The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Unresolved

  • Kogi verdict: Many unresolved questions

    The Court ofAppeal recently handed down the verdict in the suit brought by JamesFaleke, the running mate to the late PrinceAbubakarAuduin the November 21, 2015 gubernatorial election challenging his substitution by his party – the All Progressives Congress (APC) with Yahaya Bello.The latter, it will be recalled, came second in the party primary.Like the lower court, it affirmed that INEC was right in declaring the election inconclusive and that the party, APC has the power to substituteAudu with anybody whatsoever and that it was not automatic that Faleke replace his principal in the circumstance.

    Many legal minds have posited with due respect that the decision of the Court of Appeal seems to lack any founding in the constitution. Moreover, that the verdict renders the office of the Deputy Governor (Vice President) or running mate impotent and useless, a development not in tandem with the spirit of the constitution and certainly at variance with the intendment of the drafters of the constitution.

    The issue of course is that the vice president or deputy governorsare assistants of their respective principals; both have a joint ticket and in case death or infirmity or other conditions specified in the constitution, the deputy steps in to replace the principal

    One question that arise here is, where is it written or where can it be reasonably inferred from the constitution that the candidate for Vice President or Deputy Governor ought to participate in primary election before he can be nominated for the position?

    Going by the Provisions of Section 187(1) Constitution, nomination of running mate is the duty of the candidate who polled the highest at the party primary election.Audu participated in the gubernatorial primary election of APC in Kogi State alongside Yahaya Bello and won the majority of votes cast.  Upon his victory, he nominated his deputy in line with Section 187(1) of the Constitution. Therefore there is no legal basis to assert that Faleke ought to have participated in primary election before he can be a running mate and by extension inherit the votes of his principal.Indeed, our position is that the ambulatory or testamentary desire of late Audu was for James Faleke to step into his shoes should he be unable to discharge his duty as governor or standard bearer of the party for the election.

    Clearly, the spirit of the constitution is that the governor and the deputy are in a holy political matrimony. The governor being the groom, gets nomination as the party’s flagbearer after party primary, appoints, nominates or marries his bride, the deputy governor to steer the ship of leadership in the state.

    Section 176 Constitution provides for the establishment of the office of the governor of a state who shall be the chief executive of that state. Section 181 provides that in the case of death of governor-elect before taking oath of allegiance and oath of office, the person elected with him as deputy governor shall be sworn in as governorand he shall in turn nominate a new deputy governor who shall be appointed by the approval of the simple majority of the House of Assembly. Thus, from the letters and spirit of the section 181, once an election is concluded and winner declared and the governor-electdies before swearing in, his deputy, bride, junior partner steps in his shoes as governor.

    This provision, with due respect, covers the field of what transpired in Kogi State on November 21, 2015. The election was 99% concluded.TheAudu/Falake ticket had polled overwhelming majority of votes and 25% of votes cast in all the Local Governments in the state. It was only natural and commonsensical to conclude the election and declare Faleke winner, since Audu had passed to glory, based on the principle in section 181.

    Assuming that the election was indeed inconclusive, making the conduct of a supplementary election mandatory, there is no reason why Falake should not be the standard bearer or be allowed to continue the election process. Supplementary election is not a fresh election requiring a fresh nomination; it is a continuum of the original election, hence requires no need to substitute candidates.

    Late Audu had been nominated in tandem with the constitution and sections 85 and 87 Electoral Act 2010; he in turn nominated his co-flagbearer, Faleke. The gubernatorial primary election had therefore become spent and its result useless. It was therefore preposterous that APC would revive a spent primary election as the basis for denying James Faleke his mandate (this is because the essence of any primary election is to choose the party’s candidate).

    Section 188 of the constitution also shows the joint ticket and partnership relationship between the governor and his deputy. The provision provides for the procedure for removal of the governor or his deputy and it goes ahead to refer either of them in the following sub-sections as “the holder ofthe office’’ and it can be reasonably inferred that the governor can be removed by the state House of Assembly independent of the deputy and where the governor is so removed, he is automatically replaced by his deputy (see section 191 of the constitution). The party is not allowed at that moment to say that the deputy governor did not participate in the primary that produced the governor or that it can superimpose any candidate alien to the joint ticket to appoint as governor in the place of the removed governor.

