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Tag: Atiku Abubakar

  • What next for Atiku Abubakar?

    What next for Atiku Abubakar?

    I wrote as follows in the article ‘Godwin Emefiele: Not Until I have Been Disgraced’ of 19 March, 2023:”I was privileged to have been both student, and later, staff of the University of Ife, Ile – Ife, when Ola Rotimi (13 April 1938 – 18 August 2000), unarguably one of Nigeria’s most outstanding playwrights and theatre directors dominated, and popularised, theatre at the Source (i e Ile – Ife).

    In one of his plays, the Tortoise, a slow, ugly and absolutely crafty character, was seen preparing to go on a journey and was asked if he must. “If you must go, when will you return”. Without the slightest hint of shame, he answered:”Not until I am disgraced”.

    As Lasisi Olagunju once put it, “the Tortoise is that character who fights on both sides, plunging the world around him into needless wars and anguish. Seeing himself as a charmer who cannot fail, he was without any moderation in consumption or in his assumptions.”

    In the referenced article,  it was the disgraced CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, I likened to the tortoise.

    Unfortunately, everything considered, not much appears to distinguish Emefiele from former Vice President, Wazirin Atiku Abubakar.They are both proud, arrogant, coy and believe themselves to be wiser than every other Nigerian; the reason why, against the CBN Act which expressly stipulates that a CBN governor SHALL devote his whole time to the work of that office, and shall not take any part – time job, Emefiele was garrulous enough he did everything to contest for the Presidency of Nigeria in furtherance of which he was reported, by the Peoples Gazette, to have taken delivery of  several campaign cars branded with his pictures, adorning traditional outfits of the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria, just as Atiku, because he is rich and powerful, believes he owns Nigeria.

    It was from that mindset, he not only boasted before the Northern Elders Forum that he alone qualifies to be the sole Presidential election candidate because he is from the North.

    What he would not tell Nigerians, however, is that he is being driven by some 50- year old marabout’s prophecy that, whether by hook or crook,  he would be President of Nigeria.

    We can only hope he will be wiser now that the Supreme court has finally ruled, ascribing nil probative value to his Chicago exploits, (which must have cost him a pretty penny) and affirming the PETC decision on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s election.

    But will he be statesmanly enough to pick up his phone, call President Tinubu and congratulate him, having actually promised Nigerians to do precisely that if he (Tinubu) won up to the Supreme court?

    Only time will tell but I will not even as much ask that of Peter Obi, whose group, led by his despicable lick spittle, one Julius Abure, has already regressed into their usual despoilation of everybody or agency of government who/ which does not buy into their pitiable story – these people with no discernible path, whatever, to victory in the Presidential election. I hope they heard the warning to their ilk by the Supreme court because these ones won’t learn or desist from excoriating the judiciary until some of them pay a steep price for their foolishness.

    At a personal level, I should be gloating, seeing that the Supreme court’s Lord Justices’ position on almost every ground of the appeals  mirrored my views as I have severally expressed them on these pages. In deed, I was spot on, on all grounds, bar only my position in the article:’We Told Them So: Peter Obi Is Not A Presidential Candidate Known To Law’ of 30 July, 2023, as the Supreme court affirmed the PETC position that party candidature is strictly a party matter whereas I have canvassed the view that a candidate is unqualified if his name is not on his party’s register forwarded to INEC, 30 days before the party’s primaries.

    How close my views were to the Lord Justices’ again leads me to a very unfavourable view of many of Nigerian lawyers.

    For instance, how absolutely  unreasonable is it, that a lawyer, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) for that matter, would  again bring to the Supreme court, a matter on which the apex court had previously decided as in the qualification of the  APC Vice – Presidential candidate to contest the Presidential election; a matter on which the Apex court had pronounced many months  ago.

    Happily, the Supreme court did justice to the matter the manner in which it summarily dismissed it in the Obi case.

    I am not sure, however, that some lawyers know what is called shame.

    Read Also: Why won’t VP Atiku Abubakar just quietly sing his political nunc dimittis and go home?

    This is the more reason I suggested in an earlier article that the petitioners should ask for a refund of the fees they paid, especially, to their lead lawyers.

    All the above not withstanding, all I want to do in this article is plead with our dear former Vice- President, Atiku Abubakar, ‘lati fowo wo nu, as we say in these parts, meaning that he should let bygone be bygone.

    As an eminent statesman who has put many years into the service of the country, part of it as comrades – in – Arms with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I would like to plead with him to now sheathe his sword.

    He should know that he really doesn’t have to be President to contribute his very best towards the healing which is now a sine qua non for our highly troubled country.

     I plead with him to cast a quick glance at former President Goodluck Jonathan who, today is one of the most respected former African Heads of state. If Jonathan can be that respected worldwide, Atiku, without a shadow of doubt, can emerge as an outstanding African leader.

    He has obviously fought the good fight, and hasn’t the slightest reason to feel any shame. He should, therefore, effortlessly be able to retire into a hugely deserved, and respected, quietude.

    To Mr Peter Obi, I also offer these words in the hope that he will stop seeing himself as half a dozen of IPOB because he won 90+ per cent of Igbo votes.

    Nigeria consists of much more than Igbos whose geo-political zone, the Southeast,  has the least number of registered voters in the country. To be anything politically of any worth outside Igbo land, therefore, Obi or any Igbo politician, must learn to work with people outside the Southeast.

    As both Governor Soludo and Senator Abaribe have had reasons to say, Nigerians are not about to donate the presidency to Igbos if they remain as politically insular as they currently are.

    Come the next election, Obi should refrain from fielding only Igbos everywhere in the country as Labour party candidates for elections when he knows that no Igbo state would allow a non- indigene to contest even for the post of a mere Councillor. 

    That done, not only Peter Obi, but all Igbo elders, must do the very hard work of weaning Igbo youths off the social media where all they do is abuse Nigerians from other parts of the country.

    As things stand today, it is unlikely that an Igbo politician can win a Presidential election even if all Igbo states vote 100 per cent for him or her, and that, of course, should not be a Peter Obi who has not done anything tangible, nationally, besides weaponising religion and ethnicity as his route to winning a national election.

    It will never happen.

    Finally, my sympathy goes to those television stations and their anchors – Nigerians know them – who would, henceforth, have nothing else to daily salivate  upon.

    Time has come for all Nigerians to come together, eschew all forms of animosity, and rally round the government of President Bola Tinubu to tackle our current problems which are mostly the consequences of the abdication of governance in our country in the very recent past.

  • Why won’t VP Atiku Abubakar just quietly sing his political nunc dimittis and go home?

    Why won’t VP Atiku Abubakar just quietly sing his political nunc dimittis and go home?

    “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace…” – Luke 2:29

    Everything considered, VP Atiku Abubakar is a titan of the Nigerian political landscape. A revered, indeed, highly regarded elderstateman, he has been a a political colossus like for ages – actually since the 90’s and has done everything  humanly possible to be President of Nigeria, except win it,  having been contesting for the numero uno position since 1992 – a clear 31 years.

    He served creditably as Vice- President under the rambunctious President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999 – 2007) who, rather than appreciate his services, chose, together with his Boys, the likes of Nasir El Rufai, and Femi Fani – Kayode to fling him right under the bus. In deed, to safeguard his political life, Atiku had to fight the boisterous Obasanjo all the way to the Supreme court.

