John King, CNN’s chief national correspondent, says the Democratic party is looking to replace President Joe Biden as its presumptive nominee ahead of its national convention in August.

Biden sparred with former US President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, on Friday, in a debate hosted by CNN.

The incumbent’s speech was at times slurred, throaty, incoherent and his ripostes came across as weak.

At one point, as the candidates debated on border closure and immigration, a gloating Trump said: “I really don’t understand what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

Analysing the performances of both candidates afterwards, all the CNN panellists submitted that Biden had done himself little favours on the night.

“It was a game changing debate in the sense that right now as we speak, there is a deep, a wide and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic party,” said King.

“The panic started minutes into the debate and continues right now. It involves party strategists, it involves elected officials, it involves fund-raisers.

“And they are having conversations about the president’s performance which they think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people down the party in the ticket. They are having conversations about what they should do about it.

“Some of those conversations include should we go to the White House and ask the president to step aside? Other conversations are about should prominent Democrats go public with that call? Because they think this debate was so terrible.

“They do say, in moments in the debate later, the president got better and got his footing. But then in the end, even his closing statement was a little halty. The contrast between the two candidates was stark.”

Abby Phillip, CNN anchor and a senior political correspondent who anchors CNN NewsNight, said Biden’s performance was “problematic” and “damaging”.

Other panellists said Biden was “deeply vulnerable”, his voice was “shaky”, and that Democrats are worried that they could be throwing away the presidency if Biden remains top of the ticket.

Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, sparred on the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, treatment of veterans, abortion, taxes, Medicare, inflation, Afghanistan, and America’s standing in the world — with the Republican repeatedly putting the Democrat on the offensive.

Trump was US president from 2017 to 2021. He lost his re-election bid to Biden and challenged the outcome of the vote in an unprecedented manner.

His supporters infamously invaded the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021 as Trump insisted that the election was stolen from him.

President Bola Tinubu on Thursday gave all the state governors seven days to provide concrete feedback on their plans to rev up food production in their respective states.

Tinubu gave the directive at the 142nd National Economic Council meeting attended by state governors and some deputies at the State House, Abuja.

He also announced a National Construction and Household Support Programme which will see 100,000 families in each state getting N50,000 grant for three months, N155bn to be disbursed for assorted foods, N540bn for household grants even as 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory will get N10bn allocations each for CNG buses.

The N50,000 planned for 3.7 million families across the 36 states and the FCT, the N10bn allocation each for CNG buses in the 36 states and the FCT, as well as the N155bn spending on assorted foods, are estimated to cost over N1tn.

While emphasising the urgency of boosting food production in the country, the President urged state governors to work together to meet the needs of citizens, stating his willingness to provide the needed support to ensure that Nigerians are relieved of hardship.

“We must deliver on our targets at all levels. Please report back following your consultations and submit it to my office within seven days.

“How much support do you need from me and in what form? I am prepared to provide it. But we must achieve the result.

“There is nothing we are doing that is more important than producing high-quality food for our people to consume, buy, and sell. We create jobs in the production of it. And that is before we generate wealth by exporting the excess. It is not beyond us to achieve this for Nigerians,” he said.

The President’s comments followed multiple economic challenges rocking the country. High inflation driven by the removal of fuel subsidies and exchange rate depreciation reached 27 per cent year-on-year in October 2023.

This price surge, coupled with high food insecurity has exacerbated the cost-of-living crisis, leaving Nigerians struggling to afford necessities.

Despite adopting significant policy reforms like fuel subsidy removal and exchange rate unification, the challenges of poverty, stalled per-capita growth, and a weak business environment persist and are compounded by external pressures such as global food price surges and geopolitical uncertainties.

At Thursday’s NEC meeting, Tinubu announced new plans to boost agricultural productivity, strengthen the economy by creating opportunities in the real sectors of agriculture, manufacturing, and construction, and provide urgent economic relief for Nigerians.

This includes the immediate rollout of the National Construction and Household Support Programme to cover all geo-political zones in the country.

“Under the programme, the Sokoto-Badagry Highway, which will traverse Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Kwara, Oyo, Ogun, and Lagos, is prioritised,” according to a statement signed by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Ajuri Ngelale.

The statement is titled, ‘President Tinubu urges governors to meet target on food security; approves immediate rollout of national construction and household support programme.’

