₦airaland Forum

(Applause)
Amb. Johnnie Carson: Last 2 questions briefly; Dr Pauline Baker?

Dr Pauline Baker: Mr President welcome. I have been a student of Nigeria for many years and first of all, I wanna tell you that I have never seen such a hopeful attitude toward Nigeria in the United States as since your election. (applause) I think we are all here, want you to succeed. My question relates to another area of Nigeria that hasn't gotten much attention during this trip and that is the Niger Delta. It's a challenge that you're still going to face, I want you to tell us how you intend to approach it with particular reference to the amnesty, bunkering and [inclusion] inclusive development. Thank you.

President Buhari(whispers to Mr Jack Carson): Inclusive government?
Amb Johnie Carson (also whispers back to Mr President): Inclusive government yeah, your priorities include women, youth...


President Buhari(cuts in): Yes, I hope you have a copy of the election results. Literally, constituencies for example that gave me 97% cannot in all honesty be treated, on some issues, with constituencies that gave me 5%. I think these are political realities. Well, certainly there will be justice for everybody. Everybody will get his constitutional rights.But well the party, in constituencies, by their either sheer hardwork, they made sure that they got their people to vote and to ensure that their votes count, they must feel that the government has appreciated the efforts they put, in putting the government in place. I think this is really fair. By the constitution, no state can be excluded from government. So that even if I want to show gratitude to those constituencies that heavily voted for me against those that didn't even vote for me, they have the protection of the government. And I have made an undertaking that I belong to everybody I belong to nobody. If I can't clearly ensure and marginalize a certain group because they didn't vote for me, then I have already contradicted myself. And I'm sure people will be too quick to pick that against me.

Amb. Johnie Carson: (grin) Thank you Mr President. Dr ... Newman, the representative of IRI?

Dr ... Newman: Mr president, congratulations. First of all I have a question that is going to be easy for me to ask probably easy for you to answer and very hard for you to do and that is this: there's so much goodwill not just in the United States but all over the world to have you succeed and my question is how are you going to coordinate ...

From Uzonna Ononye, Lagos

As a National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki should be taken seriously any time he speaks. He was not an interloper in the previous government. He was a clear choice considered fit by former President Goodluck Jonathan to replace Gen. Andrew Azazi after his demise in a helicopter crash which cause is still unknown two and a half years after.

Having stated the above, the outcome of the 2015 Presidential election made history in more ways than one. Chief of the points is that for the first time in Nigeria’s political history, an incumbent President failed to secure re-election. His political party which was clearly dominant took a quantum backward leap to a struggling minority. What is more interesting is that President Goodluck Jonathan read the hand writing on the wall, perhaps too late though, and threw in the towel before the result was fully announced.

Now, if the clarifications made by Col. Dasuki on how he had been a long standing admirer of President Muhammadu Buhari as published by the Vanguard Newspaper of Thursday, July 23, can be taken hook line and sinker, then there is now a better understanding of how and why events turned out the way they did. But the question at the end of the day will be, Why did Dr. Goodluck Jonathan fail to see the risk he was taking early enough?

It had remained highly believed that a certain Major Sambo Dasuki was one of the soldiers that took then Major General Muhammadu Buhari out of office through a coup in 1983, December 31. It was believed also that the soldiers subjected Gen Buhari to inhuman treatment including denying him the opportunity of burying his mother. Col Dasuki’s response was “it wasn’t me.”

“I always respect and dignify my seniors and those in positions of authority whether in service or after. Though a young officer, I was reluctant to be among those that arrested him. And I was not. I only met him afterward at Bonny Camp with Lawal Rafindadi. There is no way I could have maltreated him as being alleged in some quarters. I am glad most of the actors are still alive.”

Those who don’t believe this should wait for the next point for enough conviction. The former NSA was against the annulment of the 1993 presidential election which was believed to have been won by MKO Abiola. He and some other officers confronted Late General Sani Abacha over that. What? Sani Abacha and June 12?

“This led to our premature retirement. The persecution that followed forced me into exile, where I teamed up with opposition elements struggling for the return of democracy.” Dasuki said.

Recall that the chief ‘opposition element’ at that time was NADECO whose foreign operations was driven by a certain Sen. Ahmed Bola Tinubu who later became the governor of Lagos state at the return of democracy in 1999. In order words, the former NSA said that he had closely worked with the National leader of the major opposition party, the A.C.N. and later the APC.

