for 18 months, said the cabinet should consider the 25th Amendment but believed the president had already been put into a box.
“He can give all the orders he wants but no one is going to break the law,” Kelly said.
Biden faces grim inauguration
Biden, who won seven million votes more than Trump, as well as a decisive majority in the vital state-by-state Electoral College, will be sworn in on the Capitol Steps under huge security.
Between drastic Covid-19 crowd restrictions, the absence of Trump, and a new “unscalable” fence around the congressional complex, there will be little of the ordinary inauguration vibe.
And Biden will immediately face extraordinary challenges, starting with his core campaign promise that he can “heal” the nation.
But at the same time, the crisis has sparked such revulsion in Congress on both sides of the aisle that Biden may come into office with an unexpectedly bipartisan tailwind.
Biden said Friday that more Republicans now saw Trump for what he was after he “ripped the Band-Aid all the way off.”
“I think it makes my job easier, quite frankly.”
The Independent National Electoral Commission has declared the Governor of Ekiti State and candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Biodun Oyebanji, winner of Saturday’s governorship election in the state.
The Returning Officer for the election, Prof. Adenike Oladiji, announced the result at about 3:13 a.m. on Sunday in Ado-Ekiti, saying Oyebanji polled 319,224 votes to defeat his closest rivals and secure a second term in office.
According to Oladiji, who is the Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Oluwole Oluyede, garnered 40,543 votes, while the African Democratic Congress candidate, Dare Bejide, secured 12,872 votes.
She said 384,940 voters were accredited for the election, while 375,777 valid votes were recorded. The electoral umpire also announced that 6,332 votes were rejected, bringing the total number of votes cast to 382,109.
The declaration capped a governorship poll largely adjudged peaceful by observers and security agencies, despite complaints of malfunctioning Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machines, delayed commencement of voting in some polling units and allegations of voter intimidation by opposition parties.
INEC said voting was conducted in all the 2,445 polling units across the state’s 16 local government areas, noting that 2,257 units, representing 92.31 per cent, opened before 8.30 a.m., while 188 polling units commenced accreditation and voting before 10.30 a.m. after experiencing minor delays.
The commission also commenced uploading polling unit results to its Results Viewing Portal shortly after the completion of voting and counting in several centres.
The PDP candidate, Oluyede, had expressed dissatisfaction with the conduct of the exercise at Ugele/Arokun Ward in Ikere Local Government Area, alleging that many prospective voters were disenfranchised due to BVAS-related challenges.
Speaking with journalists after voting at Polling Unit 006, he further alleged cases of harassment and intimidation of voters in the area.
Some elderly voters at the polling unit also lamented difficulties encountered during accreditation and urged INEC to urgently rectify the technical glitches.
The ADC candidate, Bejide, similarly alleged irregularities during the exercise.
However, Oyebanji dismissed the claims, insisting that those making allegations of electoral misconduct should provide credible evidence to support them.
The governor, who voted at Polling Unit 003, Okelele, Ikogosi-Ekiti, in Ekiti West Local Government Area, described the election as satisfactory and urged eligible voters yet to cast their ballots to do so peacefully.
The Commissioner of Police in charge of election security, Abayomi Shogunle, said no case of vote-buying was reported to security agencies throughout the exercise.
Election observers commended the peaceful atmosphere that characterised the poll but raised concerns over procedural inconsistencies.
The First Vice-President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Sebastian Anyia, described the process as orderly and peaceful, saying voter turnout was encouraging.
Similarly, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Women Trust Fund, Brenda Anugwom, lauded the resilience of female voters, many of whom remained at polling units for several hours with their children to exercise their franchise.
Yiaga Africa, however, expressed concern over discrepancies involving ballot papers, result sheets and INEC’s published list of candidates, warning that such inconsistencies could create challenges during collation and reconciliation of results.
The election observer group urged INEC to provide further clarification on the final list of participating parties and candidates and issue clear guidance to electoral officials handling result documentation.
Ahead of the poll, INEC and security agencies had repeatedly assured residents of their preparedness to deliver a peaceful, credible and transparent election, deploying personnel and restricting vehicular movement to forestall electoral violence and other offences.
The opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State has rejected plans by the administration of Governor Seyi Makinde to conduct another local government election on December 26, 2026, describing the proposed exercise as illegal, premature and a calculated move to retain political influence at the grassroots beyond the governor’s tenure.
The party declared that it would neither participate in the election nor remain silent over what it termed an attempt to squander public resources on a process allegedly designed to install loyalists in the 33 local government councils and 351 wards across the state.
The controversy followed the decision of the Oyo State Independent Electoral Commission (OYSIEC) to shift the date earlier fixed for January 2027 to December 26, 2026, after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) released the timetable for the 2027 general elections.
The move has continued to generate debate among political observers, many of whom have questioned the urgency of conducting another council poll barely six months before the expiration of the tenure of the incumbent chairmen and councillors elected in the 2024 local government elections.
In a statement issued on Thursday in Ibadan by its Publicity Secretary, Olawale Sadare, the APC said it would not stop at boycotting the election but would also collaborate with “patriots and rational minds” to resist what it called an unnecessary expenditure of taxpayers’ money.