The programme also prioritises other road infrastructure projects, such as the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, which is underway and the Trans-Saharan Highway, which links Enugu, Abakaliki, Ogoja, Benue, Kogi, Nasarawa and Abuja.

Tinubu also approved full counterpart financing for Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Railway; to traverse Rivers, Abia, Enugu, Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe and Borno, as well as for the Ibadan-Abuja segment of the Lagos-Kano Standard-Gauge Railway; which will traverse Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Kwara, Niger, Abuja, Kaduna, and Kano.

Ngelale noted that the programme would especially prioritise the Sokoto-Badagry road project “For its importance as some of the states it will traverse are strategic to the agricultural sustainability of the nation.”

Explaining the rationale for the project, the Presidency said, “Within the Sokoto-Badagry Highway corridor, there are 216 agricultural communities, 58 large and medium dams spread across six states, seven Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones, 156 local government areas, 39 commercial cities and towns, and over 1 million hectares of arable land.”

Other items under the National Construction and Household Support Programme include: “One-off allocation to states and the Federal Capital Territory of N10bn for the procurement of buses and CNG uplift programme.

“Delivery of N50,000 uplift grant each to 100,000 families per state for three months—provision for labour unions and civil society organisations.

“Deployment of N155bn for the purchase and sale of assorted foodstuff to be distributed across the nation.”

Tinubu is attending the National Economic Council meeting, often chaired by his deputy, Vice President Kashim Shettima, for the first time.

NEC was expected to deliberate on the new minimum wage given the president’s decision to step down the proposal of the National Minimum Wage Committee at Tuesday’s Federal Executive Council meeting to allow for more consultations with necessary stakeholders, including the state governors, all of whom are members of the NEC.

The president had said he would only submit a new national minimum wage to the national assembly for passage into law after such talks.

However, council members who briefed State House correspondents after the meeting were silent on the minimum wage matter.

Announcing the resolutions reached, the Minister of Agriculture, Abubakar Kyari, who joined the governors of Imo, Kano and Kogi to brief correspondents, revealed that the federal government has approved a $1bn agriculture mechanisation programme that will set up 1000 agro-sector service providers across the country with tractors.

He explained, “We’ll have a minimum of 2000 tractors a year for the next five years and all other aggregation of agricultural commodities is going to be utilized at least nothing less than 600,000 youths to man these 1000 service centres.”

Kyari noted that the elaborate plan is an arrangement with John Deere and Tata to provide 2000 tractors before the end of the year. They will be rolled out as soon as is feasible, he said, adding that the project was approved by the Federal Executive Council last Tuesday.

According to Kyari, the Greener Imperative Project, which he said was still in the works, is a €950m project that will soon be unveiled.

Kyari revealed that the FG was anticipating another deal with Belarus Tractors to supply 2000 tractors per year for the next five years, with 9000 implements and spare parts, among others.

The agriculture minister also said Saudi Arabia had expressed interest in providing 200,000 metric tons of red meat every year and 1 million tonnes of soya from Nigeria.

“We have already last week had a meeting with our entrepreneurs and we have come out with a roadmap where we can supply and satisfy that demand.

“We are looking at partnership with foreign governments, not necessarily trying to ask them to come and invest, but asking them what can we produce so that we can sell to you so that we can earn foreign exchange,” he added.

In his remarks, Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State said that the NEC directed the sub-committee on crude oil theft right provide comprehensive recommendations to end the menace during the next meeting.

Uzodinma said that even though the sub-committee was expected to submit its report during Thursday’s meeting, “it was inconclusive.”

Meanwhile, Governor Abba Yusuf of Kano State announced the constitution of the board of the Niger Delta Power Holding, which he said had operated for a long time without a supervising board.

He revealed that it is made up of governors of Borno, Katsina, Imo, Ekiti, Kwara, and Akwa Ibom states representing the different geo-political zones.

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, spoke of the activation of the Presidential Food Systems coordinating unit chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima

The Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Mr Nyesome Wike, on Thursday berated activist and lawyer, Mike Ozekhome over failure to acknowledge that Nigeria has made some progress since the return of democracy to the country 25 years ago.

Wike spoke in Abuja at the second edition of This Nigeria’s lecture and award event themed “25 Years of Unbroken Democracy: Challenges, Prospects, and Possibilities.”

