₦airaland Forum

A legal practitioner, Mr. Nnamdi Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe, has filed a notice at the Federal High Court in Abuja to discontinue the suit he instituted seeking the disqualification of President Muhammadu Buhari for lack of certificate.




Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe had alleged that Buhari was not qualified to aspire for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria because he did not sit for the Cambridge West African School Certificate (WASC) in 1961 as he claimed.

The notice of discontinuance dated June 27 and obtained by our reporter, read: “Take note that the plaintiff in this originating summons, Nnamdi Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe, hereby discontinues this action.”

Checks revealed that following the withdrawal of the suit from court, the trial judge, Justice Ademola Adeniyi will today sit and accordingly strike out the case.

Though Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe did not give any reason for withdrawing the case from court, Thisday reports that it might not be unconnected with alleged threats to his life and members of his family.

In an interview last month, Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe had alleged that there were some subtle threats on him to withdraw the case from court.

He had said: Of course, I am concerned and my family and friends are too; I am not naïve and some subtle threats have already been made. For now it is small comfort that if anything happens to me, even if disguised as an accident or anything, Nigerians will know exactly who is responsible.

“In any case, it was Professor Wole Soyinka, I think, who once said in one of his books that ‘The Man Dies in Him Who Keeps Quiet in The Face of Tyranny’ or something of the sort. Speaking of which, I am amazed at the conspiracy of silence by Nigerians. It is astounding is it not, that in the light of this very apparent rape of our constitution, laws, indeed the very essence of our democracy, all of our civil society advocates and activists have gone deaf and dumb in the face of tyranny.

“All those voluble persons (and I don’t want to name them; they know themselves and Nigerians know them too), who pretend they are activists or keepers of the moral conscience of the nation astonishingly can’t see or appreciate what is happening. This country really misses Chief Gani Fawehinmi; he was the only fearless, credible, true and genuine conscience of the nation, not the pretenders we have today; all the others only make noise when it suits them and their interests but look the other way once they are compromised. None of us today, can tie Gani’s shoe-laces.”

THE Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, has advised the senate president, Bukola Saraki, and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, to leave National Assembly out of their court trials.



Mr. Lawal, in a statement issued on Wednesday in Abuja, faulted statements credited to the two leaders of the Senate after their arraignment, which according to him, gave the erroneous impression that the entire Senate was on trial.

The statement said Mr. Saraki had insinuated that a cabal was currently running the government and that President Muhammadu Buhari was not in control of his administration.

It said Mr. Ekweremadu had insisted that Mr. Buhari was exhibiting dictatorial tendencies that could derail the nation’s democracy.

“It is important to emphasise that this case involved only the four accused persons and should not be presented to the unsuspecting public as involving the entire Senate.

“The complaint leading to the forgery investigation was reported to the Police by some aggrieved Senators, who specifically accused certain persons.

“It is not the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that is involved and definitely not the House of Representatives,” the statement said.

According to the statement, bringing the National Assembly as a body into this court case is totally unwarranted and can only be for other purposes and reasons outside the investigation and legal proceedings.

“A case of forgery is usually preferred against individuals as was the case with a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, who was accused of certificate forgery.

“What he did was to resign, honourably,” the statement added.

The statement said the country’s democracy was still evolving and being deepened, adding that the rule of law was supreme to the present administration.

The statement came two days after President Buhari’s spokesperson, Femi Adesina, lashed at Mr. Saraki’s comments that the Buhari government had been hijacked.

Messrs. Saraki and Ekweremadu were on Monday arraigned before a Federal High Court over allegation of forgery of Senate Rules.

The trial continues.

Senate Faults SGF, Raises Fear Over Judicial Independence

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Senate has faulted the claim by  Secretary to the Federal Government, Mr. David Babachir Lawal that the Senate was not the target of the on going forgery case against Senate President Bukola Saraki and his deputy,Ike Ekwermadu and two others.

A statement Wednesday by Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi,  Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Publicity said “We disagree with him on this position and we maintain our earlier stand that it is the Senate that is the target of the present attempt to intimidate the legislature to force a leadership change in the Senate.

