₦airaland Forum

I believe that it wont take the government a month to find better investors who will stumble on themselves to manage Nitel/Mtel. If you heard today's news, you will agree with me. But for transcorp, FG tactifully twisted the arms of their leadership to lie that they gave their consent to the reversal. Too bad.

Wonders shall never end in Nigeria!

Appeal Court Justice Disappears with Andy Uba Judgement

Last View on Thu 21st February, 2008
Last Modified on Tue 19th February, 2008 6:51:06 pm
Author: Posted by Admin Sahara

Saharareporters, New York

A stench of corruption now hovers over yesterday’s judgment of the Federal Court of Appeal in Enugu which ruled that the Anambra State Electoral Tribunal overstepped its bound by ruling that the so-called gubernatorial election in the state was a non-event. One source close to Uba disclosed to Saharareporters that the ex-presidential aide confided that he had given substantial bribes to each of the justices.

According to our source, Uba’s decision to get a “favorable” judgment at all costs comes from his desperation to acquire legal immunity from criminal prosecution.

The source said Uba was aware that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had compiled a massive dossier on his ill-gotten assets. Uba, who played a role in the removal of Nuhu Ribadu as chairman of the EFCC, is reportedly jittery that Ribadu, a personal friend of his, was close to arresting him.

According to our source, Uba has not been able to rest easy despite Ribadu’s removal. He has confided in close associates that he cannot trust current EFCC chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde to leave him alone.

Our source also revealed that former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Uba had held formal and informal negotiations with Umar Yar’adua to ensure that Uba is not harassed by the anti-corruption agency. According to him, Yar’adua and Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa then advised Uba to secure a judgment from the Court of Appeal that could be interpreted as a restoration of Uba’s illegitimate mandate. “Chief Uba was told that once he gets such a judgment, the Yar’adua government would protect him by using the argument that he has immunity as a sworn-in governor,” said our source.

Armed with that encouragement, Uba reportedly sweetened the offer he had earlier made to the justices.

Justice Domgbam Mensen, the female jurist who read yesterday’s judgment that was written by Justice Kumasi, subsequently disappeared with the judgment, stranding attorneys in the case who sought a copy of the judgment.

Since yesterday, Mr. Andy Uba’s lawyers and media handlers have used the media to mislead the public with the erroneous spin that the judgment granted Mr. Andy Uba "victory" to remain the validly elected governor of Anambra State in 2010.

While a few newspapers correctly noted that the judgment was a mere academic exercise, several other reports induced by Andy Uba's lawyers and media aides gave the impression that the judgment’s effect is to return Uba to the governor’s office in two years.

One source close to Uba’s camp In the verdict, Justice Mensen had excoriated the Elections Petitions Tribunal for going beyond its brief and jurisdiction to grant a relief not sought by plaintiffs in the petition. Based on the Supreme Court judgment of June 14, 2007, the tribunal had ruled that Uba’s so-called election was a fiction.



Uba asked the appellate court to declare that the tribunal’s position was wrong since none of the petitioners had asked for that particular relief.

Many legal analysts including lawyers on both sides of the case agree that, even though the appellate court took Uba’s line, the judgment was an academic exercise that carries no weight.

Even so, Saharareporters has been informed that the Appeal Court judges may have compromised their offices by receiving bribes from Mr. Andy Uba to give an “uncertain judgment” that hands Uba ammunition to prosecute a public relations campaign that he is a governor-in-waiting. “The judges told Uba they would make fools of themselves by declaring him a governor-in-waiting,” said our source, “but they promised him a technical ‘victory’ that gives him room to gamble with another court case in 2010 asking that he be declared the governor. It’s a hopeless gamble, but Uba desperately needed it.”   

Contrary to high court rules and regulations, the lead justice refused as of twenty-four hours after delivering the judgement to provide copies to the lawyers who opposed Uba in the case.

Saharareporters learnt that Mrs. Justice Mensen suddenly flew from Enugu to Abuja where she claims that she is making fresh amendments to the judgment she already read in an open court.

When the Supreme Court ruled on January 29, 2008 that Andy Uba's case had no merit and thus threw it out, Mr. Uba's lead lawyer bragged openly that the case was not over yet. That boast, despite the fact that the Supreme Court judgment has the final say on any case, was because Uba had bribed the appeal court justices in Enugu to muddy the situation by delivering a judgment that would enable him to make a claim on power after the expiration of Governor Peter Obi’s tenure in 2010.