    Many have argued that Sections 181,191 of the Constitution are inapplicable to the Faleke’s scenario because the election had not been declared conclusive at the time of the death of late AbubakarAudu and as such Faleke cannot benefit from the demise of his master. This argument, with due respect is nebulous. This is because in legislative drafting and indeed in constitutional drafting, the draftsman cannot possibly draft a Law that will foresee all foreseeable possibilities. He is not omnipotent, that is to say, he is not all knowing, and therefore he must leave out some scenarios not envisaged at the time of drafting. When this occur, the entire document drafted (Actor Constitution) is looked upon and the spirit of the constitution can be detected from other provisions having a relationship with the one sought to be determined. The consistency of the complimentary role of the deputy chief executive in the 1999 constitution is a pointer to what the spirit of the law is saying in a scenario as the Audu/Faleke in Kogi State. To act otherwise, is to contravene the spirit.

    Indeed, what happened in Kogi State is akin to a 2 X 200 meters relay race, where one of the two athletes fell and died at the finishing line and an intruder from the crowd jumped into the track at the finishing line, pushing away the running mate who is still alive. GovernorYahaya Bello and his deputy did not sow any seed to inherit the hard labour of 240,867 votes scored by theAudu/Falake ticket. It is therefore in the interest of justice that the Supreme Court of Nigeria takes a close look at this anomaly which amounts to a usurpation of the will of the majority of electorates in Kogi State.

     

    • Medaiyeshe& Ibrahimweites fromLokoja, Kogi State.

  • Easter and many unresolved questions of faith

    Last week-end was another Easter week-end, a speed breaker of sorts from bread and butter life and another of those few golden opportunities to think and talk of something more sublime. That something more sublime in this case is the Divine Mission of the Lord Jesus, Son of God, to this part of Creation called the earth. Last Friday, it reminded Christians of a black spot in that Mission which man now calls Good Friday to hide his guilt. The guilt is what we now know as the Crucifixion of Jesus on the Cross but which, actually, is a dastardly murder. The sun protested the killing by hiding its face behind the clouds. Suddenly, we are told, a sunny afternoon turned dark, like night. The earth, too, angrily quaked. And wind rushed, perhaps with the ferocity of a hurricane. To cap the anger, Mother Nature abrogated the covenant which the Jews, as the “Chosen” or master race, said they had with the Almighty Creator. If the crucifixion was a part of the Divine Mission of Jesus, why would this covenant be abrogated? It is reported that unseen hands tore to shreds the curtain which shielded the Ark of the Covenant, kept in the Holy of Holies, the most sacred area of the Temple. The fact that the Ark of Covenant was now visible to every Dick and Harry was enough proof that the covenant no longer existed. There is no big deal about a “chosen” race or people. To be chosen means to be the most spiritually mature to receive and anchor the highest message being borne down from the Heights. At the time of the Lord Jesus, the Jews were, unarguably, the “chosen” race. They failed in the Mission to which they were a “called” race. The Germans replaced them. Before the Germans, there were the people of Isra, and the people of Ismanem.  Who, today, are the chosen people?

    Sunday reminds us of the Resurrection of Jesus. This event is still shrouded in mystery like many other aspects of His Life and Work on earth. His Disciples said His physical body rose from the dead. But the apostle Paul would have us belief the body of Jesus he encountered was not the mortal, physical body. Even the two Disciples Jesus appeared onto on the way to Emaus did not recognise the Master they knew two or three days earlier. If we believe the Christian Catechism that the risen Jesus “descended into Hell”, for whatever reason, with what body would He have done so? Physical or spiritual body?  And what business Had He in Hell, anyway. From the observation of Nature, we know that substances of the same consistency cannot penetrate one another. Thus, my physical body cannot penetrate yours. If I try to hit you and my hand passes through you as though you were empty space, it means either of us is of a different consistency or make-up from the other, one finer, the other coarser or more physical. Radio waves or electromagnetic waves which bring telephone data and voice messages to our homes can penetrate the Walls to do so only because they are of a finer material consistency than the walls they penetrate. In like manner, if the Lord Jesus penetrated the walls of the Upper Chamber to re-unite with His Disciples after His Resurrection, was it the slain physical body which performed this feat orthe soul (finer) body?

