AHEAD of his formal declaration for the 2011 presidential election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the leadership of the PDP said yesterday that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has not been granted a waiver to contest the polls.

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan yesterday enjoined the nation’s armed forces not to take advantage of the current heated polity to develop affection for politics.

THE National Executive Committee, NEC, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, yesterday, ratified the decision of the Board of Trustees, BoT, and its extended caucus to sustain the zoning and rotation arrangement of the party, just as it said that President Goodluck Jonathan should contest for the 2011 Presidential election.

ONDO State government Thursday presented letter of appointment to the newly appointed Deji of Akureland Prince Adebiyi Adesida thereby ending the controversy trailing the vacant stool.

AN implosion is brewing in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, over lingering controversial zoning of 2011 presidency with conflicting interests intensifying efforts to gain upper hand even as the presidency was said to be displeased over the party’s Board of Trustees, BOT, and National Caucus positions on zoning.

The embattled former Director General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) Prof.Ndidi Okereke- Onyiuke Wednesday denied that billions of Niara is missing at the NSE under her watch.

THE Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, yesterday made a u-turn, asking all the political parties in the country to field northerners as presidential candidates in the 2011 elections.

THE Senate, slashed the supplementary budget of the Independent National Electoral Commission to N87,721,961,531 (eighty seven billion, seven hundred and twenty one million, nine hundred and sixty one thousand, five hundred and thirty one naira).

CHAIRMAN of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, yesterday, described the more than N80billion proposed for appropriation by the Commission to provide a fresh voters’ register and conduct the 2011 elections, as the ‘best possible sum’ to deliver the much desired credible elections next year.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Monday, refuted the rumour that he had been shot dead by assassins.

CONSEQUENT upon the support of the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar, for zoning which the Northern Political Leaders’ Forum, NPLF, secured recently, President Goodluck Jonathan has also been courting some Emirs with a view to securing their support for next year’s presidential elections.

Former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu is canvassing the emergence, through elections, of a leadership that can wage a vigorous and sustainable war against corruption.

Former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission , EFCC , Malam Nuhu Ribadu, weekend relived his political persecutions during the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration adding that his problem with the regime was because those he was at the verge of charging to court for corruption later took over the reins of government.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday said it would issue next week the guidelines for the forthcoming 2011 general elections even as it revealed that about 360,000 personnel would be recruited for the exercise.

MINORITY members of the House of Representatives, yesterday, said they were in agreement with former President Olusegun Obasanjo on his accusation that the National Assembly was corrupt. They, however, insisted that Obasanjo was their “grand-father in corruption”