The Supreme Court had ruled that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) erred when it organized a fresh governorship election in Anambra when there was no vacancy.

Most legal experts we interviewed told Saharareporters that the Supreme Court’s verdict precludes Uba from ever laying a claim to power based on his illegitimately acquired “mandate” of 2007. 

One Lagos-based lawyer, Christian Okeke, told our correspondent that the Uba-sponsored misinformation in the media “is a desperate act by a man who wants to fool gullible people that he is a governor-in-waiting. Nothing is farther from the truth.”

Speaking to our Abuja correspondent, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria contended that the Supreme Court’s decision that no governorship election should have been held in Anambra remains the binding constitutional verdict, despite the academic carrot the Federal Court of Appeal gave Uba. “Come 2010, the relevant part of the electoral act is that which stipulates that elections into a vacant gubernatorial position must be conducted no more than 60 days before the expiration of the current governor’s tenure,” he said. According to him, “If Uba's lawyers are telling him he’s going to become governor in 2010, they’re misleading him—and it may amount to a serious case of professional misconduct because they know better. Uba’s claim to victory in the current case is empty posturing, null, void and of no effect.” He added that the best Uba could get from yesterday’s judgment is another round of adventurous trips through the courts in 2010. And I can assure you that he will lose again—merely throwing more money into the pocket of his lawyers.”

QUESTION:IS THERE HOPE?
ANSWER: THERE IS HOPE!

REASON: WE ARE THE HOPE WE ARE LOOKING FOR.

QUESTION: ARE YOU ANOTHER OBAMA IN LEKKI?
ANSWER: IF IT CAN HAPPEN ANYWHERE, IT CAN HAPPEN IN NIGERIA.

alianation:
i will chose the greedy beast sam egwu

Is he your Uncle's uncle or are you equally a greedy beast

NEWS
Yar'adua's Carrot and Stick: Justice James Ogebe, Chairman of Presidential Election Tribunal Elevated to Supreme Court.

Last View on Thu 21st February, 2008
Last Modified on Wed 20th February, 2008 10:07:09 pm
Author: Posted by Admin Sahara
Saharareporters, New York
As Nigerians await the verdict of the Presidential Elections Tribunal on last year’s contested presidential polls, investigations by Saharareporters have revealed a growing use of extraneous arguments in the deliberations of the judicial panel.

Legal experts familiar with the case have told our correspondents that the judgment is due for delivery on or before March 14th 2008.

A source within the panel of judges disclosed that the lead judge in the case, Justice James Ogebe, has stuck stubbornly to the argument that the tribunal must not give a judgment that will in his words “threaten the stability of the nation.”

Justice Ogebe, according to our source, has used that political doctrine to push a verdict that would uphold the presidential election, despite the overwhelming evidence that it was rigged.

Fears that Ogebe was leaning towards validating the election were boosted by when Umar Yar'adua, the current occupant of Aso Rock, suddenly approved Ogebe’s elevation to the Supreme Court.

Even though the National Judicial Council selected Ogebe a while ago for promotion, several legal experts told Saharareporters that the timing of his elevation, barely two weeks to the delivery of the presidential election verdict, is a cynical and calculated effort to influence the verdict.

Last week, in two different reports Saharareporters had detailed plans by Umar Yar'adua to bribe Justice Ogebe through his Washington, DC-based son, Emmanuel Ogebe. Our reliable sources had put the sum of the bribe at $2 million.

Even though the reports contained specific details, and named Nigeria’s Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa as the spearhead of the plot, Yar’adua’s media handlers remained silent.

The local media in Nigeria also maintained a conspiratorial silence, even though one editor confided in our correspondent that he knew the report was factual.

James Ogebe is the chairman of a five-member panel of judges whose other members are Justice Jega, Justice Fabiyi, Justice Igwe and Justice Uwani M. Abba-Aji. The tribunal recently concluded its sitting after taking final submissions from the last two petitioners, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku of the AC, and General Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the ANPP.

Several legal analysts watching the tribunal sittings said Justice Ogebe was too quick to dismiss other petitioners from other political parties who filed petitions seeking the cancellation of the polls. He flatly refused to allow Alhaji Abubakar Atiku to dock former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Umar Yar'adua, and his vice, Jonathan Goodluck, to explain the role they played in rigging the elections. He also refused to allow reports from international and local observers to form part of the evidence of the tribunal. In fact, Justice Ogebe had to be forced to allow interrogatories of INEC and its chairman, Maurice Iwu, because the Supreme Court overruled his earlier rejection of the interrogatories.