    There are indications that the Disciples did not understand their Master on many counts, especially in respect of His to promise to “destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days” Thus, there are accounts that they feared He may not physically resurrect and, to hide their shame, they took the body into hiding. I often wonder about how much more interesting and illuminating these matters would have been if only we pay more than a passing interest to many teachings of Jesus, in particular for this instance, the teaching that He had not come to obstruct the law but to fulfil it. The law is not the earthly law which He thought was wrong in so far as it did not accord with the will of His father, which is the law. That law is the order in which the Almighty creator wants Creation to run or to operate. Like the Laws, God was perfect from the beginning of Time and like Him, the Law which issued from Him will remain so from eternity to eternity. A part of this law is that “dust will return to dust” and the soul which inhabited the earthly dust while on earthwould return to it maker. The earth is the home of the dust. The core of man, that is Spirit, belongs to the Spiritual world, which is paradise. Jesus is not man. His Divine core return to his source, the Father. That was why he would say, “Where I go, ye cannot come. But I will prepare a place for you….”

    Monday, 40 days after the Resurrection, reminds us of Pentecost which is riddled with confusion in the mind of man, for many people believe it was a one-off event. Yet, from knowledge on the face of the earth today, it is known among a small circle of believers in it that Pentecost occurs once a year in the early Calendar. The peak is May 29. Thus the closet semblance to this event is the human heart beat. The human heart beats about 72 times in one minute to pump blood round the body, the blood takes nutrients, exceeding oxygen, to all the 100 trillion or so cells in the adult human body and takes away for excretion all their wasteproducts and poisons. We have learned from Nature that what happens below is a microscopic image of an archetype or prototype “Above” thus, what we may liken to the archetype of the heart beats is what actually happens during Pentecost. Pentecost is when the Creator renews His power in creation for the maintenance of this gigantic work in which the human spirit is permitted the opportunity to grow, mature and exist consciously.

    Many Christians are familiar with the revelation of a Temple in the Divine World, that is the world of archangels and Angles, which lies far, far above the world of human Spirits, Paradise. This is the Temple in which 24 Elders sing Holy, Holy, Holy, God Almighty from eternity into eternity.

    Below this Temple, in the uppermost section of Paradise, is the Spiritual Semblance. In this temple, a Dove appears regularly in the equivalent of one earth year. It is the spiritually visible form of the Holy Spirit. Its presence in this Temple in Paradise informs these knights and guardians of the Temple of the renewal of this Power for Creation.

    Through tidings of these events borne down the Heights to humans who were spiritually mature enough to receive and hold them, some artist and even religious organisations may have come to recognitions of the Holy Dove. It took the loosening of his body from his soul on his dead bed for Joseph, earthly father of Jesus, to recognise Him as the coming One. Suddenly, according to the reports, the inner or ethereal eyes of Joseph opened and he beheld the Dove above Jesus and the equal-armed Cross before Him. These are Divine signs that He is the Son of God. Beside Him, only the Son of Man would bear these insignia. Among those Christians who are alive, who meticulously examine, (not just read through) Revelation 1:4-6, may those who are privileged to make the distinction between them. Irrespective of the confusion in some Biblical transmissions of the Son of Man and His Mission, Jesus gave His Disciples some hints when He said sins against Him as the Son of God and sins against His Father would be forgiven, but not those committed against the Holy Spirit. Jesus would later advise us of the coming of the comforter, the Spirit of Truth who would reprieve the world of sin and proclaim the judgment. After the departure of Jesus, the Revelation spoke of He “who was, who is and who is to come” as Jesus had proclaimed. The comforter, as I take it from these verses, is not this power which came upon the Disciples on the Day of Pentecost. That power, as already discussed, came from the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth or the Holy Spirit, for the renewal of Creation. Without this Power, Creation would be like the physical human body without the heart beat or without blood circulation. It would become devitalized, diseased, shrived or wither and pass away!