    But not even the judicial elixir extended to him by the apex court would exculpate him from a fussilade of further attacks on his person by his one time boss who went ahead to expose, in his book, – MY WATCH, Atiku’s alleged corrupt acts for which a US Congressional hearing would later find him guilty of corruptly funneling millions of dollars to the accounts of his US- based wife.

    Not done, Atiku would later be linked with the embezzlement of funds earmarked for the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF).

    If the above are eons ago, not so Atikugate – the revelation, shortly before the 2023 Presidential elections by Michael Achimugu, his former media aide – giving details of how Atiku claimed to have used phony companies called ‘Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs)” to receive bribes, and divert public funds when he was Vice President.

    All these, together with his serial electoral losses should, ordinarily earn VP Atiku all the sympathy he so richly deserved. 

    Read Also: EFCC, ICPC to respond in Keyamo’s suit against Atiku Abubakar

    Unfortunately, he did not help himself. Below is how two former state governors described  VP Atiku:

    Katsina State governor, Aminu Bello Masari, sees the former Vice President as a rolling stone that would never gather moss, adding that “his penchant for running from one party to another smacks of desperation which would make it very hard for him to ever win a presidential election in Nigeria”. 

    On his part,  Donald Duke, former Cross River State governor, said:”Atiku has been contesting for Presidency since 1992. In fact, since 1992 there is no presidential election he did not participate in. In 2007, he contest, in 2011 he ran after he came back to PDP. In 2015 he ran, also in 2019 he ran and 2023 he wants to run. Haba, is it only you.”

    In contradistinction to Atiku, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who governor Rotimi Akeredolu once described as “a leader of leaders, and a living legend”, has demonstrated nothing but patience and equanimity,  helping others grow politically, rather than hankering after the presidency every election cycle.

    The Immediate past Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo gave credence to this fact in  2021 when he  said that “there is no Nigerian leader who has been as instrumental in raising other leaders as Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu”. “What is responsible for this phenomenon, he went on, is Asiwaju’s lead ership style, which is unusual”; stressing that Tinubu ”constantly refines his thoughts, and is never afraid of having his subordinates scrutinise his ideas”. He added: “Ashiwaju is completely comfortable engaging across different ethnic, religious and partisan divides”. 

    It was essentially this difference in their approach to life, and especially to politics, which made all the difference in the 2023 Presidential election.

    While Atiku, through his selfishness, split the PDP into four, the entire APC Northern Governors’ Forum, impressed by Tinubu’s politics,   stood ramrod behind him and ensured that he emerged the APC presidential candidate. They showed the same  steadfastness when the Villa Mafia showed their hands in Emefiele’s currency redesign plot which they successfully  fought to a standstill through the courts. 

    Thus, through Atiku’s overarching pride and selfishness, he destroyed his party’s chances in the election, thereby applying the final nail to his own political coffin.

    Unfortunately, rather than quietly sing his political NUNC DIMITTIS, he is all over the place gallivanting from pillar to post, chasing after Tinubu’s academic records; the same man who sheltered him in the ACN where he contested the presidential election when, in 2007 Obasanjo banished him to political Siberia.

    First to the PETC in Abuja he went, and as soon as proceedings wound down at the tribunal, to the US he headed, shamelessly shopping for courts to grant him that which only he, and his lawyer, can decipher.

    Represented by his lead counsel, Chris Uche, SAN, and able to call only 27 of his promised 100 witnesses, Atiku closed his case on Friday 23 June, 2023.

    Below are the grounds of his petition:

    That the presidential election court either declares him the winner of the 25 February election or nullify the election and order a rerun.

    That Tinubu was “not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast, and therefore the president-elect’s victory “is unlawful, wrongful, unconstitutional…null and void.”

    That Tinubu was, at the time of the election,  not qualified to contest the said election.

    “That it be determined that the return of the 2nd Respondent (Tinubu) by the 1st respondent (INEC) was wrongful, unlawful, undue, null and void having not satisfied the requirements of the Electoral Act and constitution…which mandatorily requires” Mr Tinubu “to score not less than one quarter (25%) of the lawful votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the states in the federal and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”

     That the court  declares him the presidential election winner, as he “scored the majority of lawful votes cast at the presidential election.

    That in the alternative, the court makes an “order directing” INEC “to conduct a second election (run-off) between” him and Tinubu.

    “That the election to the office of the President of Nigeria held on 25 February 2023 be nullified, and a fresh election be ordered,” 

    Because of its sensitive nature, this article will restrict itself to only the rebuttal by the INEC’s counsel, Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN.

    Replying to Atiku’s petition, he told the court “that Atiku “failed to discharge the burden placed on him by law” in proving his allegations against the conduct of the election”.

    He  argued “that Atiku’s case centred on alleged “non-compliance with the electoral act and INEC guidelines and regulations” which the petitioner did not substantiate”. He asserted that the deployment of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System machines and INEC Results Viewing (IReV) for the presidential election was “successful.”

    Continueing, he said:”The evidence (before the court) showed that these innovations around accreditation and authentication were successful and the information generated by BVAS were stored on the Amazon Web Services (AWS)”.”The evidence before court, he went on, showed that AWS is the secure and reliable Amazon services across the world,”  and concluded that Atiku’s claim that the IReV portal was compromised by INEC in favour of  Tinubu was an egregious fallacy”.

    Apparently seeing the futility of his petition at the PEPC, and perhaps, momentarily forgetting that he still has a recourse to the Supreme court, rushed to the US, long after proceedings have ended and judgment being awaited, thus going on an unnecessary fishing expedition, trying to close the stable door long after the horse has bolted.

    After being shut down by one US court, he rushed to another. He has now been shown that America is not a country where he can play games with the courts.

    I have some questions for candidate Atiku as he continues his search not minding whether he goes to the South or the North Pole

    In all his 77 years( born 25 November 1946) could Mr Atiku, at any point in time, have been appointed Treasurer of Mobil Oil Nigeria?

    What does he think qualified Tinubu for that executive position in a reputable international oil company?

    Working in Nigerian Customs?

    No, it is education, and not an emergency one, rushed during the 6th or 7th decade of his life but in his youth.

    Our dear one time Vice President, who I personally rever, should please, for posterity, quietly retire to eitherJada or Dubai..

    LAST WORD

    Some Obidients, just as they recently did, overwhelming with insults, the one and only Dr Ngozi Okonjo – Iweala, the highly regarded Director – General of the World Trade Organisation, their sister and about the very best to come from amongst them after she visited PresidentTinubu – these world renowned scammers – have been sending insulting texts/ tweets to the authorities of Chicago state University, cheekily asking to be sold fake certificates, as if they are not the real authorities in all manner of fakeries – fake drugs, fake spare parts, fake everything.

  • Atiku heads for Supreme Court as APC files counter appeal

    PEOPLES Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the last presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, and his party have asked the Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) which upheld President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory.

    Atiku and the PDP made the request in a notice of appeal containing 66 grounds which they filed on Monday.

    They said PEPC erred in law in its resolution of the five issues it identified for the determination of their petition.

