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Tag: dissolve

  • APC national officer urges Buhari to dissolve NDDC board

    APC national officer urges Buhari to dissolve NDDC board

    A National Officer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Yekini Nabena, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to dissolve the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

    Nabena, in an open letter to the President dated February 26, described the continuous stay in office of the current board of NDDC as a sit-tight syndrome.

    Nabena, who is a National Ex-Officio member of APC from Bayelsa State, claimed that  the tenure of the board formally ended last December, adding that it had no legitimacy to remain in office.

    He noted that the tenures of the NDDC Managing Director/Chief Executive, Nsima Ekere, and Chairman of the commission’s board, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, expired since last year, following the terms of their appointment and the law establishing NDDC.

    He said the terms and the law explicitly stated that they were to complete their respective state’s tenures.

    “While Ndoma-Egba was appointed to serve out the tenure of fellow Cross River State indigene, Senator Bassey Ewa-Henshaw, Ekere was chosen to complete the tenure of fellow Akwa Ibom citizen, Mr. Bassey Dan-Abia. Ewa-Henshaw and Dan-Abia were inaugurated in 2013 for a four-year term that ought to have ended last December”, he said.

    The APC leader maintained that Ndoma-Egba and Ekere’s continued stay in office was fraudulent and a demonstration of contemptuous.

    He said that Bayelsa State, which ought to have produced a new board chairman and other NDDC states were being shortchanged under the current situation.

    He also carpeted the managing director and the chairman for allegedly applying manipulative schemes to change the rules and perpetuate themselves in office.

    He said:  “The resort to sit-tight, crude propaganda and manipulation does not only display an arrogant contempt for the law guiding the commission, but it also offends basic decency and public morality.

    “In fact, it amounts to administrative fraud. Any further day the board exists is tantamount to allowing wilful iniquity and illegality to run riot. Moreover, the fact that they have been paying themselves all manner of allowances even after the expiration of their legal tenure is criminal.”

    Nabena urged Buhari to  redress the anomaly to restore sanity to the commission’s leadership and save the image of his government and its campaign to bring about change.

    He said: “The Act establishing the NDDC provides for a rotation of its leadership among the nine NDDC states of Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo, Abia, Imo, and Ondo.”

  • Four architects lose suit to dissolve ARCON

    Four members of the Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA) have failed to get court’s order to dissolve the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON).

    The suit, instituted by Tonye Braide, Abimbola Ajayi, David Majekodunmi and Dike Emmanuel against ARCON, sought, among others, a legal pronouncement that ARCON had  been dissolved.

    The court, however, ruled otherwise, noting that the case lacked merit. The presiding judge, Justice Hadiza Shagari, of a Federal High Court, Lagos, consequently the dismissed case.

    The plaintiffs, Braide is NIA immediate past president; Ajayi (General Secretary); Majekodunmi, (Chairman, Students Affairs Committee) and Emmanuel, (Chairman, International Affairs Committee) in the last executive of the professional group.

    Trouble started when they challenged ARCON over the conduct of professional exams. While ARCON said it directed the NIA not to conduct professional exams, the NIA turned down the directive, and  held the exam. To assert its regulatory authority, ARCON, citing some ‘inadequacies’ in the process leading to the conduct of the examination, declined to register those adjudged to have passed the controversial examination.

    However, the plaintiffs claimed that trouble started between the former NIA executive members and the regulators in 2015, following the latter’s decision to conduct exams on professional practice for architects who wanted to register with ARCON – a position NIA frowned at, maintaining that such action ran contrary to the Act establishing ARCON.

    The four, armed with an alleged circular dated July 16, 2015, from the Office of the Secretary to the Federal Government, which purportedly dissolved ARCON, went to court challenging the position of the regulator.

    Justice Shagari, after reviewing the submissions of counsel, held that the plaintiffs did not show or present to the court sufficient evidence that the contested circular of the Federal Government affected ARCON in its statutory functions in any way.