“Mr. Babachir Lawal should tell us how reasonable it is to conclude that when the President of Nigeria and the Vice President are being jointly tried in a suit whose outcome can remove them from office, it is not the Buhari Government that is being targeted,” the Senate said.

The Senate has also  seems to have  fears of probable interference by the plotters of the events  as it   expressed hope that the judiciary will be allowed to give independent verdict in the case. “Those behind this plot find this trial more expedient and important than finding tangible solutions to the multi-various socio-economic problems bedeviling the country. However, we are sure they will fail in this attempt. We only hope they will allow the judiciary to truly and creditably perform its duties and give independent verdict on the case,” the statement said.

The full statement reads thus : We note the statement issued by the Secretary to the Federal Government, Mr. David Babachir Lawal that the Senate is not the one on trial in the Forgery case instituted by the Attorney General of the Federation against the Senate President and his Deputy.

“We disagree with him on this position and we maintain our earlier stand that it is the Senate that is the target of the present attempt to intimidate the legislature to force a leadership change in the Senate.

“Mr. Babachir Lawal should tell us how reasonable it is to conclude that when the President of Nigeria and the Vice President are being jointly tried in a suit whose outcome can remove them from office, it is not the Buhari Government that is being targeted.

“It is also imperative to clearly state that contrary to the claim by the SGF, neither the Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki nor Senator Ike Ekweremadu were mentioned by the petitioners, the statements by those interviewed by the police or even the police report.

“Meanwhile, let us refreshen Mr. Lawal’s  memory about the facts of the 1999 case. It is obvious that the Senate President and his deputy are not being accused of certificate forgery as it happened in ex-Speaker Salisu Buhari’s case. Therefore, nobody should compare an apple with orange. Also, neither Saraki nor Ekweremadu is below the age requirement for their present  position as it was alleged in the Buhari case. Attempts to make the two situations look similar is to present all Nigerians as having no sense of history.

“We also know that nobody can be accused of forging his own signature. The executive is in no position to determine what is the correct Standing Orders of the Senate. The Senate President and his Deputy were as at the morning of the June 9, 2015 inauguration of the Senate mere Senators-elect and could therefore not have been in a position to influence any alteration in the rule book.

“The Senate as an institution, and indeed the National Assembly, has spoken about their understanding of the present assault on their independence by the executive’. We maintain that this trial is a design by the Executive to criminalize the internal affairs of the Senate to create a distraction for the leadership of the Senate, force a leadership change and cow the legislators.

“Those behind this plot find this trial more expedient and important than finding tangible solutions to the multi-various socio-economic problems bedeviling the country. However, we are sure they will fail in this attempt. We only hope they will allow the judiciary to truly and creditably perform its duties and give independent verdict on the case.

http://.com/forgery-fg-suggests-resignation-as-senate-kicks-raises-fear-over-judicial-independence/

Lalasticlala, mynd44

AN Abuja High Court has sacked Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).



In a judgement Wednesday, Justice Valentine Ashi nullified the 2014 PDP Constitution Amendment upon which Sheriff was appointed PDP Chairman.

The Court described the amendment as illegal and a violation of the Electoral Act and declared all action carried out with it including anybody parading as officer of the PDP as illegal.

http://.com/breaking-court-sacks-sheriff-as-pdp-chairman/

THE National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, has slammed President Muhammad Buhari’s lack of political will to adopt the National Conference Report, which gives room for fiscal federalism.



Tinubu, who aligned himself with the former Vice President, Abubakar Atiku, on the call for the restructuring of Nigeria, faulted Buhari’s calculated attempt to throw the Confab report into the archives.

Tinubu, stated this on Monday, June 20, through his most trusted representative and Chairman, Editorial Board of the Nation Newspaper, Sam Omatseye, in his usual weekly column.

Omatseye, who usually represents Tinubu in some high profile functions, delivers speeches on behalf of the APC National Leader, as well as come in his defense by writing rejoinder, stated this barely 24 hours when the President arrived Nigeria, after spending 14 days in London for medical treatment.

Recall, that Buhari had recently said that he has consigned the Confab report to the trashcan, saying that his administration will not bother to look into the report.