    The PEPC, in its judgment on September 11, resolved the five issues against the petitioners and in favour of the respondents – the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) has also filed motions challenging sections of the September 11 judgment.

    In a cross appeal, the party is asking the Supreme Court to reconsider PEPC’s decision to accept evidence by three witnesses (numbers 40, 59 and 60).

    They are Atiku’s spokesperson Segun Showunmi, a data expert David Njorga and a data analyst Joseph Gbenga.

    The APC, through its lawyer Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), also wants the court to remove at least 42 paragraphs from PDP’s petition.

    Atiku and the PDP faulted the PEPC for holding that President Buhari did not need to attach his academic qualifications to the form CF 001 submitted to INEC to secure clearance to participate in the election.

    On ground one of the appeal, the appellants argued that the learned Justices of the Court of Appeal erred in law when they relied on “overall interest of justice” to hold that the second respondent’s Exhibits R1 to R26, P85 and P86 were properly admitted in evidence.

    They also faulted the Justices of the Court of Appeal on the other grounds.

    In pointing out the errors, the appellants submitted that the Appellate Court gave restrictive interpretation to Section 76 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) in order to exclude Form CF001 from its provisions.

    Read Also: Why I am pursuing judicial option for my mandate — Atiku

    “The conduct of election by INEC, which is the first respondent, starts with the screening of candidates. No candidate can be screened unless he completes Form CF001 (Exhibit P1).

    “In Form CF001, under the column for ‘Schools Attended/Educational Qualification(s) With Dates’, there is the clear provision: ‘Attach evidence of all educational qualifications.’

    “Certificates are evidence of educational qualifications.”

    The appellants submitted that “Form CF001 is designed to take care of the provision in Section 31(2) of the Electoral Act (as amended)” regarding the “list or information” a candidate is expected to submit and verify by an affidavit.

    “The prescription in Form CF001 for a candidate to attach evidence of all educational qualifications is part of statutory requirements. Form CF001 is made pursuant to statutory provisions.”

    On ground four, Atiku submitted that the learned Justices of the Court of Appeal erred in law when they held thus: “There was/is no pleadings in the petition to the effect that the second respondent’s failure to attach his certificates to Form CF001 amounts to lack of educational qualification to contest the election.

     

     

     

  • PDP and the return of long knives

    As former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Governor Nyesom Wike’s camps disagree and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors sport for war, Assistant Editor, ‘Dare Odufowokan, reports that PDP may have returned to its days of long knives

    FOLLOWING its unexpected defeat by the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the 2015 Presidential Elections, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may have returned to its days of long knives. Before the 2019 general elections, the party had been in a running battle with internal wrangling and intrigues, as it faced one challenge after the other, which threatened its very existence. It took the July 2017 Supreme Court verdict that sacked the Ali Modu Sherif-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the troubled party to bring respite to the then near moribund party.

    Fresh troubled however reared its head with the controversial election of Prince Uche Secondus as the National Chairman of the party few months later, but sanity prevailed somehow and the party, with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as its flag-bearer, entered the 2019 presidential race pretty much stronger than it had been since the 2015 defeat of then President Goodluck Jonathan by Muhammadu Buhari of the APC. Not even allegations that the primary election that produced Atiku was rigged could threaten the peace of the party ahead of the elections.

    Even after the defeat of Atiku and the PDP by President Buhari in the last presidential election, the opposition party continued to appear united as its leaders vowed to floor Buhari and APC at the tribunal and retrieve what they widely described as the stolen presidential mandate of March 2019. But today, the party seems to be on its way back to the days of long knives following the outbreak of fresh hostilities among its leaders. Observers say the latest crisis rocking the party, though gently, if not promptly curtailed, have the capacity to return PDP to its old crisis-ridden self.

    GENESIS

    On the surface, trouble returned to the opposition PDP after Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State publicly congratulated President Buhari on his victory over Atiku and his party at the presidential election tribunal last week. But party sources claimed there had been undercurrents before Wike’s open defiance of his party with his congratulatory message to Buhari. “Things have not really been the same thing between some of our governors, especially Wike, and the camp of Alhaji Atiku for some time now,” a party official told The Nation.

    A five-man panel led by Mohammed Garba dismissed the petition of the PDP and Atiku Abubakar, its presidential candidate, saying the petitioners failed to convince the tribunal in the reliefs they sought. Expectedly, the PDP has rejected the verdict of the tribunal and asked its lawyers to file an appeal at the Supreme Court. The party in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, alleged that despite the flawless evidence laid before the court, President Buhari was still declared winner of the 2019 Presidential Election.

    Describing the judgement as a barefaced subversion of justice and a direct assault on the integrity of the nation’s justice system, Ologbondiyan said the party was shocked that the tribunal allegedly failed to point to justice. The opposition party however urged Nigerians to remain calm, saying its lawyers are upbeat about obtaining justice at the Supreme Court. Breaking ranks with his party, Wike, a leading light in the opposition party, who was also the coordinator of Atiku’s Presidential Campaign in the south-south, sent a congratulatory message to Buhari.

    In the message Simeon Nwakaudu, his media aide, issued on his behalf, Wike asked Buhari to use his victory to unite Nigerians, “irrespective of their political leanings.” “Governor Wike called on the President to work towards the unity of the country, noting that the country is divided,” Nwakaudu said in a statement. Expectedly, the congratulatory message drew the flaks from some prominent PDP leaders and chieftains, with many of them accusing him of seeking President Buahri’s attention to the detriment of his political party.

    In the midst of the backlashes generated by Wike’s action, former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, considered a close ally of Wike, who was reported to have also congratulated the President, denied doing so and pledged his support for Atiku and the PDP. Nigerians should disregard any congratulatory message issued in my name on the outcome of the presidential election judgment. My party has indicated its intention to appeal the judgment, and as a party man and believer in the PDP/ATIKU 2019 project, I can’t author such statement,” Fayose said on his official Twitter handle.

    The PDP youths under the aegis of PDP South South Youths Vanguard, also berated Wike for congratulating President Buhari over his victory at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal. Reacting to Wike’s position, the PDP South South Youth Vanguard, in a statement by its National Chairman, James Efe Akpofure, said the governor was biting more than what he can chew. He said that the governor is not bigger than the party, adding, “how can the leadership of PDP say that the party is heading to the Supreme Court and Wike who was approved by the party to fly its flag at the governorship elections, and a member of the party is congratulating the President, who benefitted from a faulty judicial system that has been gagged by the executive.

    “Wike should know that he’s not more than the party and as such, he should stop bad mouthing and ridiculing the PDP. If he thinks because he was the one that brought the National Chairman he can do whatever he likes, he should have a rethink. The party cannot take a position on issues and he’s taking a contrary position by congratulating the President the whole world says manipulated the election that brought him on board.”

    MORE BRICKBATS

    Undeterred by the missiles being hurled at him, an unrepentant Wike threw more spanners into the works of the fragile peace in his party when he said he congratulated Buhari after the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal confirmed his election because it is better to offer public congratulations than visit the President at night. Wike said unlike some governors of Peoples Democratic Party, who visit President Buhari at night, he made his declaration public because it came from the heart.

