₦airaland Forum

Funkyswagzz:
Nigeria INEC & judiciary gave him that platform due to how corrupt the system is. Pablo tried and he was killed straight up

OgaTheTop2:
Only God knows what this man is hiding...

TemplarLandry:
Honestly, that line is curious, if not embarrassing, over a certificate you earned as a “brilliant student.”

To further compound the unpleasant narratives, this great man’s biography, detailing his youth, friends, challenges and victories, his humongous achievements and rise from zero to the pinnacle of office have never been written as a biography or autobiography. I am told there are no plans to ever avail of us of this potentially rich narrative. Curiouser and curiouser still, I must confess.

When Chief Obafemi Awolowo died in 1987, amid a deluge of musical tributes in his honour, a line among those offerings stood out evergreen. Sang by Fuji music lord, Kollington Ayinla, while extolling Awolowo’s panegyrics, he sang: “ookan ile l’osa gbe, Baba Yinka//eyin t’o funfun kii gbe koro enu”.

This line profoundly articulated the open life of Awolowo, as well as his trackable history and pedigree. As short as the lines were, they drilled deep into the most granular of Yoruba concepts of openness and transparency. Literally translated, it means that shrines that people are proud of are erected in open family compounds and it is a misnomer to cover a set of sparklingly white teeth with flabby duvet of lips.

Shrines in Africa were held, partially or wholly, as reserved places for magico–religious or even ceremonial functions. Their traditional worshippers or priests consider them sacred and as groves where ancestors lived. Those groves were also places and channels of communication with humans by the gods and were dedicated to the worship of deities, war heroes believed to have transformed into ancestors, or sites of burial of nobles in a community. Trees, water and rocks are wrapped around these shrines and altars and they together form an important totem of the environment, the corpus of the Yoruba belief system. As important as these shrines are, most Yoruba deities and shrines are erected in the front of compounds.

So, whether as Christians, Muslims or animists, there is a unity of prayer points of parents that God should give them blessings that cannot be hidden. One of such blessings is that the children on whom they spend so hugely excel upon graduation, especially with a first class. Every week, newspapers celebrate such achievements in interviews with such graduates. Those are blessings that cannot be hidden. In support of full disclosure of a worthy past, Yoruba say that only a malformed or deformed hand is hidden under the bowels of a garment – “owo ti o sunwon ni gbe abe aso”.

On Sunday, October 17, 2021, TheNews magazine published what it said was the “most comprehensive Tinubu interview about his early life, struggles abroad, against the military, governorship, others”, “a marathon interview he granted” where he “spoke about his rugged beginnings, studies in the US, struggles against the military for the actualisation of June 12, the current democracy and others”.

In the interview, the man who would later become the Nigerian president said he performed so brilliantly at the Chicago State University (CSU) that “at the end of the term, and still on the Dean’s list, Professor Jesse came around to inform me that he would employ me to manage the Accounting laboratory for the institution… I was given a scholarship to become a tutor…I was challenged and severely under pressure to keep up my grades as each semester rolled by because if my grades dropped, I would lose the scholarship. It was quite challenging and in the end, I graduated top of my class and I was recruited as an Accounting major…I was on the Dean’s list; I was in line for the award for the overall best accounting student as well as that of the university scholar’s award….”.

Recently in a September 7, 2023, press release from Aso Rock, on the fringe of the G-20 Summit, during an interactive session with Nigerian students studying in the South Asian country, President Tinubu recalled his academic prowess while he was an undergraduate at the Chicago State University, describing himself as a brilliant student. “Good education brought me here and I am happy to stand before you here as the president of Nigeria. I started small. I was a security guard. I was a tutor in school. I was a brilliant student. I joined Deloitte and was trained by one of the biggest accounting firms in the world, because of my education.”