    We should now see that, just as the human heart beats is not a one-off affair or occurrence, Pentecost, too, cannot be. A small circle of human beings on earth today recognise this and still observe Pentecost every year. As stated earlier, the peak is recognised to be May 29. The power of Pentecost support regeneration on earth. For example, Nigerian, the rains come, and the greens come alive. All sort of food crops emerge again for the nurture of human body. The orange is becoming more juicy right now. Avocados pear has made its yearly appearance. Corn or maize is back in season.

    In the law of the cycle by which everything in motion in exorably returns to its stanting point to conclude its cycle, the power sent forth for the renewal of Creation must return to its starting points. It is this return of the currents of power to their starting points which give accounts of the spiritual well-being of earth-man. As reported in the Bible, so darkly had the earth become that, for the sake of a few souls beseeching God for help, the words rang out: “who will go for us, who shall we send”.And, as also reported, a voice answered”here am I. send me” because Pentecost predated the coming of Jesus to the earth, having been taking place since the beginning of Creation, He knew of the time of its occurrence and advised His Disciples to gather in the Upper Chamber. He would later ascend Homewards on the crest of the waves of this power about 40 days after His Resurrection. It is amazing how some Nigeria leaders were guided to choose May 29 as the date for the transfer of power from one government to another. The power of Pentecost can still be observed it was as in the days of Disciples, consciously or otherwise. It drives to a head the nature of every-one, good or evil, so that, in that heating up, everyone comes to judgment through his or her nature.

    Thus, the worst riots in Nigeria have happened around this time. So have the most noble deeds. As the knowledge on the face of the earth today explains it, everything that slumbers in every-one, be it love or hate, is awakened to grow from strength to strength. Watch the world this season. The findings cannot be otherwise.

    JAB-ADU

    During the observation of Pentecost with my small group of acquaintances this year, one Person I will miss is Mr. Jab Adu who was known as Basey Okon in the village headmaster of the 1970s. The Village Headmaster was a Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) Programme which depicted rustic life in the village. Easily it was one the popular television programme and ranked along with the likes of BAR BEACH SHOW under presenter Art ALADE. I was a University student then, and hardly thought of meeting Mr. Adu one day. As his obituary revealed last month, he was almost 20 years older than I am. Our part were to meet in the course of each person independently seeking deeper meanings to serious questions of life.

    In this quest, he became inwardly advised to vacate that stage role and, together with his wife, develop programmes with new thrusts of messages in consonance with his changing and improving understanding of life. On one occasion, he got involved with a millennium project which was to pull by the ear or the shirt collar, so to say, in alert or sleeping souls. The message was to be that the Trumpets of the world judgment which the book of revelations speaks about are not going to be musical instruments. The images of them which many Christians carry in their heads and hearts are mere allegorical renditions. In reality, these trumpets are the multiplicity, intensity and rapidity with which these events occur. Nothing is new on earth no doubt. Even the flood of all floods in the days of Noah wasn’t new when it began to build up. It is the sheer quantum, rapidity and impact which suggest that something unusual may be on the way. Mr. Jab Adu titled his projects FOOTPRINTS IN THE SANDS OF TIME. These are markers that indicate a build up to a crescendo. They may be air crashes in particular months, number of deaths from a strife at a specific period in the year or something like these. We may argue back and forth that air crashes today are more than thewere ten years ago, we can say more people are dying in them today because they are more planes and more people flying. But do we even stop to think that air travel technology has in that period so grown in such leaps and bounds that, today, fewer air crashes, if any, than occurred in the dark age of aviation safety should be occurring today? The slot Mr. Adu gave me to fill in opened my soul more to world events. By world events I do not mean events of this earth but sign post or beacon-type events in the spiritual history of humanity. That history began with the of expulsion of the human spirit kernel from Paradise,  is journey through the World of Matter, bellow Paradise, for their sojourn and maturing, the expulsion from paradise and the role of Lucifer, a beautiful Archangel, in helping them through the principle of Supporting Love to achieve this, how Lucifer fell out of the grace of God by introducing thePrinciple of Temptation instead, how Jafdah, first incarnation of John the Baptist Loving guided the first humans on earth, how Lucifer and His minions menaced humanity, how it became expedient for Jesus to come before the final judgment for earth dwellers, how after the ascension of Jesus another divine Mission was prepared (Revelation 12) that would put Lucifer in bonds and set the stage for the much talked about Millennium, how, through Lucifer, all efforts to help mankind have  been riddled with confusion, how simple concepts are no longer understood because of their distortions, how, irrespective of thesedistortions the world events move on towards their inexorable conclusion in the  World Judgment, how the Trumpets are sounding loud and clear but no one  seems to hear, listen or care about them.