    “I am sure all of you are surprised that I congratulated Buhari. Is it not good for me to congratulate him than to go to his house in the night? So many PDP governors go to see him in his house in the night. I have never gone and I will not go. We are the only state that the Federal Government refused to pay us our money used to execute federal projects because I don’t go to see him in the night and I won’t go. He is not my friend, he is not doing well, but he won in court, should I say that the court did wrong? No. “President Buhari, congratulations and carry Nigerians along. Unify the country, the country is too divided. I am saying what is right. What I will do, I will do, what I will not do, I will not do,” he said.

    To further expose the crack within the wall of the opposition party, Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State said PDP governors have decided to team up with Atiku Abubakar to get the Supreme Court to upturn the judgment of the tribunal. Speaking as Chairman of PDP Governors Forum, of which Wike is a member, Dickson encouraged Atiku and the PDP to appeal the judgment at the Supreme Court. He said posterity would not be kind to any PDP governor that abandons the party and Atiku to fight the legal battle alone.

    “We would be doing a greater disservice and moral injustice to our party, our democracy and Nigerians in general if we turn blind eyes, swallow such bile and applaud that rape of justice. The judgment to say the least has further painted our judiciary with darker colors, only this time around with a never-before-seen blemished coat of tar. However, we are hopeful that the Supreme Court will rewrite that history by ensuring that such stains and tar are removed from our judicial archives. This is our stand, now and in the future. Posterity would judge us harshly if we do otherwise,” he said.

    But observers of the politics of the party say by rushing to congratulate Buhari for his victory at the election petition tribunal, Wike was sending a message Atiku and his supporters within PDP couldn’t have missed. Wike, in the run up to the PDP presidential primaries, never hid his opposition to Atiku. He openly chided the later’s camp for allegedly trying to move the party’s convention away from Port-Harcourt. “This is a continuation of the ‘beef’ between Wike and those on the side of Atiku,” a source insisted.

    UNDERCURRENTS

    The Nation gathered that before now, there has been a subtle struggle for the control of the party between Atiku and Wike. According to very reliable party sources, after the 2019 presidential election, the Rivers State governor had been making frantic moves to regain control of the party which slipped from his grip following Atiku’s emergence as the presidential candidate of the party. But it has not been easy for him to get the party back under his control owing largely to the optimism of chieftains that Atiku will triumph at the tribunal.

    “Wike also didn’t like the fact that he was not being consulted as much as he wanted on the affairs of the party. Even Secondus, the national chairman, who rode on the influence of Wike to the position, now tilts more towards Atiku and his camp as far as party activities and decisions were concerned. This probably may be because Atiku and his people were the ones pursuing the cases at the tribunal and keeping the party alive with their activities,” our source suggested, indicating that relationship between Wike and Secondus may not be at the very best currently.

    “One of such things Wike find annoying is the recently announced Dubai trip by party leaders to confer with Atiku on the state of the party. He thinks he is being shut out of the party too much. Interestingly, many PDP leaders currently feel the Rivers governor is throwing his weight around too much. Even some of his fellow governors are prepared to engage him in a showdown should he make any further move that is capable of destabilizing the party. Remember how he recently threatened to deal with the party and its leaders if he is angered,” our source said.

    Chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Sen Walid Jubrin, had recently said he arrived in Dubai with prominent party leaders to hold talks with Atiku. He said the meeting between Atiku and the BoT members would centre on reconciliation and other issues within the party. “After our meeting with Atiku, the BoT as a body will meet to consider other issues affecting the party, including the report of the committee that investigated the crisis in the party over the minority leadership in the House of Representatives,” he added.

    The Nation gathered that one other issue causing disaffection within the opposition party is the handling of the crisis over the minority leadership in the House of Representatives. Wike is said to be displeased with the current position of the party on the matter. He had reportedly described the panel set up by the PDP BOT to resolve the Minority leadership crisis as the most corrupt in the history of the party. Sources say Wike is opposed to the emergence of Hon. Elumelu as the Minority Leader. The refusal of the party to move against him is displeasing to the Rivers State governor and his supporters.

    During the week, the Chairman of the BoT, Senator Walid Jubril, and the Secretary, Senator Adolphus Wabara, disagreed over the submission of the investigative report. Addressing reporters after a meeting of the board at the party’s Abuja secretariat, the two chieftains contradicted one another on the status of the committee’s report. The BoT investigation committee, chaired by former Senate President Iyorchia Ayu, also had two other former Senate Presidents, David Mark, and Wabara, as well as former Deputy Senate President, Ibahim Mantu, as members.

    A former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Austin Opara, served as Secretary of the committee. However, Opara resigned from the committee before it concluded its assignment. Jubril said the Board had received the Ayu committee report but had yet to submit same to the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party. But he was swiftly countered by BoT Secretary, Wabara, who said that the Board had indeed submitted the report to the NWC. Wabara said, “We have considered the report and we have submitted the report on Elumelu to the NWC.”

  • Buhari, Atiku: What next after judgement?

    Senior Correspondent ERIC IKHILAE examines the significance of the judgemnt of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal and its implications for democratic consolidation

    The ambience looked peaceful, less noisy and with less human traffic. A visit to the premises of the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, last Thursday presented a sharp contrast to the atmosphere that pervaded the court the previous day.

    Shortly after the information became public, last Tuesday afternoon, that the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) had scheduled the delivery of its much-awaited judgment for the next day, the usual tranquil mood around the court became disturbed.

    Everyone had waited anxiously for the judgment in the petition by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, against the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the last presidential election.

    From 4pm till late Tuesday night, court officials and media men were busy putting things in place. With the permission of the court’s authorities, three television stations were authorized to relay the delivery of the judgment live.

    Thus, officials of the television stations were required to set up their equipment the day before, which they did up to around 9pm.

    September 11: A day like no other

    As against the case on a normal work day, the court’s main car park was half full by 6am on the d-day, (September 11), with people hanging around the forecourt, awaiting court officials to open the door to the inner foyer and eventually the courtroom.

    That did not happen until 7am. With a hoard of security personnel, drawn from the Nigeria Police Force (NPC), the Department of State Services (DSS) and others, access was initially restricted to the court’s inner foyer by officials, who claimed to be acting on instruction.

    The door to the courtroom was only opened around 7.30am. A large crowd had formed around the entrance to the courtroom. It took great effort, with some struggle and pushing for people to eventually access the courtroom.

    In no time, the large courtroom became packed with lawyers, reporters politicians and their supporters, many of whom, the security personnel later restricted to the foyer.

    Obi, Ikimi, other PDP regulars absent

    But, unlike the previous court sessions, majority of prominent politicians, who witnessed the proceedings, were member of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Majority of the usual faces, prominent among whom are the Vice-Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi, and a former Foreign Affairs Minister, Tom Ikimi, stayed away yesterday.

    APC big wigs dominate attendance

    By 8.30am, an unusual personality came in. It was President Mohammadu Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari’s second visit to the court. He testified as one of the president’s witnesses. Dressed in his signature white agbada and red cap, Kyari, who strolled into the courtroom quietly, was accompanied by the Minister of State for Niger-Delta Affairs, Festus Keyamo (SAN), who was also dressed in white native dress, but without a cap.

    They exchanged pleasantries with many as they were led by some court officials to a row of chairs reserved for the court’s audience. As if on cue, the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, strolled in a moment later, greeted some lawyers who approached him sat on a chair close to Kyari.

