US President Donald Trump has said US Government will remain shutdown, no matter how long until the border wall is founded 

After meeting top Democrats, he also said he could declare a national emergency to bypass Congress and build a US-Mexico border wall.

Trump insisted he would not sign any bill without wall funding, which Democrats adamantly oppose.

Around 800,000 federal workers have been without pay since 22 December.

The Republican president initially gave a positive account of yesterday’s meeting at the White House, describing it as “very productive”.

But then he acknowledged in response to a journalist’s question that he had threatened to keep federal agencies closed for years if necessary.

“I did say that, absolutely I said that,” said Trump in the executive mansion’s Rose Garden. “I don’t think it will but I am prepared.”

“I’m very proud of doing what I’m doing,” the president added. “I don’t call it a shutdown, I call it doing what you have to do for the benefit and safety of our country.”

When asked whether he had considered using emergency presidential powers to bypass congressional approval of funding, Trump said he had.

The U.S. Constitution assigns Congress the power over funding the federal government, so Trump would likely face legal challenges if he tried to bypass Congress on financing the wall.

Dino's Saga enters the third day, and policemen keeping vigil at the house of Senator Dino Melaye in Abuja. The Police has fired tear-gas canisters into his compound on Sunday also cutting of Power and Water supply into the Melaye's House.

The policemen were said to have fired several shots of the canisters with the view to forcing out the senator, whom they believe is hiding inside the building.

Officers of the Nigerian Police Force had invaded the house of the senator on Friday to effect his arrest over allegations he was involved in the shooting of an officer in July 2018.

Electricity supply to his house was also cut off on Saturday.

It was gathered that neighbours living within the area were not spared, as many of them inhaled the tear-gas, and had difficulties breathing. The entire atmosphere was also said to have been enveloped in thick smoke emanating from the house. The incident has led to confusion in the area.

The Police have blocked the entire Shanga Street in Maitama, where the house is located, and prevented many residents from gaining access to their houses. Residents of the area have decried the presence of the policemen, stating that it is an affront on their fundamental human rights. Both human and vehicular movement in the area have been restricted, as only residents with proper identification are allowed into the area.

The house directly behind Melaye's has also been taken over by the Police in the attempt to prevent him from escaping through the fence. Journalists covering the siege were chased away from the area.

The lawmaker's brother, Moses Melaye, had raised the alarm that the Police may have perfected a plan to plant ammunition in the house to implicate him.

At the time of this report, the whereabouts of the senator could not be ascertained, but he has promised to surrender himself to the Police.

The Nigerian Police has given a detail account about the arrest of Dino, and why there at the resident of senator to arrest him.

Police PRO said "the Men of the Force were there to effect his arrest over a case of culpable homicide".

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Melaye and some suspects were accused of shooting a police officer, Sgt. Danjuma Saliu, attached to 37 Police Mobile Force (PMF) while on duty in Aiyetoro Gbede, Mopa Road in Kogi.

A statement by the force spokesman, acting DCP Jimoh Moshood in Abuja, said the police would continue to occupy his residence until he surrendered.

“The police operatives will continue to be at the residence of Sen. Dino Melaye until he surrenders himself for arrest,” he said.

Moshood said that the offence for which Melaye was being investigated was capital in nature and not compoundable.

He said that the officer was yet to recover from the gunshot injury he sustained during the attack.

The spokesman alleged Melaye had refused to report to the police command in Kogi to answer the charges in spite of the letter written to the Clerk of the National Assembly.

“The force will not tolerate attack on its personnel by any individual, no matter how highly placed. The law must take its course,”he said.

He said that members of the public would be kept informed on further development in the investigation of the matter.

NAN also reports that a combined team of mobile and regular police personnel have laid siege to the Abuja home of Melaye at 1 :40 p.m on Friday

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign organization has released more fact about buhari's ownership of the some companies and declared that Nigeria’s president and candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Muhammadu Buhari, no longer has the moral standing to seek re-election until he directly responds to corruption allegations by its candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

The PDP presidential candidate had demanded a probe into the ownership of Etisalat Nigeria and Keystone Bank.

Mr Abubakar in a statement by a spokesperson, Phrank Shaibu, said the call was necessary, “in view of reports that members of Mr Buhari’s family now own substantial share in Etisalat Nigeria, which has an estimated $2 billion (about N727 billion at 360 per dollar) of its estimated $20 billion global net worth.”

The PDP campaign council, in a statement signed by its director, media and publicity, Kola Ologbondiyan, said that Mr Buhari should perish the thought of going ahead with his re-election campaign without clearing what he described as a pertinent issue, because it directly bothers on his integrity, both as a person and the exalted office of the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“The PDP Presidential Campaign challenges President Buhari to explain how his family members came about the sum of N1.032 trillion for this scandalous acquisition,” Mr Ologbondiyan said in a statement.