Those are indeed words of encouragement. His grass-to-grace story should encourage any youth that they too could reach for the zenith of achievements in life if a US cab driver could become the president of the most populous black country in the world. So when, shortly before the judgment of the presidential election petition tribunal, ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar was rumoured to have approached a United States of America court to subpoena CSU so as to obtain university schooling records of President Tinubu, many of us laughed him to scorn. Why would Atiku take politics to this demeaning level? We reckoned that Atiku would be so legally gas-lighted in the US that he would not try this nonsense again all his political life.

In the application, Atiku had alleged that Tinubu’s academic records were inconsistent. In a dramatic way that stunned virtually all of us, the American court granted Atiku’s application through a judgment it delivered last Tuesday, September 6, by magistrate Jeffrey Gilbert. He then ordered the production of the school documents of Tinubu in 48 hours and the deposition of the administrators of the CSU under oath. If granted, Atiku sought to demonstrate that the man who occupies Nigeria’s foremost office is ineligible to be president of a country like ours. As Professor Olatunji Dare once wrote in his profound mastery of the English language, this was becoming curiouser and curiouser. Atiku’s reliance was on sections of the 1999 constitution (as amended) which unambiguously void the aspirations of anyone who willfully tampers with their certificates for the sake of vying for political office.

Both Tinubu and his alleged alma mater, the CSU, have maintained that he attended the institution. [b]CSU is however demurring from authenticating his certificate under oath. The man who in newspaper interviews excitedly mouthed his first-class degree at CSU is also now spiritedly arguing against the release of the results to Atiku. His argument became the untenability of the documents in Atiku’s appeal at the supreme court. The former vice president was however unwavering. Before the order could lapse, Tinubu suddenly approached the court under a Ms Nancy Maldonado of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, for an application to delay the order and submitted that releasing his school documents to Atiku had a fatal potential to damage his life. “Severe and irreparable harm will be done to Bola Tinubu if the records are released,” the president’s lawyer told Maldonado. Arguing further, the lawyer said that if the court released the documents to Atiku, great harm that “cannot be taken back to the bottle” would be done to him. Immediately, Ms. Maldonado agreed with Tinubu’s lawyer on the severity of granting the order on the part of Tinubu and thus stayed the order pending further arguments on the matter.[/b]

In all this, I am at a loss. Me thinks somebody proud enough to grant interviews articulating his academic brilliance should have no issue at all mounting his first-class certificate on global billboards for all to see. That done, political enemies like Atiku Abubakar would have had no other option than to lick their wounds.

The Chicago court drama reminds me of one of Joseph Folahan (JF) Odunjo’s folklore with the title, ‘Afose d’elede’ – Afose has morphed into a pig. Literary critics and folklorists say that the past and the present inter-relate in a strong way. A writer, educator and politician who was best known for his works in Yoruba children’s literature, Odunjo, in 1951, won a seat in the Western House of Assembly and was later appointed Western Region’s first minister of land and labour by Chief Awolowo. He communicated Yoruba values through folklore and myths. Folklore, a strong imprint from our past, relates strongly to present social and sociological conditions. Odunjo, just like D.O. Fagunwa, was greatly respected for having shaped the minds of generations of Yoruba of western Nigeria, especially through his highly famous Alawiye series. The series transformed into a book from the oral folklore and stories of traditional society told at moonlight after dinner. With this, he was able to communicate the values, beliefs and literary skills of the people. Using fictive characters (human or non-human) like tortoise (Ijapa and his wife, Yannibo), ghomids, (ebora) streams, animal kingdom, human kingdom, etc., he intermixed itan (myths) and alo (folklores), the former more believable because they are factual, dependable and historical than myths, to convey the reality of the time. The calamity in this, however, is that such folklore has not been preserved into posterity like Tom and Jerry.