    Other ministers, including Babtunde Fashola (Work and Housing) and Chris Ngige (Labour) were also in attendance. There was also the APC Chairman, Adam Oshiomhole, the governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, former PDP Chairman, Ali Modu Sheriff, former Bauchi State Governor, Mohammed Abubakar.

    Prominent faces on the side of the petitioners were the PDP Chairman, Uche Secondus, and businessman, Raymond Dokpesi.

    Politicians and spirit of camaraderie

    Oshiomhole, who arrived earlier than Secondus, went straight to the latter on sighting him and shook hands with him. They also hugged, laughed healthily and conversed for some minutes before retiring to the seats kept for them.

    All the politicians in attendance (from both camps) sat in the same corner of the court, with Dokpesi sitting directly behind Kyari for the entire length of the proceedings. None exhibited any sign of animosity. They conversed, laughed and held hands.

    Not all a bad day for petitioners

    Although the judgment went against them, it was not an entirely a bad day for the petitioners as they recorded some pluses.

    The court refused to be drawn into the controversy over whether or not the first petitioner (Atiku) was a Nigerian by birth and whether he was qualified to have contested the election, as raised by the APC, in its reply to the petition.

    The court’s head, Justice Mohammed Garba, in the lead judgment, held among others, that the questions relating to the qualification of the first petitioners and whether he is a Nigerian by birth were outside the scope of the court’s enquiry.

    Justice Garba noted that by the Electoral Act, the Court of Appeal was to service as the court of first instance in determining whether or not a person was validly returned as winner of an election to the office of the president.

    He said the court is not to determine whether or not a petitioner or a candidate who lost an election was qualified to have contested the election.

    Relying on a Supreme Court authority, the judge held that, at most, the third respondent (APC) should have filed a cross-petition on that issue.

    The court also resolved the issue of whether or not the petition should be dismissed for the exclusion of Vice President Osinbajo (SAN) as a party, in the petitioners’ favour. The court, in rejecting a motion filed by INEC to that effect, held that Osinbajo could only be classified as interested party, but not a necessary and unavoidable party.

    It added that, since Buhari and APC were parties in the petition and represented by lawyers, it was unnecessary to add Osinbajo as a party.

    Were the petitioners duped?

    Did the so-called expert and star witnesses invited by the petition collect money for a job not done? That was the question everyone was left with when the Justices handed down their decision. They evaluated the evidence given by said witnesses and concluded that it was worthless and added nothing to the petitioners’ case.

    In their effort to establish their claim of the existence of a server, into which INEC allegedly transmitted election results electronically, the petitioners called, as their 59th witness, David Njorga, who described himself as a Kenyan Information and Communication Technology (ICT) expert.

    The court noted that Njorga, in his testimony, said his expert report was based on a website, whose, owner he did not know. He gave the name of the website as www.factsdontlieng.com.

    He said the website was created about two weeks after the results of the election were made public. He said the owner of the website was an ex-INEC staff, whose name he did not name, but chose to call the person a whistle-blower.

    Justice Garba, after reviewing Njorga’s evidence, said the witness’s report is unreliable, coming from an expert.

    The judge noted: “ The information he relied, was found on a website, whose owner he did not know. As can be seen from the evidence of PW59 (Njorga), it cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be considered as an expert evidence, because it did not contain any information, he got personally from INEC website, but from a third-party source, an unreliable source, who is anonymous, cannot be believed. It is the said whistle-blower that ought to give the evidence in this case.”

    The court also faulted that evidence of another expert witness, Joseph Gbenga, who described himself as a Statistician, and through whom the petitioners tendered what they described as report of analysis of election results in some states they claimed were their focal states.

    The court also described as hearsay and worthless, the evidence by the petitioners’’ star witness, former Aviation Minister, Osita Chidoka, who said he acted as PDP’s National Collation Officer.

    Justice Garba, who noted that the evidence given by all the 62 witnesses called by the petitioners was not enough to prove the monumental allegations of malpractices, irregularities, non-compliance and related claims contained in the petition, was particular about the quality of Chidoka’s evidence.

    He noted that by his testimony, the PW62, the petitioners’ star witness (Chidoka) admitted under cross-examination, that was in the petitioners’ situation room in Abuja throughout the election period.

    “He did not personally witness what happened on the field and at the various polling units. He also admitted, under cross examination, that the collation of results was done manually. He also said he did not see INEC server, but that INEC kept assuring them of electronic transmission of election,” the judge said.

    He concluded that Chidoka’s evidence amounted to hearsay, because he merely related all that he was told by those on the field, and concluded: “I agree with the learned counsel that the petitioners have not proved that the 2nd respondent (Buhari) was not validly elected by majority of lawful votes.”

    Buba Galadima as a hearsay witness

    After analyzing the evidence given by the petitioners’ first witness, Buba Galadima, the court refused to accord it any probative value and held that it was mere hearsay. The court noted that, while the petitioners made allegations bothering on harassment, intimidation, arrest and detention of its members during the election, they failed to call anyone, who experienced such treatment.

    “They (the petitioners) did not call as witness any of those allegedly arrested and detained, except PW1, Buba Galadima, who said he was harassed and intimidated after the election. His evidence is of no value here in proving the allegation of criminal conduct and non-compliance,” Justice Garba said.

    He added: “Whatever evidence led is tantamount to hearsay evidence, as they were never eye-witness. The security agents against whom the allegations were made, were never made parties to this petition.

    When lawyers and members of the audience became disinterested in proceedings.

    Many suddenly became disinterested in proceedings when, at the conclusion of the lead judgment, followed by a few words from Justice Abdul Aboki, the third member of the court’s panel, Justice Joseph Ikyegh began reading another lengthy supporting decision, which was seen as a repetition of what Justice Garba had said.

  • Musings on the PEC’s verdict

    MEANING no disrespect to the rank and file of the formation that used to advertise itself as the largest political party in Africa and to its legal team, I was not surprised that the Presidential Election Court dismissed their challenge to President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in the    March 2019 election for lack of merit, or that all five justices of the court concurred in the ruling.

    I anticipated this outcome not from lack of confidence in the judiciary as a whole or in that branch of the institution, although evidence abounds there of perversity, a not infrequent flight from justice, timidity, and high susceptibility to unwholesome influences.

    Rather, I came to the expectation from the case laid out before the Tribunal by the combined legal team of the PDP’s candidate, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, and the PDP, as reported contemporaneously in various media outlets.  There was a great deal to complain about and even challenge in the election, but the case made by for the petitioners did not rise to proof of the skullduggery alleged in their depositions.

    Here, I must enter several caveats. The Court  is yet to furnish a transcript of the proceedings, against which the accuracy of media reports can be measured.  The reporting, it has to be said, was far from comprehensive and was generally marked by a scatter-shot approach.  However, to the extent that none of the parties nor the Tribunal has questioned its fidelity, the reporting must be judged substantially accurate.

    Atiku’s case rested crucially, first, on the existence of a server controlled by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to which the authentic election returns from the field were posted directly.

    A senior INEC official in one of the states had disclosed this arrangement at a news conference ahead of the election, according to testimony by a witness for Atiku. Any documentation of election returns that differed in any material particular from those retrievable from INEC’s master server must therefore be presumed to be a forgery.