The party accused Governor Makinde of lacking commitment to local government autonomy, alleging that the administration had exercised undue control over council resources for more than seven years.
“The whole world knows that Governor Makinde does not believe in local government autonomy and, when it comes to democracy at the grassroots, he cannot be trusted for anything,” the statement said.
The APC alleged that the proposed poll was aimed at positioning individuals loyal to the governor in local councils before his exit from office on May 29, 2027, arguing that such a move would enable him to sustain political influence after leaving the Agodi Government House.
According to the opposition party, expectations among many residents are centred on ongoing efforts by the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to strengthen local government autonomy and ensure that councils enjoy direct access to their statutory allocations without interference from state governments.
The APC also linked what it described as poor development outcomes in some rural communities to the operation of the state-local government joint account system. It cited communities such as Ahoro Esiele and Yawota in Oriire Local Government Area, which have reportedly faced security challenges, as examples of areas where local government resources should have translated into visible improvements.
“It is sad that Governor Makinde appears determined to sustain a system that has left many rural communities vulnerable despite huge allocations accruing to local governments monthly,” the party said.
The opposition further dismissed the local government elections conducted in 2020 and 2024 as lacking credibility, alleging that winners emerged through predetermined outcomes rather than a transparent electoral process.
“The fraud called local government polls in 2020 and 2024 should be the last the people of Oyo State would witness. Governor Makinde and his supporters should bury any thought of staging another charade in which results are announced without genuine voting and public offices become tools for the diversion of public funds,” the statement added.
The APC consequently urged officials of OYSIEC to halt preparations for the proposed December election, warning against actions capable of undermining democratic values and public confidence in the electoral process.
As of the time of filing this report, neither the Oyo State Government nor OYSIEC had issued an official response to the allegations raised by the opposition party.
The lawmaker representing Ibarapa East/Ido Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Aderemi Oseni, on Saturday mobilised thousands of artisans and traders across Oyo State in support of President Bola Tinubu’s re-election bid in 2027.
Oseni said the support base of the Remi Oseni Committee of Friends (ROCOF), in collaboration with other stakeholders, was intensifying efforts to deliver one million votes for the President in the state.
Oseni, Chairman of the House Committee on Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), said artisans and traders must see themselves as critical stakeholders in President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, stressing that the success of the administration depends largely on grassroots participation.
The federal lawmaker spoke in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, during a stakeholders’ engagement with members of the ROCOF Progressive Workers and Traders’ Associations.
In a symbolic show of political readiness, scores of traders and artisans displayed their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), while Oseni urged eligible Nigerians yet to register to obtain their voter cards ahead of the next general election.
He cautioned against vote-buying and vote-selling, warning that such practices threaten the future of democracy and mortgage the destiny of younger generations.
The meeting, according to Oseni, was also convened to deepen economic support for members through empowerment programmes targeted at strengthening businesses and improving livelihoods.
He announced that requests for a N250 million interest-free loan scheme for artisans and traders, construction of an artisans’ village with stable electricity supply, and health insurance support had received approval.
According to him, the loan facility will be administered through a microfinance bank under the Remi Oseni Foundation to ensure transparency, accessibility and sustainability.
He added that road and infrastructure projects across communities would remain a major priority.
Oseni, who is seeking to represent Oyo South Senatorial District in the next election cycle, also used the meeting to explain his decision to pursue a Senate seat instead of his earlier governorship ambition.
He said the move followed consultations with party leaders and supporters.
According to him, supporters deserved clarity on the political direction of the movement.
He said: “We convened this stakeholders’ meeting to review our present position. Before now, our focus was on leading Oyo State through the governorship. That was our clear objective as a movement, but today, it has become evident that God is directing us towards the Senate.
“Our people needed to understand the reasons for this decision, the position of the party and what we have accepted in the overall interest of our political future. It is not enough for leaders to take decisions. We owe our supporters explanations and must carry them along.
“We have encouraged them to embrace this opportunity in good faith and believe that greater opportunities still lie ahead.
“Many of them felt our governorship ambition would have delivered greater benefits, but we have reassured them that the government remains supportive and the future is bright.
“We have equally assured the President that our decision to pursue the Oyo South Senate seat will not affect the one million votes earlier promised him, because ROCOF structures across the 33 local government areas are fully mobilised and committed to his re-election.”
On the crisis within the All Progressives Congress (APC), Oseni said efforts were ongoing to reconcile aggrieved members, expressing confidence that outstanding differences would soon be resolved.
He described competing interests within the party as a reflection of the APC’s growing strength and political attractiveness.
Earlier, the Oyo State Coordinator of ROCOF Progressive Workers and Traders’ Associations, Alhaji Munirudeen Adegoke, described Oseni’s empowerment drive as a strategic investment capable of reducing unemployment, youth restiveness and poverty.
Adegoke said meaningful empowerment for artisans and traders must go beyond temporary palliatives.
According to him, sustainable support requires deliberate policies that guarantee access to capital, improved infrastructure and social protection.
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