‘Afose d’elede’ is themed to preach that regardless of how long they gestate, flourish or span, hidden evil manipulations will go awry someday. The narrative is centred around a gang of felons in a village who specialise in the nocturnal theft of villagers’ property. This particular day, they had stolen a very huge pig called elede and to escape scrutiny, gilded the hapless animal inside a wooden coffin. Local hunter sentries however lay ahead of them that night. As they advanced from their village into the town, two men shouldered the casket like a mourning party. One of them stood in the front of the casket with his left hand tightly holding a full-grown cock. He plucked its feathers intermittently with the right hand. As he did this, following in the ancient tradition and custom of the Yoruba, he invoked incantations, amid a cultic rendition of a sober song interceding for intervention of the spirits for the dead.

What this man with the cock was acting was what is called the tradition of “adiye irana”. In order to seek easy earthly passage to the hereafter for the dead, Yoruba believed that adiye irana, with its process of plucking the feathers of a live cock as the first in line of a hearse party, the enchanter was interceding for the dead so that the spirits could grant them eternal sojourn. In another way, the cock was meant to “ra ona” – literally, buy the road/way – for the dead. The cock is the cash, the bribe if you like, for the sentry of heaven – Onibode Orun – to wave the dead in and on to eternal bliss. Elasticising it into an aphorism, Yoruba say “adiye irana kii se ohun a je gbe” to remind us of the inevitability of justice, now or later, in this life or in the hereafter.

The sentries however confronted the advancing “mourning” party and demanded to see what was inside the coffin. Sounding shocked at the temerity of the sentries, the gangsters told them that right inside the casket was the body of the late Afose, a notoriously powerful medicine man from their village renowned for transforming into all manner of animals in his lifetime. His notoriety and native medicine powers transcended his’ to other villages. In death, Afose still retained his powers, said the gangsters, so much that if the coffin was opened, Afose could, as usual, transform into any animal he desired. Not dissuaded, the sentries stubbornly demanded that the coffin be opened, nevertheless. Upon being forced to lift the lid off the coffin, a pig’s oink confronted them. This necessitated the gangsters to chorus that the body of the notorious medicine man had indeed transformed into a pig – Afose d’elede! In the melee of the pig that had suddenly been set free from its imprisonment, the felons burst into the song, “Afose d’elede, a ti wi tele!” and escaped into the bush.

The way it stands, the age-long miasma of cloud shrouding Tinubu’s certificate and past may become an Afose d’elede that is fast coming home to roost confirming, indeed, that regardless of how long it gestates, flourishes or spans, manipulations, like the felons’ casket, will go awry someday and the world will see the original content of the casket.

No matter what part of the political, ethnic or class divide one may belong, the ongoing judicial tackles in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago should bring huge embarrassment to every Nigerian. That a country which advertises a surplusage of academic laurels and achievements among its citizens in America, Europe and in very many parts of the world is being administered by a man who rushes from pillar to post to spread thick pullover over his academic documents is enough embarrassment to last Nigeria a lifetime.

The drama in that Chicago court is sickening. As lawyers say, the objective test to determine what a reasonable person who is faced with the kind of allegation against Tinubu will do is to allow Atiku Abubakar have his way at the CSU through the court. Muzzling Turaki Adamawa off those academic documents, for whatever reason, is akin to carrying a coffin containing elede and staving off all entreaties to open the content of what is claimed to be the dead body of Afose.