    “A careful examination of the said circular does not capture ARCON and therefore, it is without doubt to say that the reliefs sought by the plaintiffs in this application did not succeed on the grounds that the defendants according to part C of Companies and Allied Matter Act 2004 (CAMA) are professionals, which regulate the affairs of all its registered members,” the judge ruled, adding that if the circular of July 16, 2015, did not affect the defendants, then, any action taken by ARCON couldn’t be seen as ultra vires or void.

    “I, therefore, uphold the submission of the defendants’ counsel and hold that the Federal Government of Nigeria circular dated 16th July 2015 did not dissolve the defendants, as they are not appointed by the government of Nigeria. This originating summons is dismissed for lack of merit,” Justice Shagari ruled.

    NIA President, Adibe Njoku, said  the plaintiffs in the case went to court in their capacity and not on behalf of the NIA.

    This, Njoku explained, meant that the NIA had nothing to do with the suit, as there was no time the Council of the NIA okayed the siut against ARCON.

  • Cleric: dissolve my marriage, my wife curses me with her private part

    Cleric: dissolve my marriage, my wife curses me with her private part

    A pastor, Bernard Towoju, who said he cannot tolerate his wife’s ill-nature and trouble, has approached an Igando Customary Court, Lagos, seeking dissolution of their 25 years marriage.

    He said his wife, Abosede, was fond of stripping naked to curse him with her private part.

    “I cannot continue to make love to a woman who always curses me with her private part,” Towoju said.

    He said Abosede is stubborn, wayward and troublesome.

    “She once came to my office to fight me. She tore my clothes in the presence of my colleagues. We fight on a daily basis and hurt each other.

    “We always land at the police station after our fight. In fact, we are regular customers at the station,” the pastor said.

    The 53-year-old man also accused his wife of threatening his life.

    “My wife usually attacks me with weapons whenever we fight.

    “I ran away from the house I built 10 years ago to rent an apartment, for safety.

    “She chased me with cutlass, bottles and sticks; our neighbours can testify to this.

    “I am afraid, I cannot sleep under the same roof with her,” he said.

    The petitioner implored the court to dissolve the marriage, as he was no longer interested in it.

    Abosede accused her husband of calling her a witch.

    “He claimed everywhere he went for solution to his problems that they told him I am behind his predicament.

    “My hands are clean; I know nothing about his woes,” said the respondent.

    “Bernard abandoned me and the children 10 years ago. I have been taking care of the children,” the 36-year-old fashion designer added.

    The mother of four urged the court not to grant her husband’s request, saying “I still love him.”

    The court President, Mr. Adegboyega Omilola, adjourned the case till October 31 for further hearing.

  • Rivers APC: Wike lacks power to dissolve local govts

    Rivers State All Progressives Congress (APC) has said Governor Nyesom Wike lacks the power to dissolve the elected local government areas.

    A statement yesterday in Port Harcourt, the state capital, by the state’s APC Chairman Davies Ibiamu Ikanya, said: “We are aware that Chief Nyesom Wike claims to have read Law though he never practised this noble profession for one single day and may, therefore, not know the position of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on this issue.

    “We, therefore, wish to advise him to find time to read the relevant portions of the Constitution and educate himself on his lack of powers to dissolve local government areas duly elected by the Rivers people.

    “If he claims that he has the powers to dissolve the local government areas, he is invariably saying that the Federal Government has powers to dissolve his ‘illegal’ government without following due process.

    “Any such action by Wike will not only be an exercise in futility but would be in clear contempt of court, as the issue is currently before the Port Harcourt Federal High Court …and the Court of Appeal…

    “Besides, the Supreme Court …has severally ruled that governors lack the powers to sack elected local government areas, as in the case of the removal of 148 elected local government areas by the Abia State Government in 2006 and the subsequent Court of Appeal judgments on Imo and Ekiti states in 2012 and 2013, where it was held that such actions by governors amounted to ‘executive rascality’.”R