A senior legal scholar who has been observing the case described as curious Justice Ogebe’s seeming haste to short-circuit the proceedings. He noted that the justice kept saying, “The whole world is watching us, and we need to get this done so that this country can move forward.” Though this scholar said Justice Ogebe was not known to be a bribe taker, he said it was clear that Ogebe “favors letting the botched elections pass, and letting Yar'adua keep his stolen mandate.”

Our investigations also revealed that three other judges on the panel are opposed to toeing Ogebe’s line. Instead, they are arguing that outright cancellation of the election is the best way to ensure national stability and real democratic growth.

Our sources said the three pro-cancellation justices were shocked to realize that Justice Ogebe had started writing the judgement of the tribunal before the Supreme Court ordered that Maurice Iwu be served the interrogatories. Iwu’s sworn responses are believed to be so rife with deliberate perjury that some lawyers are considering prosecuting him. Even so, Justice Ogebe would not allow the parties to follow up on the interrogatories.

A source within Aso Rock told Saharareporters that Yar’adua’s handlers have decided to borrow from Obasanjo’s 2003 script to influence the panel’s judgment. The source disclosed that the Kaduna and Katsina State governments had moved a cache of cash to Abuja in a last-minute push to sway the justices seeking to cancel the election. The source said the cash had to be sourced from the two states because Yar’adua was slow to respond to calls to provide the money directly from Aso Rock.

Legal analysts state that Yar'adua could use Ogebe's elevation to the Supreme Court as a double-edged sword. If the panel rules against Yar'adua, then Yar'adua’s lawyers could argue on appeal that Ogebe’s elevation to the Supreme Court automatically disqualified him from sitting on cases at the lower court.

If Ogebe rules in favor of Yar'adua, then his promotion would mean that he would try hard to persuade the other justices of the apex court to sustain the verdict.

Yar’adua’s strategy was employed by former President Obasanjo to get a favorable—and fraudulent—judgment from the Presidential Elections Tribunal in 2003. Two of the justices who wrote the judgment, Justice Oguntade and Justice Francis Tabai, were promoted to the Supreme Court.

Apart from Justice Ogebe, another judge elevated by Yar'adua earlier today to the Supreme Court is Justice Muktar Kumasi. Incidentally, Justice Kumasi wrote the controversial judgment that purportedly declared that Mr. Andy Uba’s election valid, as according to him, the state electoral tribunal did not properly nullify his election as the governor of Anambra. That confusing judgment has led Mr. Uba’s media handlers to contend that he is a “governor-in-waiting,” a legally empty ploy objective is to protect Mr. Uba from prosecution on corruption charges.

Saharareporters had reported that both Justice Kumasi and Justice Mensen, who read the controversial judgment, disappeared to Abuja where they claimed that they were amending the judgment. A senior advocate who spoke to us said it was an irony that Kumasi “was elevated to the nation’s highest court a mere twenty-four hours later.”

It is unclear how today’s developments are going to play out for the future of the Supreme Court as well as their impact on the presidential tribunal.

Justice Ogebe, an Idoma from Benue State, is no stranger to controversial elevations and demotions. In the 1980s he was denied the spot of the Chief Judge of Benue State while Justice Idoko got the position. One source told our reporter that, but for his stubborn nature, he ought to have become a Supreme Court justice about the same time Justice Katsina-Alu was promoted. But the source said some of his rulings, considered controversial or unfavorable to the government, delayed his promotion.

Saharareporters learned that Ogebe’s recommendation to the Supreme Court suffered under Obasanjo because he wrote a judgment restoring Rashidi Ladoja to power as the governor of Oyo State. The judgment, which removed Obasanjo’s favorite, Alao Akala, derailed Ogebe’s rise.

Ogebe is said to be the third most senior person within the Nigerian judiciary after Justices Kutigi and Sylvester Onu, both of them on the Supreme Court.

@Johnlafrika,
You dis guy sef! You de fear to make a BIG costumer for your Stockbroker?
Not to worry, I dont have just one but a consortium of different stockbrokers.
As for the giant no, dwarf Transcorp, I didnt fall for their promises though I saw it as a potential buy. My singular reason was because Baba Iyabo had HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of shares in it then.