By the way, let us play the devil’s advocate by interrogating what may lie at the back of the president’s mind for seeking to block the revelation of the results. Ego? Why should Atiku act as an interloper in a matter that does not concern him as Tinubu’s academic documents are strictly his business? The answer is that Tinubu is no longer a private person and by poking his nose into political office, he has lost every right to his privacy. As such, anybody interested in his academic records should be allowed access to them. Then, the president’s lawyer exploded what sounded like a nuke inside the Chicago court. According to him, granting Atiku access to Tinubu’s certificates will cause “severe, irreparable harm”. With this last averment, I am of the opinion that our president must sack this lawyer for this very incriminating statement and for attempting to deny the proud alumnus of CSU the opportunity to put Atiku to shame and an opportunity to buga with his First-Class Honours degree in Business Administration.
[b]I have attempted severally to navigate through this claim of “severe, irreparable harm” by the president and I must confess that I am marooned on a desert island. How? It stands against reason that a man will pay foreign lawyers multiple of thousands of dollars legal fees to argue in court that a tight lid be put on documents relating to an academic journey he had flaunted to the world as excellent. When has harm ever come the way of anyone simply because details of their academic records became public document? Why would a man who promised to run a transparent government demur from same transparency when it comes to openness of his past? To an ordinary and reasonable person, it would appear that releasing the result, on the contrary, stands to benefit the president immensely. First, the growing community of tarbrush of fraudulence, forgery and shadiness being affixed to his name would cease. It could even put a lie to and render unfounded the allegation that the president’s ancestry is wrapped in shawl. Releasing documents of his schooling in Chicago would afford us an opportunity to harangue Atiku as indeed a meddlesome interloper who is shopping for straws to hang on to in his quest for the Nigerian presidency. More fundamentally, a Tinubu who rose to power on the cusp of attracting A-list technocrats should never be found with the inelegant act of hiding details of his own academic records. Did he appoint those A-list persons without peeping into their certificates?[/b]

The optics of this “severe and irreparable harm” thesis is very dispiriting. And annoying too, if you ask me. It seems to reinforce the belief by haters of the president that his past is shady, unwholesome and not worthy of being known by a global audience which thirsts after purity. That is why I think he should fire his US attorney. I am very sure our noble, pure president never sent him to make that demeaning claim. As bad as Nigerian leadership has been since the collapse of the First Republic, never had Nigeria been confronted with a graphic acquiescence to narratives of forgery by its leadership as this. This global embarrassment is almost proportionate to the disaster of Hiroshima and Nagazaki. To reinforce how bad things are, an Encyclopedia Britanica search on our president comes up with this embarrassing entry “Many of the details of Tinubu’s early life, education, work, and finances are unclear”. They all feed the trough of this unfair claim of forgery and obfuscated past.

The uncommunicated, but unwillingly communicated communication arising from this helter-skelter run to hide Tinubu’s certificate in Chicago provokes the question, is our president an Akudaya? Did he spring from Mars? Akudaya is an ancient core Yoruba belief that roaming spirits of the dead acquire human flesh like a living wraith, get disconnected from their past and begin life de novo elsewhere. There have been stories of akudaya who married, gave birth and lived life to the fullest; until those who knew their past suddenly surfaced. Its closest synonym is the British apparition, a resemblance or prototype of the living or dead, or the German doppelganger. The doppelganger, mostly used in horror literature, is a dip into German folklore which doubles down on the concept of the existence of a spirit double, “double walker” or a person’s non-biological look alike. So, which one of these is President Tinubu?

To further compound the unpleasant narratives, this great man’s biography, detailing his youth, friends, challenges and victories, his humongous achievements and rise from zero to the pinnacle of office have never been written as a biography or autobiography. I am told there are no plans to ever avail of us of this potentially rich narrative. Curiouser and curiouser still, I must confess.

Nigeriagood:
I swear down,na bbn you go see them, notice not a single female is here

djon78:
And Jesus Christ was born during the reign of Augustus Cesar.
When the emperor gave directive for the census of the entire Roman world

Joseph took Mary his wife to his hometown in Bethlehem to be counted in census where she gave birth to our Lord Jesus Christ 🙏

You can imagine how organized Rome was over 2000years ago to have conducted census then

What were Africans doing then?


Honestly I Love History!!

Ofunaofu:
Honestly, the type of stupidity you display here is quite legendary

duro4chang:
CSU must not release it. It belongs to the president.

frankson1:
[/b]



This is a very big lie. There are as much parents doing legit jobs and sending their children to schools charging over N500k/term for tuition fees.