    Now, several such documents had turned up, crediting Atiku with far fewer votes than he had actually scored as entered on INEC’s private server by field operatives.  If INEC had not knowingly collated Atiku’s votes downwards to rob him of his hard-earned victory, it must at the very least have somehow connived in that act.

    INEC rejoined that it hosted no private server.  It produced documentary evidence to the effect that its chair, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, had stated for the record that electronic transmission of election returns was not allowed under the electoral law, and that INEC had hosted no server for that purpose.

    While the PEC was grappling with claim and counterclaim, Atiku filed a lawsuit at the Supreme Court seeking to compel INEC to produce the alleged server.  The Supreme Court held that the existence or otherwise of the server was a substantive issue before another court, and that asking INEC to produce it would be prejudicial to the outcome of that other case.

    Nothing daunted, Atiku’s claim produced a field worker for INEC who said he had, as instructed, personally used some device furnished by INEC to transmit election returns to INEC’s server.  His testimony did not hold up during cross-examination.  More dramatic was the testimony of a computer specialist from Kenya, who said that certain characteristics of a document under review showed that the document could only have come from a server hosted by INEC. His testimony  shed no light on the controversy.

    The controversial server will go down as the dodgiest piece of electronic hardware in the annals of polling.  If it actually existed, was it kept in proper custody?  Was INEC the only entity that had access to it? If not, who else?  Is it inconceivable that another party, a rogue element, could have posted on it material that did not originate from INEC, or corrupted material obtained from it?

    In whatever case, its existence was not proven.

    The server certainly was not the trump card, the “Joker” (shades of Richard Akinjide and the 1979 presidential election) that was supposed to be the clincher. But the very prospect of bringing the existence of the dodgy server to light was enough to send PDP functionaries rhapsodizing about the certainty of the election being voided, and of the party’s imminent return to power and the good old days.

    By the way, where is Akinjide today, in these contentious times, when his hugely inventive forensic skills would have helped clarify and resolve many a mystery?   But I digress.

    Atiku’s case also rested, secondly, on proving that Muhammadu Buhari did not possess the minimum educational qualification for the office of president.  He should not have been allowed to run as a candidate in the first place.  Too bad he was allowed to run, but the lapse could be remedied by disqualifying Buhari after the fact, Atiku’s team contended.

    If INEC’s server was dodgy, Buhari’s West African School Certificate has been dodgier.  At one time, it was said to be in the custody of the military authorities.  Not so, the military authorities replied severely.  Perhaps the certificate did not exist, in which case Buhari must have been smuggled into the Nigeria Defence Academy, his determined adversaries said.

    Then the certificate was reported missing, not lost irretrievably.  Thereafter, it was said to have been replaced with a copy authenticated by the West African Examinations Council, and presented to Buhari by WAEC Registrar Dr Uyi Uwadiae, at a well-publicized ceremony, the issuance of an original back in 1961 having been ascertained.

    Still the controversy deepened.

    They challenged the name on the certificate.  They disputed the subjects Buhari offered and passed at the examination.  They said the school through which Buhari earned the certificate did not exist at the time he took the examination. They said anyone seeking evidence that the document was a forgery need not look beyond its shape and design.

    In vain was it pointed out that WAEC is an examining body comprising five member-nations, all of whom would have had to conspire to manufacture and award a certificate that was never earned, even if it was to a presidential candidate in one member-country.  That scenario seemed inconceivable.

    Still, they kept stoking the manufactured controversy.

    “Facts are stubborn things,” a learned man once said.  “They never go away.”

    The truth is that lies are even more stubborn.  They never go away.  They just grow and spread and ramify, as the controversy over Buhari’s School Certificate for his office has shown.  They defy commonsense and the rules of evidence.

    The Presidential Election Court saw through the subterfuge and held that Buhari was in terms of academic achievement, more than qualified to be president of Nigeria.

    Even so, I am not sure that its pronouncement will lay the matter to rest.  I will not be surprised if the matter is raked up before the Supreme Court on appeal, or continues to be litigated in the court of public opinion in the unlikely event that the Supreme Court finds for Buhari.

    Nor, switching gears, will I be surprised, if Buhari’s team continues to press the ludicrous claim that Atiku is a foreigner, to wit a citizen of Cameroun who had in all his adult life falsely paraded himself as a Nigerian citizen, and in the process risen to the second highest office in the land and amassed riches beyond the dreams of the most avaricious, especially since the Presidential Election Court  declined to consider the question.

    The penalty, the more desperate among them might even insist, is to strip him of his wealth and fortune and every distinction Nigeria ever conferred on him, and send him back to Cameroun.

    The silly season never ends here, remember.

     

  • PDP governors okay appeal against tribunal judgment

    PEOPLES Democratic Party (PDP) governors have given their backing to the decision of the party’s 2019 presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar to appeal the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal’s judgment upholding President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory.

    The PDP Governors Forum said the tribunal stood justice on its head in the September 11 verdict.

    It added that if the verdict is not challenged at the Supreme Court, it may have far-reaching implications for Nigeria’s democracy.

    In a statement by its Chairman and Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson, the Forum said the tribunal’s judgment attempted to lay a faulty moral foundation for future generations.

    The governors said: “After painstakingly and prudently understudying the line after line tenets of the judgment, several holes were picked and countless anomalies identified by us.

    ”We would be doing a greater disservice and moral injustice to our party, our democracy and Nigerians in general if we turn blind eyes, swallow such bile and applaud that rape of justice.

    ”The judgment, to say the least, has further painted our judiciary with darker colours; only this time around with a never-before-seen blemished coat of tar.

    ”However, we are hopeful that the Supreme Court will re-write that history by ensuring that such stains and tar are removed from our judicial archives.

    “The apex court should know that its integrity is at stake and in order to avoid it been shredded to particles, must employ all known technicalities to save our nation and the future of Nigerians yet unborn from a development that may further make us a perpetual laughing stock amongst the comity of nations.”

    The Forum said Nigerians were very hopeful that the tribunal’s “wrongs” will be made right by the Supreme Court.

    “Without any iota of trepidation, it is most paramount for us to once more restate and reconfirm our undiluted loyalty, deserving support and maximum commitment to our great party and the Atiku-Obi presidential ticket.

    “This is our stand, now and in the future. Posterity would judge us harshly if we did otherwise,” the governors added.

    The Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) also faulted the judgment.

    In a statement by its leader Uchenna Madu to commemorate its 20th anniversary, MASSOB said Nigerians expected a different outcome from the tribunal.

    It said the “lamentations and wailings of millions of Nigerians across the globe” in reaction to the verdict showed that justice was not seen to have been done.

    MASSOB said the anniversary was to remember those who died for the cause of Biafra.

    MASSOB restated its commitment to continue its agitation for an independent state of Biafra.

    “Biafra is the answer to the slavery Nigeria subjected Ndi Igbo to, ranging from political, economic, academic, religious, cultural and social slavery.

    “These undeniable realities are the reasons the Nigerian state is afraid of Biafra, which represents the truth they cannot legitimately counter.

    “Biafra speaks of the truth Nigeria know they are guilty of, so out of weakness and fear, Nigeria resorts to repressions, persecutions, killings and detention of Biafran agitators,” the statement added.

