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The newly inaugurated governor of Yobe State Mai Mala Buni and his deputy Hon. Idi Barde Gubana have both complied with the provisions of the law in the code of conduct Bureau to declare their assets.

Our correspondent who visited the Code of Conduct office at the Federal Secretariat Damaturu exclusively discovered that both the former governor Ibrahim Gaidam and his deputy Engr. Abubakar Aliyu have also declared their assets as expected by the law.

the information available indicated that the asset declaration forms of both Gov. Mai Mala Buni and his Deputy, Idi Barde Gubana, as well as that of former Gov. Ibrahim Gaidam and his deputy Engr. Abubakar Aliyu has been duly signed by the National Commissioner with their acknowledgement slips equally issued back to them.

Though details of the assets was not made available to this correspondences, the dates of the forms showed that Gov. Mai Mala collected the asset declaration form on the 13th May 2019 and submitted it back on the 24th May, 2019 while his deputy collected the form on the 20th May, 2019 and returned it two days later(22nd May 2019.

On his part, Gov. Ibrahim Gaidam collected the form on 20th April 2019 and handed it back on 23rd May 2019. His deputy, however, got his form earlier and submitted on 20th May, 2019.

Read Also: Yobe to produce next APC Secretary

According to the Fifth Schedule part II of the 1999 constitution, section 11(1) mandates that: subject to the provisions of this constitution, every public officer shall within three months after the coming into force of this Code of Conduct or immediately after taking office and thereafter (a) at the end of every four years; and (b) at the end of his term of office, submit to the Code of Conduct Burau a written declaration of all his properties, assets, and liabilities and those of his unmarried children under the age of eighteen years.

(2) Any statement in such declaration that is found to be false by any authority or person authorized in that behalf to verify it shall be deemed to be a breach of this Code.

(3) Any property or asset acquired by public officer after any declaration required under the constitution and which is not fairly attributable to income, gift, or loan approved by this code shall be deemed to have acquired in breach of this Code unless the contrary is proved etc.

Eminent Professor of Law Itse Sagay (SAN) has urged the All Progressives Congress (APC) legal team to apply to the Supreme Court for a review of its judgments on Zamfara and Rivers States.

In Rivers, the APC was excluded from fielding candidates during the general elections following a Supreme Court judgment.

In the case of Zamfara, the Supreme Court on April 24 nullified APC’s victory in the election and transferred it to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) due to alleged irregularities in APC’s primaries.

To Sagay, the verdicts are a travesty of justice.

He said in a statement: “The Zamfara and Rivers State judgments are a national tragedy. We should not allow our legal system to throw up such unimaginable injustice.

“This major judicial disenfranchisement of the Zamfara and Rivers electorate should be reversed. I advise the APC legal team to apply for a review of the two judgments.

“Their Lordships ought to be given an opportunity to reverse this unprecedented tragedy.

“The prefix ‘Justice’ preceding he names of Supreme Court and Court of Appeal Judges is significant, for it prescribes what they stand for and what they represent: Justice!”

Sagay pointed out that in the governorship election in Zamfara, the APC candidate scored well over 500,000 votes whilst the PDP candidate scored just over 100,000 votes.

He noted the APC won all three Senate seats in the state, seven House of Representative seats and 24 State House of Assembly seats.

The statement reads in part: “By this judgment, the landslide APC victories in the governorship, Senate, House of Representative and State House of Assembly are transferred to the PDP.

“If the APC primaries were defective, should the electorate be deprived of their democratic and Constitutional rights to vote? Is the electorate to be punished for the transgressions of party officials?

“Should the Judiciary replace the electorate’s decision and install losers in office? Could the Judiciary not have drawn on the deep recesses of its intellectual capacity, authority and its inexorable commitment to justice, to prevent this undemocratic calamity?

“Can the APC officials not be punished, for their lapses without denying the electorate their democratic rights? Should the Judiciary take over the electoral rights of the electorate? Is this not a clear case of technical law completely overthrowing justice?

Read Also: I’ll put Rivers first, says Wike

“Have the members of the Supreme Court not achieved a level of creativity and authority to provide a solution without burying democracy and taking over from the registered voters as the judicial electorate?

“If this judgment had been an international one, it could have been described as ‘shocking the conscience of humanity’. In this case, it shocks the conscience of Nigerian humanity.”

Citing several authorities, Sagay said the Supreme Court is specially endowed with the power and authority to do justice and to ignore law when it is technical and would create injustice, and to avoid at all cost a mechanical approach to the interpretation of the law.

“Now, has justice been served in Rivers and Zamfara states? No! In one case innocent electorate in their hundreds of thousands were prevented from voting for their party by judicial order.

“In Zamfara, where voting took place, the verdict of the electorate was taken away from the victorious party and awarded by the Judiciary to the woeful losers.

“In the next four years, Zamfara State will be governed by a party and politicians rejected by the electorate. This indeed shocks the conscience of Nigerian humanity.”

He also referred to Section 140(1) – (3) of the Electoral Act, which prohibits any court from declaring a loser of an election elected even if the person with the highest votes was not validly elected.

“I am not interested in the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010. I am only deeply concerned and interested in the fundamental and peremptory principle of Justice.

“No Judge should announce his judgment until he is satisfied that Justice has been served, no matter how strong the pull of mechanical and technical law,” Sagay added.

Ekiti Peoples’ Democratic Party stakeholders have blamed the immediate governor, Ayodele Fayose for the abysmal performance of the party in the last elections in the State.

The stakeholders said Fayose’s alleged dictatorial tendency and high handedness in running the affairs of the party without consultation caused the party’s defeat.

They comprised of former house of representatives, serving house of assembly members and party members across the 16 local government of 177 wards in Ekiti.

They further added that Fayose’s divide and rule tactics to maximize his selfish interest destabilize the State Assembly, thus, snowballed into the party losing control of the Local Government.

The allegations were contained in a report jointly signed by PDP Ekiti State Repositioning Committee Chairman and Secretary Hon. Kehinde Odebunmi and Hon. Oladipo Ebenezer respectively and presented to concerned Party’s Stakeholders on Thursday at Ifaki-Ekiti.

The stakeholders said the State Working Committee of the party was a titular head who was never in control of the party’s affairs but being teleguided by the former governor.

They called on the aggrieved members of the party to return, saying they would be given sense of belonging unlike before when elective positions were decided by a single person.

Read Also: PDP: failure, incompetence marked Buhari’s first tenure

Following extensive deliberation on the report submitted, the stakeholders issued a communique signed by Dr. Jimi Oke.

According to the communique, the stakeholders berated imposition of candidates on the party by Fayose, saying that has bred indiscipline and consequently caused low morale among the disciplined members.

They called on the State Executive Committee to disclose the status of the new party’s secretariat which is under construction, stressing that information revealed that both the old and new buildings had been allegedly sold.

“We submit that imposition of candidate in our party, PDP is inimical to the progress our party. That this has bred indiscipline among members and has caused low morale among the discipline members.

“That the former governor, Ayo Fayose campaigned against the PDP and its candidate in the last election and he has not been checked or sanctioned by the party’s NWC.

“That the stakeholders resolved that the status of the party secretariat which is under construction should be disclosed by the SWC of our party to all party members in Ekiti State.

“That the PDP were all aware is the party to beat in Ekiti State but has to be restructured and allow discipline to remain supreme”, it said.

They, however, called on the party’s National Working Committee to check and sanction Fayose to have allegedly campaigned against the party’s candidate, Senator Biodun Olujimi in the last National Assembly election.