One mustn't be a ritualist to live a good life. Learn to not feel bitter about those who have worked their way to the top and now living well.

AskNgige2:
I wonder why God keeps quiet..

In Psalm 35 says: Lord how long would u keep mute and watch these evil men destroy innocent people?

Tinibu will never know peace..

He will die a painful death and his lineage will suffer for all his wickedness..

Evil that men do live after em...

ElSudani:
Tinubu is hiding his A grades from result thieves. If they can try to steal the results of an election academic records will be nothing to them.

TemplarLandry:
Johnbull Moore, this is senseless.

seunmsg:
The court cannot disqualify him over the NYSC certificate because it was not presented to INEC and it’s not a requirement to be eligible for election.

Labour Party has described the verdict of the Enugu governorship tribunal as ‘absurd.’

In a statement on Thursday, the party’s national chairman, Julius Abure, said what played out at the tribunal was a miscarriage of justice.

The tribunal had dismissed allegations of NYSC certificate forgery against the PDP candidate and incumbent governor, Peter Mbah.

The tribunal also struck out the Labour Party’s allegation of the over-voting bypass of BVAS while insisting that Mbah was duly elected as governor by the majority of lawful and valid votes cast at the election.

Abure said:

“Though we will seek redress at the Supreme Court immediately, knowing that justice was miscarried in this particular case and that the tribunal judgement can not stand, we are worried about the level of degeneration in our judiciary, where ridiculous rulings are frequently churned out from the hallowed temple of justice.

“Our case before the tribunal was a clear case of electoral robbery where we pointed out that in Enugu, after the collation of 16 LGAs out of the 17 LGAs of the state, our candidate, Chijioke Edeoga, was leading with over 11,000 votes, surprisingly, the PDP in Enugu, working in cahoots with the INEC, shockingly and provocatively wrote and awarded to the PDP a whopping 30,000 votes at Nkanu East LGA, the LGA of the PDP candidate.

“We pointed out that the figures from the INEC BVAS, Nkanu East LGA, recorded a total number of 15,000 accredited voters on election day. However, when votes were declared, the PDP was allocated a total number of 30,350 votes, while a total number of 1,855 was credited to the Labour Party.

“So, we asked how could INEC have turned out over 33,000 votes in a place where only about 15,000 voters were accredited.

“We had also asked the tribunal to disqualify the PDP candidate for presenting a fake NYSC certificate.

“The authority of NYSC confirmed that the PDP candidate absconded from service and that the certificate he parades was not issued by them.

“Doesn’t that seem like an open and closed case, yet the tribunal saw nothing in a clear case of electoral forgery and perjury.”

Abure alleged that in the wake of the judgement, Governor Mbah had embarked on a series of visits to Aso Rock, “and we also took note of his level of confidence lately.”

“However, we had ignored these ominous signs while hoping that the blind Lady of Justice would act impartially, but we are shocked by this judicial endorsement.

“Labour Party may be weeping today for this travesty of justice meted at us, but we do not know whose turn it will be tomorrow. Evil, they say, triumphs when the righteous keep silent and when they refuse to condemn it,” he added.

BloodShed1:
The sexier a woman is, the dumber she is, generally.

Most of the "intelligent" women are either fat, ugly or both.

Pauladex:
Wasting of time

The presidential candidate of the Labour (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has distilled the key points in his 51-grounds of appeal against the Judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).

Obi stated that although he filed the appeal to the Supreme Court against the PEPC decision based on 51 grounds of appeal, the major complaints raised against the Judgment are as follows:

“The PEPC was wrong when it struck out the witness statements on oath of ten (10) out of the thirteen (13) witnesses called by the Petitioners on the ground that the statements were filed after the expiration of the period of twenty-one (21) days prescribed by the 1999 Constitution (as amended) for them to file the statements. They complain that the decisions of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal which the PEPC cited in support of the decision do not apply to the facts of this case.