Condemning Buhari’s utterance, Tinubu said; “The Governors clasp bowl in their hands every month, to the counterfeit mercies of the center.

“The APC highlighted this in the course of the campaign. For all its tendentious politics, the conference in the twilight of the Jonathan era, afforded a platform for more robust dialogue.

“It was therefore, a historic error that Buhari tossed it into the archives. That big, dark vault of nothingness called archives. The time will come, when we shall build a museum of suggestions, paradigms and solutions ignored generation after generation. All the ceremonies, tea breaks, lunches, deliberations, perorations, communiqués and tomes of recommendations turn into ashes in a bonfire of time,” he stated.

He maintained that, it is a waste of scarce resources, and contempt for ideas, for Buhari to discard the report spearheaded by former President, Goodluck Jonathan.

“If Buhari ignores the call to restructure Nigeria, it will haunt him, as he tackles our lopsided being. I expect the call to increase in its stridency in the coming months.

“The National Assembly lacks the courage, or even the depth to push it. This new restructuring fever might be another fight in futility”.

While criticising Buhari’s hostility to new ideas, he maintained that the cries for restructuring, may make the country a “catacomb of echoes, room after room, relaying the same calls. But the audiences are dead, with worse than ear infections”.

Drawing a conclusion, angry Tinubu said: “I am for restructuring. The federal system sits a centre like a leviathan in shallow waters, ponderous, stuck and “swimless,” and at the mercy of the nibbling rapacity of a swarm of small fishes.

“We cannot sustain a system where the centre owns over half of our money, our power, our morality, our constitution. It is a garishly decorated monarchy, a throwback to our monarchical and feudal loyalties with a despotic shadow of our military past”.

http://.com/tinubu-buharis-presidency-a-historic-error/

The Workers of the Ministry of Finance on Monday embarked on a protest.
They are demanding the removal of the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun.
Their grouse, it was learnt, is over the non-payment of what they termed their allowances, which amounted to N1.2 billion.
The equally accused Adeosun of collecting her own allowances without any consideration for theirs.
One of such allowances, they alleged, was the N30 million for house rent annually.
They equally said she was high handed.
However, sources within the ministry said the protest was unwarranted.
The Permanent Secretary, Mahmud Isa-Dutse, said the N1.2 billion was an illegal payment that the workers have been receiving at the beginning of the year before now.
The money is said not to be captured in the Ministry’s 2016 Budget, hence Adeosun’s position not to pay the staff the sum.
A source close to Adeosun in the Ministry said there was no basis for the workers’ protest.
He said the Ministry was not owing the workers salary.
He said the only salary yet to be paid was that of June, which is not yet due for payment.
He described the demand for the N1.2 billion as “illegal” as it was not captured in the 2016 Budget.
As at press time, policemen have been deployed to the Ministry to prevent the protest from getting out of hand.
The protesters were restricted to the space within the Ministry.
They were not allowed to get onto the road.
Among the placards the workers had with them were those that read: “Kemi Adeosun must go”; “You are destroying Federal Ministry of Finance”; “Inflation is 15% courtesy of Adeosun”; “PMB agent of positive change, Adeosun agent of negative change”; “Adeosun score card is zero”; and “Adeosun collects N30m house rent.”

deantimes:
THE EFCC has frozen a bank account belonging to a wanted ex-militant, Government Ekemupolo, who is popularly known as Tompolo.


The anti-graft agency found N3bn in the account and had frozen it pending outcome of court processes.








An operative of the anti-graft agency, who spoke to Punch on condition of anonymity, said: "During investigations into the fraud at NIMASA (Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency), we traced about N3bn to a bank account, which is owned by Tompolo.


“The account has since been frozen in accordance with Section 34 (1) of the EFCC Act 2004 which empowers the commission to freeze any account suspected of being used for financial crimes.”


Tompolo, who has been on the run since February, was arraigned in absentia with the ex-DG of NIMASA, Mr. Patrick Akpobolokemi, and the latter’s six brothers on April 18, 2016, for N47.7bn fraud.


http://.com/efcc-freezes-tompolos-n3billion-account/


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