@OPOKONWA
WHERE IS ALMONDJOY FOR HERE?
ABI YOU DEY DREAM OF AM?
E BI LKE SAY SHE DON MARRY OOOOOOOO


@TOPIC
The name of PDP has been corrected to PUP: People Undemocratic Party. This is the largest(thugsful) party  

@Almondjoy, I leave you to decide, but no matter how long it takes you, a vote for Obama would be a vote for which you will never regret. I can bet.

@ McKren, I LOVE ya last : post! More of them ma guy

@Almondjoy,
Why did you suddenly backslide from your "Go Democrats Go" signature to putting "Post ya shit, I post mine"? Gaskiya I prefer the former one to this one. Any way sha, its yours.

I can't believe you could say Hillary Clinton stands for change! Are you not sick and tired of the Clinton and Bush monarchy abi dynasty? As for the Old McCain, you even cited him as a 'change'!  

almondjoy:
If you paid hefty taxes, you would care by force! We are not talking about his senatorial capabilities may a remind you--he is going for the presidency. 2 different things ok? I care who gets that seat while I may not care about who gets ma senatorial seat. The world sees only the "President"!

Rememer that his being faithful in little qualifies him for a greater responsibility. Remember that the 3 top ranking contenders are senators.

dayokanu:
Monarchy? Which Monarchy is greater than the American dynasty of Bush and Clinton for the past 20 years and Probably more

Thank ya ma brada. Help me tell Oyb ooo

@Oyb,
Are you sure cuba isnt in America? I'm hearing that for the first time. Dont mind me sha. I'd check it up.

Madam Almond, sorry to hear that. I didnt know he was that close to you. May his soul rest in peace.

The rich buy when everyone is selling cheap but the poor buy when everyone is selling high.
Two worlds of difference.

Please make una leave this bobo called sabisabi. Afterall I dey gbadu im move. E done tire for all those Lasu and Unilag and Ekpoma babes. All them need na Naira. Then coming to "Dollarlanders" on Nairaland again, na the same money! Chei!

THE LOVE OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL
THE LACK OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL LOVELESNESS?

Correct answer!

If it all these rubbish were to be happening in Nigeria, everyone's mouth (both nigerians' and foreigners' alike) would have been leaking with insults. But this is happening in a country in AMERICA FOR THAT MATTER. Today it's the elder brother, tomorrow its the younger brother, next tomorrow, they will hand over to their younger sister! Na only them be cubans?

Be it in sports (check major international clubs), be it in governance (remember Koffi Anan) even in religion etc BLACK PEOPLE ARE NATURAL LEADERS/GURUS. Forget the fact that slavery has affected us negatively, the African continent from its map looks as A GUN , observe NIGERIA as the TRIGER.
GO OBAMA! NO SHAKING!!

Be it in sports (check major international clubs), be it in governance (remember Koffi Anan) even in religion etc BLACK PEOPLE ARE NATURAL LEADERS/GURUS. Forget the fact that slavery has affected us negatively, look at the African continent as A GUN, observe NIGERIA as the TRIGER.
GO OBAMA! NO SHAKING!!

Be it in sports (check major international clubs), be it in governance (remember Koffi Anan) even in religion etc BLACK PEOPLE ARE NATURAL LEADERS/GURUS. Forget the fact that slavery has affected us negatively, look at the African continent as A GUN, observe NIGERIA as the TRIGER.
GO OBAMA! NO SHAKING!!

A friend went last week. He said their pay is N20,000 monthly plus comissions. That is if its MARKETING EXECUTIVE sha. I dont know how true. But interview in Mutual is not rigorous. Goodluck

aisha2:
Its almost the same amount some Bankers earn.

@Aisha222222222222222222222
I like your writing style of entering issues from different angle. Keep it up.

4 Play:
What is it they say again,if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.The only way you can get the creme de la creme of Nigeria to join the legislature is by paying them well.Who remembers that Abacha was officially on 70,000Naira a month?

We had this same issue with regards to Okonji-Iweala.If you don't pay well,you are not going to attract the brightest.

The problem is not the declared salaries but the undeclared 'democracy dividends'.However,in so far as corruption is concerned,higher wages curb and not enable corruption.

@4play,
You have a point there.


@Topic,
Government and governance must be made so unattractive 'salarycally' that ONLY people of calibre with GOOD INTENSIONS will be attracted to it. Only then can credible and capable Leaders emerge and political jobbers and careerists like Adedibu and his cohorts can change trade.