“That the Court of Appeal, in coming to the above decision, refused to follow its previous decisions in many cases, which were cited and submitted to it, that a subpoenaed witness need not file his statement alongside the petition and any such statement filed after the time allowed for filing the Petition is competent and valid. (See Grounds 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 of the Notice of Appeal).

“The PEPC was also wrong when it struck out the witness statements on oath of the Petitioners’ witnesses (i.e. PW4, PW7, and PW8 who were Expert Witnesses) on the ground that they were persons interested in the outcome of the Petition.

“They failed to consider and appreciate the decisions of the Supreme Court to the effect that a person interested means “a person who has a pecuniary or other material interest in the result of the proceedings – a person whose interest is affected by the result of the proceedings, and therefore, would have a temptation to pervert the truth to serve his personal or private ends”.

“The PEPC failed to take into account that in this case, there is no evidence on record in the instant case that any of the Petitioners’ witnesses had any pecuniary or material interest in the result of the proceedings.

“It is also their complaint here that by the decisions of the Supreme Court, a person interested does not mean “an interest in the sense of intellectual observation or an interest purely to the same party. It means an interest in the legal sense which imports something to be gained or lost”.

“That the interest of PW4, PW7, and PW8 in relation to the documentary evidence produced by them, on subpoena, was merely products of intellectual exercise. The PEPC ought not to have struck out their evidence on this ground. (See Ground 15 of the Notice of Appeal)

“The PEPC was wrong when it decided that the electronic transmission of results with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) from the polling units to the IReV is not mandatory under the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022; and that INEC has a discretion whether or not to use BVAS to upload and transmit the results.

“In coming to this conclusion, the PEPC relied on the decision of the Federal High Court in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1454/2022 and refused and ignored the recent decision of the Supreme Court in OYETOLA v. INEC (2023) LPELR-60392 (SC) that the use of BVAs to scan and transmit the results of the election from the polling units to the IReV is “part of the election process” under the new legal regime governed by the Electoral Act, 2022.

“The PEPC also ignored the decision of the Supreme Court in OYETOLA’s case that “the Regulations provide for the BVAS to be used to scan the complete result in Form EC8A and transmit or upload the scanned copy of the polling unit result to the Collation System and INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV)….”

“It is their further complaint that contrary to the decision of the PEPC, the use of BVAS to transmit the election results to IReV under the present legal regime governed by the Electoral Act 2022 is mandatory. They contend in coming to the above decision, the PEPC overlooked the provisions of Paragraph 2.9.0 on page 36 of the Manual for Election Officials, wherein INEC stated the mischief the introduction of electronic transmission of results was meant to remedy under the new Electoral Act 2022 under the sub-heading “Electronic transmission/upload of the election result and publishing to INEC Result Viewing (IREV) Portal”, wherein INEC explained that: “One of the problems noticed in the electoral process is the irregularities that take place between the Polling Units (PUS) after the announcement of results and the point of result collation. Sometimes results are hijacked, exchanged, or even destroyed at the PU, or on the way to the Collation Centers.”

“The PEPC also failed to consider that in the same Manual and Guidelines, INEC stated that: “it becomes necessary to apply technology to transmit the data from the Polling Units such that the results are collated up to the point of result declaration. The real-time publishing of polling unit-level results on the IREV Portal and transmission of results using the BVAS demonstrates INEC’s commitment to transparency in results management.”

“They further complain that since INEC itself had stated in the same paragraph 2.9.0 of the Manual for Election Officials that this commitment is backed by Sections 47(2), 60(1, 2 & 5), 64(4)(a & b) and 64(5) of the Electoral Act 2022, the PEPC was wrong when it held that the provisions of the Manual on electronic transmission of results conflict with the Electoral Act.