    A human rights group, the Access to Justice, urged electoral courts to shift their approach to determining petitions in order to protect the integrity of the electoral process.

    In a statement by its Convener Joseph Otteh, the group said it was concerned that the presidential election tribunal’s inquiry was significantly coloured by the application of technical rules of evidence to an electoral complaint.

    The group said there was less of an overarching desire to interrogate the transparency and integrity of the February elections and to hold the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) accountable for its actions or inactions.

    “This is not entirely blame on the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC). Nigeria’s electoral jurisprudence places too heavy an emphasis on the adversarial technique and its technicalities even in electoral decision-making.

    Read Also: APC to Atiku: Scammers deceived you on server

    “This is not a good framework for exercising the court’s role in safeguarding Nigeria’s fragile democracy and needs to change.

    “When an electoral court insists on ‘proof beyond reasonable doubt’, which is a standard applicable to the adjudication of criminal cases, in order to prove that voter figures were tempered with, the court raises the bar for reaching the truth about the integrity of the elections conducted and the fairness of its process and outcome and makes it harder to ascertain whether announced results were derived from actual votes cast in an election.”

    Access to Justice noted that in civil cases, the thresholds are not that high, and the courts accept the principle of the “preponderance of evidence”.

    It said there is a compelling and strategic need for making this burden even lighter, not heavier, in electoral cases.

    “The court’s approach, therefore, ultimately inclines towards suppressing the truth and keeping it buried under the rubric of the high thresholds it has set.

    “This makes it harder for electoral courts to play their watchdog roles of restoring and reinforcing the choices made by the electorate.

    “In the end, legalism defeats justice, while ‘democracy’ and the electorate are the ultimate losers.

    “Access to Justice does not in any way imply that the truth of the claims advanced by the petitioners in this case was buried in the hubris of legal or evidential technicalities.

    “We think rather that our courts’ philosophy of electoral adjudication needs to be reconceptualised and reconstructed to realign it better to the need to both protect Nigeria’s fledgling democracy and the electoral process.

    “It will as well help it hold electoral bodies accountable for delivering free, fair and transparent elections.”

  • Federal Govt: Atiku gave false evidence at tribunal

    THE dust generated by President Muhammadu Buhari’s Wednesday victory at the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) is yet to settle.

    People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which lost along with its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, said “the victory will be short-lived” because the Supreme Court would quash it.

    But, APC National Chairman Adams Oshiomhole and the Federal Government said the PDP’s appeal will be an exercise in futility.

    Defeat awaits the PDP at the apex court, Oshiomhole added.

    Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, who congratulated Buhari after the verdict, has explained his action.

    He said it was better to offer public congratulations than to visit the President at night.

    Wike said that unlike some PDP governors who visit President Buhari at night, he made his declaration public because it came from the heart.

    Also, Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed said the PDP and Atiku should be prosecuted for presenting “fraudulent evidence”, before the tribunal.

    Speaking on Thursday in St. Petersburg, Russia, he said the PDP and its candidate should apologise to Nigerians instead of appealing the verdict.

    The minister recommended the PDP and its candidate for prosecution.

    He said they deserved to be prosecuted for allegedly presenting fraudulent evidence before the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC), which on Wednesday threw out their appeal and affirmed President Buhari’s election.

    In a statement, the minister urged the PDP and Atiku to drop the idea of approaching the Supreme Court to seek redress.

    Mohammed is leading the Nigerian delegation to the 23rd General Assembly of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).

    The statement was signed by his media aide, Mr. Segun Adeyemi, and made available to reporters on Thursday in Abuja.

    It reads: “Instead of casting aspersion on the judiciary with their poorly-framed reaction to the ruling of the tribunal, the PDP and its candidate should be thanking their stars that they are not being prosecuted for coming to court with fraudulently-obtained evidence.

    “It is intriguing that a party that trumpets the rule of law at every turn will present, in an open court, evidence it claimed to have obtained by hacking into a supposed INEC (Independent National Electoral Commission) server.

    “Don’t they realise this is a criminal act for which they are liable?

    “Instead of threatening to head to the Supreme Court, driven more by ego than common sense, they should be sorry for allowing desperation to overwhelm their sense of reasoning. Enough is enough,” Mohammed, who is UNWTO’s Vice President (Africa), said.

    The minister said Atiku and the PDP should apologise to Nigerians for wilfully distracting the President Buhari administration with a frivolous election petition, instead of appealing Wednesday’s ruling.

    He noted that while the PDP and its candidate reserve the right to pursue their petition to the highest level, “they would be better served by dropping their toga of desperation and realising that there is a limit to tomfoolery.

    “Nigerians are tired of this orchestrated distraction, and will rather wish that the opposition, having lost at the polls and in court, will now join hands with the government to move Nigeria to the next level.

    “This is more so that the judgement validating the re-election of President Buhari was unanimous that the petition lacked merit; that the petitioners failed to prove any of the grounds upon which their case was anchored and that President Buhari is eminently qualified to contest the poll.”

    The minister praised the tribunal for not only doing justice to the case, but for explaining, in painstaking details that lasted hours, how it arrived at its judgment.

    “We also thank Nigerians, who voted massively to re-elect President Buhari, for their continued support,” he said.

    Oshiomhole, who spoke with reporters at the State House in Abuja, expressed optimism that no surprise would come out from the Supreme Court since the judges “are most likely to rely on the Appeal Court’s ruling”

    Read Also: Buhari’s victory: SANs hail Tribunal’s verdict

    The APC chair accompanied APC women leaders from the national, zonal and 36 states of the federation to a meeting with President Buhari.

    The women were led by the APC National Women’s Leader, Hajia Salamatu Umar-Eluma, to congratulate the President on his victory at the tribunal and to thank him for appointing seven women into his 43-member cabinet.

    Oshiohmole said: “We as a party are confident that if it is within the Nigerian law for PDP to go even to the world court, we will meet them there. The Supreme Court of Nigeria is not that of PDP or the APC, the Supreme Court is governed by law and is to interpret the evidence before the Court of Appeal.

    “They are not at liberty to introduce new issues neither can they bring in new witnesses. So, if it is what I heard yesterday which I believe you also heard, thanks to the media, most Nigerians were detained for eight hours listening to arguments of the judges one after the other.

    “Even though we thought it was getting longer and longer, we realised that they tried to deal with the issues raised, even the ones you and I as a layman will consider consequential, they dealt with each of them, trashed them and arrived at a conclusion.

    “So, I don’t want to sound arrogant. Yesterday (Wednesday), I said that I hope this whole contestation is about Nigeria who actually won the election and both parties are committed to building Nigeria and is not about who should be given the key.

    “Now, this has been resolved and it is time to queue behind the winner and move on. Our winner is the best example that losing election is not tantamount to the end of your political life. He lost three and today he is the President.

    “But, when I see the arrogance with which they pronounce and they bring what I call television lawyers, who pronounced with some managerial finality as if they are judges even without any evidence before them, let me now say authoritatively, we are now ready to meet them.

    “President Buhari is now ready to meet defeated Atiku Abubakar at the Supreme Court and the APC is ready to meet the PDP at the Supreme Court and Adams Oshiomhole is ready to meet my brother Secondus at the Supreme Court and he will take second and I will take first, Isha Allah.”