    Mr. Jab Adu has done his bit to pull us by the ear or the shirt collar, and gone his way. May he awaken to joyful life on the other Side. While he was here, it was a delight for me to have a handshake from him. His shake was firm and warm, did not betrayed age, or signs that he may soon leave the flesh With thoughts such as these engaging the minds, Easter season is no time for those feast and revelry which are founded on the wrong concept that the death of Jesus was willed by God to wash all the sins of humanity away, so we can eat, drink and be merry for being covered by His Blood. Anyone who has a faint idea of what STIGMATISM and STIGMATAS are will never pray to be covered by the Blood of Jesus thus, at Easter and Christmas, I break away from bread and butter to reflect on questions of existence, improve on my understanding of them and, with the new concept define or deepened, bring about new changes in my conduct and life. May Easter afford us all the opportunities to become really BORN AGAIN………..AMEN.

  • ‘Ondo PDP crisis unresolved’

    The crisis rocking the  Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) in Ondo State is far from over.

    Sources said old members of the party yesterday insisted that they would not have anything to do with Governor Olusegun Mimiko.

    Speaking to reporters in Okitipupa,a chieftain of the party and member, House of Representatives, Albert Akintoye, said the crisis would continue unabated, unless Mimiko desisted from imposing his candidates on the party.

    The lawmaker debunked the report credited to the party’s National Secretary, Prof Wale Oladipo, that the crisis in Ondo PDP had been resolved.

    Akintoye said old members had  resolved not to work with Mimiko in the coming general elections if the national leadership failed to withdraw the list of candidates submitted by the governor and recognise the Ogunye-led party in the state

    He alleged that Prof Oladipo’s statement was sponsored by Mimiko to deceive the masses and gave the impression that all was well in Ondo PDP.

    Akintoye reiterated that his endorsement by the Senate president, PDP national chairman Adamu Mu’azu and President Goodluck Jonathan as the party’s candidate in Okitipupa/Irele Federal Constituency for the National Assembly election must remain, if the crisis must be resolved.

    He said the party leadership and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must abide by court decision which ruled that INEC must not accept the list of any candidate in the state  different from the Ogunye-led PDP’s.

    The former Irele Local Government chairman insisted that the failure of INEC or the party leadership to do the needful on the matter might lead to mass defection of members

    Akintoye queried Mimiko’s audacity to reverse the decision of the President and national leadership.

  • Unresolved Police pension scam riddle

    Unresolved Police pension scam riddle

    ‘The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of custodians of her affairs.’
    ————Confucius

    Are Nigerians truly their neighbours’ keepers? Do we pay due diligence to what belongs to others, especially as custodians of public till? Why is it that it is only in Nigeria that what belongs to the collectives is negligently treated as belonging to nobody? These questions have become imperative in view of the charade that had become of pension affairs in the land.

    While the public contends with finding answers for the posers, a more confounding riddle is the lukewarm official attitude to the scam that happened in the police pension office and nothing so far has been done to arrest the culprits behind the ugly situation. Let us agree that pension looting has become a depressing routine in the country, but the recent handling of Abdulrasheed Maina’s alleged police pension scam punctures the commitment of the Jonathan government to stomp on corruption in Nigeria.

    Maina was a deputy director in the Office of the Head of Service. He was later appointed to head a reform team to sanitise Nigeria’s deeply corrupt pension scheme. But somewhere along the line, he got enmeshed in the crisis. He was until his infamous disappearance from public glare, Chairman, Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT) that has become an addition to the toll that graft is taking on management of public finance in the country.

