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Rep Keith Ellison Scott Brown, and Where Progressives ...
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Rep Keith Ellison Scott Brown, and Where Progressives ... - Video
The Kaduna State chapter of All Progressives Congress, on Friday called for the unconditional release of 75-year-old Dr Stephen Kitchener, abducted in Zaria on Tuesday.
A statement by the state Interim Chairman of the party, Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed described the abducted medical doctor as an icon of service and humility.
It said, Dr Kitchener has dedicated his life to the service of his community, and it is almost certain that his kidnappers are mistaken in believing that he has the type of wealth needed to buy his freedom.
We join many others in praying for his safe release, and appeal to his kidnappers to free him without delay.
The statement particularly urged Vice-President Namadi Sambo and Gov. Mukhtar Yero of Kaduna State to support efforts to trace and free this elderly man who has many health challenges.
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APC appeals for release of abducted medical doctor
The All Progressives Congress has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to cancel the political rally planned for him by the Adamawa State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party slated for Tuesday.
In a statement signed by its interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Thursday, the APC said the President cannot and should not be celebrating when over 200 school girls are missing.
The party expressed the hope that the abducted girls will be released unharmed even before Tuesday, April 29 when the rally is expected to hold.
It however said until this happens, it will be insensitive and indecent for anyone, least of all the President who is the father of the nation, to engage in any celebratory outing under any guise.
According to the party, the President must not repeat the faux pas he committed less than 24 hours after 75 of his compatriots were killed in the Nyanya bombing.
He said, All decent men and women were riled that President Jonathan went dancing at an illegal campaign stop in Kano and popping champagne corks at a birthday celebration in Ibadan when the smoke was yet to clear from the scene of the Nyanya bombing.
The President should not repeat the same mistake, if indeed he considered that to be one. He should see the missing girls as his own daughters and stop forthwith his illegal campaign rallies.
The APC said the ongoing bickering over the site of the rally in Adamawa State, close to the scene of the sad abduction of the girls, is distracting from what should be a concerted national effort to find the girls and reunite them safely with their families.
For a President whose groveling aides have likened to Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama and other great leaders in a patently blasphemous campaign, he should take time to ask himself how Obama would have reacted to one missing girl from any school in the US, not to talk of over 200 missing girls.
Does President Jonathan honestly believe that Mandela, in his days as President, would have been campaigning when his compatriots are being daily bombed or abducted?
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Schoolgirls abduction: Shelve further rallies, APC tells Jonathan
The Conservatives and Liberals are tied in the national vote for the first time in months, as Canadians appear unmoved by the controversy whirling around the governments elections bill, a new poll has found.
The Ipsos Reid poll, conducted this month for CTV News, says the Tories and the Liberals each boast 33 per cent of the national vote, with the Conservatives enjoying a four-point bump since February and their best showing since an Ipsos poll in late 2012. Thomas Mulcairs NDP would glean 24 per cent of the vote.
When Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau took the helm of his party in May, the Liberals leaped ahead of the Conservatives. The Liberals held the lead throughout the fall, though the gap with the governing Conservatives dwindled to as little as two points.
A lot of it has to do with the fact that Mr. Trudeau has spent more face-time on issues of his own behaviour than he has on trying to look like a government-in-waiting, said John Wright, an Ipsos Reid senior vice-president. A little bit of the shine has gone off the apple.
Mr. Wright pointed to several incidents that catapulted Mr. Trudeau into the headlines, including using an obscenity at a charity boxing match, taking a selfie photograph at former finance minister Jim Flahertys state funeral, and publicly musing that Russia might vent its Olympic hockey frustrations at crisis-hit Ukraine.
Chief among the reasons for the Conservatives uptick and the NDPs flat line, Mr. Wright said, is the Fair Elections Act, a controversial elections bill that has launched Mr. Mulcair into attack mode in the House of Commons. While that might be good inside-the-beltway Ottawa politics, it doesnt play well with the average citizen, Mr. Wright said.
The poll found just 23 per cent of Canadians say theyre following the debate closely. And when it comes to the bills controversial provision to eliminate vouching, in which a properly identified voter vouches for someone lacking complete identification, 70 per cent believe it is acceptable to get rid of vouching and instead require voters to personally prove their own identity and address. The poll also found that six in 10 Canadians dont believe eliminating vouching is really a Conservative ploy to disenfranchise those who disproportionately vote for other parties
Mr. Wright also said time spent in the House of Commons on the elections bill means less airtime on the Senate expenses scandal and the Duffy-Wright affair, which plagued the government for months. Just days before the five-day poll period began on April 17, the RCMP dropped its criminal investigation into former Harper chief of staff Nigel Wright, who secretly dipped into his own pocket to reimburse taxpayers for questionable expenses claimed by Senator Mike Duffy.
The weighted survey was based on a sample of 1,014 Canadians interviewed online. The results are considered accurate within 3.5 percentage points.
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Conservatives, Liberals tied for national vote, poll says
TORONTO -- Ontario's governing Liberals -- or whichever party succeeds them -- should work with the private sector to deliver public services at less cost, former Liberal finance minister Dwight Duncan said Thursday.
The cash-strapped Liberals are running an $11.3-billion deficit and have doubled the debt to $272 billion since they took office in 2003.
Duncan, who was treasurer from 2007 to 2013 when the province racked up record deficits, said all three parties will be compelled to look at more efficient ways to provide services.
Ontario has a "staggering" debt, insufficient infrastructure, gridlock in the Toronto area and an aging population that will drive up health-care costs, he said.
But this isn't the "same old tired mantra of privatization," said Duncan, who left politics last year for the private sector.
"The idea is to save money while delivering the same services and being able to apply the savings to those priority areas, whatever priority areas the government of the day identifies," he said.
Many countries have saved money by working with private companies on prison management, health and administrative services, according to an Ontario Chamber of Commerce report that Duncan helped put together. But the province is lagging behind, it said.
Teranet, a private company that has a licence to provide electronic land registration services, is a success story, Duncan said. The Ontario government got $1 billion and 50 years of royalty payments in the deal and still controls fee increases, the report said.
But other deals were massive failures, such as Ontario's Ornge air ambulance service, a not-for-profit entity that ended up under police investigation for financial irregularities. The auditor general rapped the Liberals on the knuckles for failing to oversee Ornge, despite giving it hundreds of millions of dollars.
"I concur Ornge did not work out that well and there are bad deals done," Duncan said.
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Dwight Duncan says Liberals should involve private sector in delivering services