    The APC chair insisted that they were not in doubt that victory would come their way.

    According to him, the “PDP just seems to blackmail every institution so that their candidate can become the president even if it is not the will of the Nigerian people”.

    Oshiomhole said the PDP and its presidential candidate “reduced the election to social media speculations and bringing sources that are laughable even at beer parlour conversations.”

    The PDP urged the APC not to rejoice yet over the Appeal Court ruling, which it believed would soon be upturned.

    Its spokesman, Kola Ologbodiyan, urged Mohammed to be cautious in celebrating the judgment, saying that “his gloating will be short-lived”.

    According to the opposition party, Wednesday’s ruling by the PEPC was a direct miscarriage of justice that cannot stand at the Supreme Court.

    The PDP said given the weight of the evidence against President Buhari and the APC, the Appeal Court judgment will be upturned by the Supreme Court.

    The statement by the spokesman said: “Those celebrating this attempt to corrupt our justice system as well as the brazen approval of a clear case of perjury are directly telling Nigerians something about their conscience and character.

    “Our party is not surprised that Lai Mohammed, speaking for the Buhari administration, came short of calling for the arrest and prosecution of opposition members for coming before the Appeal Court, a situation which exposed their belief that they own the court and can determine the position of the judiciary on any matter.

    “Notwithstanding, the PDP holds that Nigerians have seen the ‘several errors’ in the judgment delivered by the Appeal Court and have turned the verdict to a butt of jokes in public space.

    “We invite Lai Mohammed to tell Nigerians if his Law degree was awarded to him on the basis of a sworn affidavit and pictures of his classmates; or was his Call to Bar at the Nigerian Law School also based on presentation of pictures and affidavit?”

    The PDP accused the APC-led administration of manipulating the process, saying: “This is more the reason the PDP stands with Nigerians in heading to the Supreme Court to uphold justice in the matter and salvage our nation from this drift towards impunity, anarchy and lawlessness”.

    The party urged the minister to explain his role alleged N2.5 billion “fraud” at the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC).

  • Tribunal decides Atiku’s petition against Buhari today

    THE dispute over the last presidential election, won by President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), on March 18, will come to a close today(Wednesday) before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).

    The main opposition party – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in the election,  Atiku Abubakar had filed the petition, in which they among others, queried Buhari’s qualification, victory at the election and sought to be declared winners. In the alternative, they prayed the court to void the election.

    The PEPC, sitting at the Court of Appeal,  Abuja, on August 21, and adjourned for judgment after entertaining final submissions from lawyers to parties.

    The Presiding Justice of the PEPC, Justice Mohammed Garba, announced, while adjourning proceedings on August 21, that parties would be notified when the court decides of a date for judgment.

    Parties to the petition have, since then, waited with bated breath for the judgment, with the petitioners reportedly writing the court last week in relation to the pending judgment.

    At about 12noon on Tuesday, information filtered in from the court that the much awaited judgment has been scheduled for today.

    The spokesperson for the Court of Appeal, Mrs. Sa’adatu Kachalla confirmed the development in a brief message on Tuesday.

    Mrs. Kachalla said: “Please be informed that notice has been given for judgment to be delivered tomorrow, September 11, 2019 at 9am in the presidential election petition.

    Four petitions were originally filed against the election, including the one by Atiku and the PDP, marked: CA/PEPC/002/2019, filed on Marc 18, 2019.

    Read Also: Presidency tackles ex-Vice President Atiku over Obasanjo

    There was the one filed by Hope Democratic Party (HDP) and Ambrose Owuru, who claimed to be the party’s presidential candidate. The petition, marked: CA/PEPC/001/2019 was filed on March 7 this year, before that of the PDP and Atiku, marked: CA/PEPC/002/2019.

    The third, marked: CA/PEPC/003/2019 was filed by the Coalition for Change (C4C) and Geff Ojinika, who claimed to be the party’s presidential candidate.

    The fourth petition, marked: CA/PEPC/004/2019, was filed on March 19 this year by the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) and Pastor Aminchi Habu, listed as the party’s presidential candidate.

    Two petitioners, te C4C and PDM, at a point, withdrew their petitions, following which the court dismissed them.

    The court, in a judgment on August 22, 2019 dismissed the petition by the HDP on the grounds that it was without merit, the petitioners having been unable to establish their claims.

    While making their final submissions on August 21 this year in the petition by Atiku and the PDP,  Buhari, the APC and the Independent National electoral Commission (INEC) – who are respondents to the petition,  argued that the petitioners failed to disprove the claim that Atiku is not a Nigerian by birth and as such was not qualified to contest the election.

    Buhari, APC and INEC described the petition by Atiku and the PDP, challenging the outcome of the election as worthless and time wasting. They noted that the petitioner, in prosecution the petition, starved it of necessary evidence and urged the court to dismiss the it with substantial cost.

    They noted that while the petitioners made head wild allegations in their petition, they provided no single evidence in support of their claims and therefore, failed to meet the required standard of proof in relation to all the allegations.

    At the August 21 proceedings, Wole Olanipekun (SAN) led  Alex Izinyon (SAN) and other lawyers for Buhari;  Yunus Usman (SAN) led INEC’s team; Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) led the team of the APC, while Livy Uzoukwu (SAN) led the petitioners’ team, which included Mike Ozekhome (SAN).

  • Presidency tackles ex-Vice President Atiku over Obasanjo

    THE Presidency came hard on Tuesday on the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the February 23 presidential election Atiku Abubakar over the latter’s allegation that President Muhammadu Buhari plans to frame former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

    It said the former vice president got it wrong by assuming that the one-time president could be framed by any other person more that he (Atiku) had done.

    Atiku had on Monday declared that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration was bent on framing Obasanjo to stop his criticism of the  Buhari’s administration.

    In a statement by his media office, Atiku also alleged that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was feeding the media with falsehood to cause disaffection between him and Obasanjo on one hand, and between Obasanjo and Nigerians in general.

    But a Presidency source told The Nation in confidence that Atiku had so much framed Obasanjo that nobody could beat his record.

    Read Also: Buhari not qualified to run, Atiku insists

    The source said: “When Mr. Atiku Abubakar reflects on some of the things he said of President Obasanjo, he will realise that having framed the former President so well in the past, Obasanjo cannot anymore be framed by anyone, no matter how he tries.

    “On the unresolved issue of the mismanagement of the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) under their government, Mr Atiku’s revelation before the Senate was that Obasanjo took N10 billion to kick-start his third term campaign.

    “This is how the press captured it: ‘Abuja — The ill-fated third term agenda re-echoed yesterday in Abuja at the public sitting of the Senate Committee on Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) when Vice President Atiku Abubakar alleged that President Olusegun Obasanjo approved the immediate release of N10 billion in the thick of the battle to push the agenda in the National Assembly.’”

    Another source recalled what Atiku said about Obasanjo on the $16 billion spending on electricity, which he noted nothing to show.

    The second source quoted Atiku as saying: “The issue of electricity is a thing that I feel very emotional about it, because I believe if we had handled the issue of electricity when we were in office by 2005 we would have provided enough electricity for the people of this country; but unfortunately we did not follow that route.