He said Nigerians are not interested in “mere rhetoric or attempts by the Buhari Presidency to divert public attention from the issue at hand, but demand that President Buhari, who hitherto, prides himself as Mr. Integrity, squarely addresses these grave issues in person.”

“This is not an issue for President Buhari’s aides to howl about in the media, it touches directly on his person, particularly his perception as a symbol of the Talakawas. He must therefore address them on this issue.”

“It is a norm that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. President Buhari and his family members have entangled themselves in corruption. Mr. President’s hands can no longer be said to be clean, until he proves otherwise.”

The campaign organization said it wants Nigerians and the whole world to note that Mr Buhari’s refusal to personally address the matter means consent.

Mr Ologbondiyan dared Mr Buhari to put forth a denial on the disclosure by Mr Abubakar, adding that the party will spare no thoughts in furnishing the public with details of his corrupt activities, within and outside Nigeria.

“Our party has full details of how persons related to President Buhari, by consanguinity and affinity, have been paved the way to loot trillions of naira from government agencies for corrupt acquisition of shares in major companies, purchase expensive property within and outside Nigeria, as well as to finance their very luxury lifestyles, under Mr. President’s cover.”

“In fact, no Nigerian has made more money in the last three and half years than relations of President Buhari, many of whom have found themselves controlling stupendous wealth frittered from our economy, yet our President is asking Nigerians to get ready for more hardship in the coming year.”

He also stated that his party is privy to facts of how the relations of the president have been hounding government agencies, major business concerns and intending foreign investors over kickbacks as well as strangulating companies that refuse to accede to their demands.

“Nigerians will also recall how the Buhari Presidency muted the case of the Aide of the First Lady, Mr. Baba-Inna, who was arrested in September this year, over accusations of receiving N2.5 billion from politicians, businessmen and women on behalf of the First Lady.”

“Nigerians can also recall how the Buhari Presidency gagged the confession of one Amina Mohammed, paraded by the Department of State Services (DSS), who stated in public that persons close to President Muhammadu Buhari were involved in serial fraud and looting of public resources under the official cover of the Buhari Presidency.

“In fact, there is incontrovertible evidence, as provided by the Governor of Kaduna state, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, that President Buhari is not as clean as his handlers want Nigerians to believe.

“In October 4, 2010, el-Rufai accused Buhari of corruption in allowing 53 suitcases, belonging to his ADC’s father, to enter Nigeria, unchecked, at a time the country was exchanging old currency for new in 1984.”

He further stated that the president should not continue to dress himself in what he described as borrowed garb of integrity until he cleans himself of the “stinking corruption of his acolytes, family and friends, under his cover.”

Responding to the allegations by the PDP campaign organization, spokesperson of the Buhari Presidential Campaign Organization, Festus Keyamo, in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES accused the PDP of a plot to release a series of wild, unsubstantiated allegations against the president and vice president, Mr Osinbajo, including their friends and family members, in the next few weeks.

“With the latest revelation,” he said, “the said shares are rather linked to relatives of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, it has become a case of the thief calling the farm owner the thief, as the Yorubas would say, in a popular proverb.
These impending wild allegations would naturally border on corrupt practices, without any evidential basis.”

Mr Keyamo said the purpose is to attempt to dent the greatest forte of the president and vice president, which, according to him, is their personal integrity, ahead of the 2019 elections.

He said the latest tactics of the main opposition is premised on the following grounds:

“Since their stuttering campaigns started, they have felt the pulse of Nigerians and realized Nigerians have not forgotten their misdeeds of 16 years whilst in office.

“They have decided to run a campaign of “we-are-all-corrupt” rather than defend their sordid records of merciless looting of the public purse, which has brought us to where we are today.

“The aim is to push Nigerians to equate an Alhaji Atiku Abubakar with President Muhammadu Buhari on matters of corruption. They want to deceive Nigerians to think that the 2019 elections is really a choice between two “corrupt” persons.

“By repeating the lies a million times, they aim to get Nigerians to begin to give some serious thought to the lies. This is how the “Jubrin from Sudan” story started, before even some well-exposed and educated Nigerians were nearly converted on that issue.

“Their latest desperate diversionary tactics is because even the most uneducated Nigerian has now understood that all the issues upon which the main opposition is campaigning are self-indicting issues, especially on the Economy and Security.”

He said the foundation for the challenges in these sectors, are firmly rooted in what he termed as “16 years of disastrous governance which he said President Buhari has just started re-building.

Mr Keyamo said Nigerians should brace up for six weeks of despicable lies from the pit of hell against the president and vice president, to try to suggest to Nigerians that the president and his deputy are part of the league of looters to which the PDP belongs.

“But Nigerians should understand that the choices before them have never been this clear: It is between a fugitive from the law in America and a President who has never been accused of stealing anything in his entire life and is respected both locally and internationally;”

“It is between a man who claims he wants to ‘get Nigeria working again’ yet has always refused to pay his taxes AS AT WHEN DUE and a man who has NEVER cheated the Nigerian State.”