“They make the case that since the provisions of the Manual complement the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 in this respect, there is no conflict between the provisions of the Electoral Act and the Guidelines and Regulations; and the issue of the Electoral Act superseding or prevailing over the Guidelines does not arise in the circumstance. (See Grounds 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 29, 30, 31, and 32 of the Notice of Appeal)

“The PEPC was wrong when it refused to hold that since INEC had represented and assured the whole world in the exhibits and video recordings tendered by the Petitioners in Court that it [INEC] was going to use the BVAS to transmit the results of the election from the polling units to the IReV electronically as mandated by the Electoral Act 2022, INEC could not turn around in this case to now argue that it had discretion on whether to use the BVAS or not.

“The decision of the PEPC makes a complete “nonsense” of the chief objectives of the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022. Contrary to the decision of the PEPC, “it is clear from the pleadings and evidence adduced that the failure of the 1st Respondent to upload and transmit the results of the elections from the polling unit to IReV as mandated by law substantially affected the outcome of the election, in that the credibility, integrity, and transparency of the entire election process were compromised and could not be guaranteed.” (Grounds 25 and 28 of the Notice of Appeal)

“The PEPC was wrong when it declined jurisdiction to determine the issue of disqualification of the 2nd Respondent (Tinubu) based on the alleged double-nomination of his Vice-President. The PEPC ignored and refused to follow its previous decisions wherein it had relied on extant decisions of the Supreme Court and emphatically held that the issue of double-nomination as raised by the Appellants herein is an issue of qualification that can comfortably be brought and ventilated under 138(1)(a) of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended), now Section 134(1)(a) of the Electoral Act, 2022.

“The PEPC was wrong when it concluded that the Petitioners did not prove their case of double-nomination of the Vice-President (Kashim Shettima) because the law and evidence tendered in the Court did not support that conclusion. (See Grounds 33, 34 and 35 of the Notice of Appeal)

“The PEPC misapplied the provisions of Section 137(1)(d) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) when it reasoned and concluded that the 2nd Respondent (Tinubu) was not disqualified from contesting the Presidential Election based on the forfeiture orders made against him by the US District Court.

“The PEPC wrongly read the provisions of Section 137(1)(e) of the Constitution (which is a different and independent provision) together with Section 137(1)(d) of the Constitution and concluded that there is no evidence that the 2nd Respondent had been arrested, charged and convicted by a Court of Law to warrant his disqualification from contesting the election.

“They complain that the interpretation given by the PEPC is contrary to settled principles of interpretation and the abundant binding case law cited and commended to it on the meanings of “fine” and “forfeiture”.

“The Court below failed to give a broad, liberal, and purposive interpretation to Section 137(1)(d) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) as laid down and enjoined by the Supreme Court in cases too numerous to mention. (See Grounds 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, and 44 of the Notice of Appeal)

“The PEPC was wrong when it decided that a winner of the Presidential Election does not need to score at least 25% of the votes cast in the FCT, Abuja, under Section 134(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). It is complained that the PEPC ought not to have relied on the Preamble to the Constitution to interpret the provision because the provision is clear and unambiguous. The law is that the Preamble in an enactment (including the Constitution) can only be resorted to in order to “clarify any ambiguity in the words used in the enacting part”; and it “cannot be used to give a different meaning to the clear wording of a provision.” They also contended that the PEPC introduced and relied on extraneous matters/considerations in its interpretation of Section 134(2) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) because the issue before the Court was not whether or not the FCT has a “special status” over other States; or whether or not every citizen of Nigeria has the equality of vote; or whether or not the right of every such citizen to elect their President whose policies are supposed to and will affect all of them equally regardless of which part of the country they reside or live” as erroneously invented by the Court below. (See Grounds 45, 46, 47, 48, and 49 of the Notice of Appeal)”

sunboy:
Don’t be naive sir, every country on planet earth needs FDI, even the largest economy on earth attracts 5trn yearly FDI. You cannot grow as an island, you need internal and external money.

Peace ✌🏾