Ozekhome had in his lecture said democracy as practiced in Nigeria in the past 25 years has has not met the expectations of Nigerians.

He noted that the generation born during this period had no experience of military juntas and repressive regimes.

He called for a new constitution that would reflect the will of the people and for electoral reforms to ensure free and fair elections.

He said democracy are not being practiced in the country in the real sense of people electing those they wanted to lead them.

According to him, votes are not allowed to count in the country. “It is when these happen that you can say the people have elected or selected their leaders. The people become the dog, and those elected become the tail. The tail cannot wag the dog.”

Ozekhome lamented the current situation of things under President Bola Tinubu.

He noted that, “Nigerians are suffering. Nobody should deceive the president. There is mass poverty, degradation, and anger in the land. Don’t let your minders tell you otherwise. Disguise yourself one night, go out, and see the anger and hunger in the land. People are angry because fuel jumped from N192 per litre to between N650 and N800. Small-scale industries, usually the hub of a country, are virtually dead. Who can buy fuel to power a small generator to do barbing?

“The government must look at this, block all loopholes, and cut the large size of government, which is too large and wasteful. We must do away with long convoys. Our convoys are too long. There is a way to empathise with people. We shouldn’t go about buying more aircraft and more vehicles in a country already bleeding economically.”

But Wike disagreed with Ozekhome as he noted that Nigeria has made some progress in 25 years of practising democracy. He noted that Ozekhome himself has admitted that Abuja under the President Tinubu administration had worn a new look.

“The lecturer, Professor Ozekhome, my friend, has made some points, but it will be wrong to sit here without correcting some impressions. First of all, we are talking about 25 years of democracy; we know we have challenges. I expected the lecturer to say, ‘Yes, we have made some progress.’ But throughout his lecture, not one progress was mentioned. It was just criticism, criticism, and criticism. Are you telling me that for 25 years, we have not made any progress? If we have, then we can say yes, we have made this progress, but there is still room for us to move forward. Just like Shehu Sani said about how they were locked up, can he say that under this democracy, that Nigerians have found themselves in the same situation and that there is no progress?”

“Advancements such as improvements in infrastructure in the FCT and proactive efforts in the current administration to restore hope among citizens,” he said.

“Mr. President knows there is a problem; that is why he launched the Renewed Hope Agenda because he knows we have lost hope, but he must work hard to bring back hope for Nigerians. It is not like Mr. President just sits down, and people deceive him. Who does not know that Nigerians are suffering? That is no longer a story, and we should know the difference between theory and practice.”

In conclusions, Wike faced Ozekhome and asked point blank, “About rigging elections, as an activist, how many times have you rejected briefs? You have always defended those who have rigged the elections.”

Also reacting to assertions by Senator Shehu Sani, a discussant at the lecture, Wike said, “The mere fact that you people were activists does not mean you will do well. Activists have always failed. When you were in the Senate, how did we perform as senators?”

Sani, a former senator and an activist, reflected on the challenges faced by activists and leaders in the struggle for democracy and underscored the sacrifices and injustices endured during those tumultuous times.

He highlighted the importance of perseverance and collaboration in striving for democratic ideals.

Prof. Abiodun Adeniyi of Mass Communication, Department, School of Postgraduates Studies, Baze University, said that democracy “requires constant effort and the responsibility of citizens is to work towards a better democratic system.

“American democracy, often seen as the bastion of democracy, has been around for centuries but still faces challenges.

“While it is one of the most functional and referenced democracies, it is not the best.

“Our election processes are marred by controversies and violence.

“We need to improve gender representation and ensure inclusivity in governance, reflecting the true nature of democracy.

“To strengthen our democracy, we need to focus on election integrity, credible leadership and systemic change.

“Corruption remains a persistent problem and our institutions are weak.

“We need a synergy to build a self-regulating democratic system, not give up and continually strive for more democracy”.

The publisher of ThisNigeria, Mr Eric Osagie, said that the 2024 edition celebrated and critically examine Nigeria’s quarter-century of uninterrupted democratic governance, discussing its prospects and possibilities.

Osagie said that the Gold Prize Awards were presented to individuals who had demonstrated outstanding contributions to the nation’s democratic development.

“Our 2024 Awardees are persons who made the critical difference in the discharge of their duties with uncommon zeal and commitment to the common good of the citizens and the country,” he said.