    Maina’s alleged crime portfolio: He purportedly deployed Police Pensions Account to inappropriate ways. He allegedly opened accounts in different banks, one of the accounts in his younger brother’s name, stashed with billions of naira. The alleged illegal transactions were reportedly yielding an interest of about N100 million monthly. He also allegedly spent about N1billion to carry out biometric verification for the screening of 29 pensioners both in Nigeria and abroad. These are all according to Aloysius Etuk and Kabiru Gaya headed Senate Pension Probe Committee that equally claimed above all that Maina, allegedly misappropriated about N195 billion.

    The understandably thinking would rightly have been that if this could happen to the police as an institution that is saddled with apprehending criminals, then, workers in others sectors of the economy that pay pension may need to beware before their deferred payments are siphoned by corrupt cabals lurking around the corridors of power. No wonder, pensions of retirees in the country are paid in arrears on flimsy excuses.

    The Maina-gate should not be allowed to be swept under the carpet by right-thinking Nigerians. That is why Mohammed Abubakar, Inspector-General of Police (IGP), has a yeoman’s job to do in ensuring that Maina’s case did not go the sordid way of the past. Nigerians still remember that the IGP gave police escorts to Maina while still in Police Pension Office. And he allegedly spent scarce public funds, on a weekly basis, to the tune of N8 million, to maintain 38 security officers guarding him. What an insult to teeming millions of Nigerians without due police protection? Will it then be tenable for the IGP to say that those police guards did not know how Maina escaped police’ arrest when he was declared wanted? Will it be wise of the IGP to claim to have withdrawn Maina’s police guards knowing full well that he was going to declare him wanted? As an experienced cop, does he think that the man will wait after the untactful withdrawal? It is doubtful if the IGP ever craved the services of the Interpol and nations that are averse to graft to help in fishing out Maina wherever he might be hiding around the world. The needful would have been for him to be able to tell Nigerians by now, where Maina is and when he will be brought back to answer to allegations levelled against him.

    Even if the IGP wants to fail in this instance, for inexcusable reasons, the administration of President Jonathan must tell Nigerians when Maina will be brought to book. Nigerians deserve to know what will or happens to those that thrive on mismanaging their life-time savings called pension. Nigerians want to know what happened to the presidency’s recent call for Maina’s dismissal on ground of absenteeism from work. One doubts if that order was carried out by the appropriate agency of government. That seems to confirm and further fuel raging public speculations that the federal government is shielding Maina from justice on this matter.

    All those that are shielding Maina and his cohorts from facing the full wrath of the law should know that even if they do not need pension because of what they too have amassed at the expense of Nigerians, their offsprings, relations and friends will need pension at old age. If indeed they truly care for these people, then something has to be quickly done to the issue of Maina so that the future of hard-working Nigerians don’t end in avoidable jeopardy.

    We are all talking about Police Pension scam today but no one knows what havocs Maina would have done in places such as the Customs, Immigration and Prison Pensions Offices that he reportedly had worked before. Even if he had done well in these places, his unceremonious abandonment of the police pension job casts serious slur on his integrity as a civil servant.

    Whichever way the matter is looked at, the shoddy handling of the Maina/Police pension has waned public confidence in the current administration’s ability to correct the anomalies of the past in this and other regards. Without equivocation, confusion of aims seems to be the nation’s main problem. Nigeria has been turned into a dangerous haven, not because of the evil people, but because of the people, especially those that wield the big stick in the corridors of power, that are not ready to do anything about the abysmally degeneration of values in spheres of public lives. For the painful fact that those in authority have not learnt anything from yesterday, the way we live today and our hope for tomorrow are being jeopardised. The way forward is for us all not to stop questioning the deliberate inadequacies of those in power on pension and other issues that are unassailably germane to national rebirth.

    Maina must be brought before the law if only to serve as deterrent to others in his shoes so that they can desist from such inimical acts in future, and more importantly, to restore confidence in public service. After all, Confucius has shown us the path to follow long time ago when he said: ‘The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of custodians of her affairs.’ Is anyone still in doubt regarding why Maina must be fished out to pay for his alleged sins? We all need to be our neighbours’ keepers in the management of our private and national affairs as a country. As we continue to talk, we must act decisively even as we remain fervent in prayers for sanity to return to our land!