The former NSA went further to reveal, according to the Vanguard, how he had campaigned for General Buhari in 2003, 2007 and 2011. He admitted approaching Sen. Bola Tinubu to lobby for a combined ticket between Buhari and Tinubu as President and Vice in an arrangement between the A.C.N. and CPC for the 2011 Presidential election.
According to him, he knelt down to plead with Tinubu in the presence of Bisi Akande

“In the belief that Yoruba and south-westerners are never religious fanatics, especially regarding politics, me and my group suggested that Tinubu should be a running mate to Buhari…When other elements opposed that proposition, Tinubu team therefore recommended a Buhari-Osinbajo ticket. Unfortunately, the ticket failed to stick as Pastor Tunde Bakare was eventually pushed forward by other forces.” Col Dasuki said.

In case anyone is still in doubt of how former President Jonathan nailed his own “presidential coffin”, there is no record anywhere of when and how, Sambo Dasuki had a change of view concerning the man, Muhammadu Buhari. There is no evidence anywhere that his closeness to the National leader of the APC has been dented. And that is the man that adviced Dr. Goodluck Jonathan on security issues including before, during and after the elections. Just last week after his experience in the hands of the DSS, it was widely reported that Col. Dasuki lamented over the treatment he perceived to be unfair “after all I did for the APC to secure their victory.”

Perhaps this oversight or political naivety if you like, is in tandem with Dr. Jonathan’s philosophy that his ambition is not worth anyone’s sweat (blood). If not, how did this come to happen? May be, before the end of time, there will be more revelations on how the greatest enemy to the President who showed that holding on to power at all cost is not genetic to all Africans was himself.
- See more at: http://www.homelandnewsng.com/opinion/1561-former-nsa-sambo-dasuki-reveals-how-goodluck-jonathan-created-his-own-failure#sthash.Iy8SIEJU.dpuf


See more at: http://www.homelandnewsng.com/opinion/1561-former-nsa-sambo-dasuki-reveals-how-goodluck-jonathan-created-his-own-failure

ofala:
The image Nigeria had before now really hurts....all because we have leaders who are so afraid to say no to evil or condemn it and followers who see corrupt ways as normal........
....
That is gradually changing as Pres Buhari adjusts to sit and work and very soon; the results of his 'slow but sure steps' will not only draw accolades but will positively impact on everything, Nigeria

But now, with Buhari, new prospects are opening up for our country and us – new possibilities, new glimmers of hope. No Nigerian ruler has ever had the quality of image and perception that Buhari has acquired in only seven weeks. From the few steps he has already taken, nobody doubts that this is the real fight against corruption in Nigeria – and not just another one of the endless and empty promises of fight against corruption. And what that can do for our country and us is incalculable. Buhari is inviting the world to trust us and come, and the vibrations strongly indicate that the world will respond. From my home in a distant country abroad, I speak this message to my people back home: Buhari is putting together something big and good for our country.

This is a war for all of us Nigerians to fight; it is not Buhari’s alone. We must all join hands and fight it. I hereby offer some contributions of my own. One of the things that have made corruption easy in our country is that, since the mid-1960s, we have removed the old civil service rules, regulations and processes that protected access to public money. Today, our president and governors more or less go about with all of our public money in their pockets. We need to revive and retool the measures that guarded public money before 1966. In addition, we need to establish watch-dog agencies that oversee budget performances and the movement of public money. And we need to make ethics laws that all must obey, and establish enforcement processes from which no public official is exempt. We did not have massive “security votes” before 1966 – security votes that nobody can audit. It is a poison from Satan’s own hand. We must review it.

Finally, as I have said repeatedly in this column and elsewhere, the search for and recovery of stolen public money, the punishment of the culprits, and the establishment of rules and processes for protecting public money – all are just the surface battles of the war against corruption. In addition to them, we must deal with the fundamental root of corruption. When our military rulers robbed our states of their powers, resource control, and development initiative, and pooled all together in the federal centre, they created a super-corrupt federal government, the mother of corruption, the dispenser of corruption all over our country. President Buhari must not leave this unattended to.

President Buhari has done Nigeria proud in America this week. Everywhere during his three-day visit, the American media welcomed him with great warmth, enthusiasm and optimism. For a change, here is one Nigerian leader who is re-assuring the world very convincingly about Nigeria.

Known or unknown to us Nigerians, the world has, for years, been gradually giving up on our country. The stories, and the plain evidence, of public corruption in Nigeria have been simply overwhelming. They have been so overwhelming that a foreigner who wrote a book on Nigeria gave it the title This House Has Fallen. An American journalist, Richard Dowden, who visited Africa a number of times wrote a book on Africa and titled his chapter on Nigeria, “Look out world, Nigeria”, as if warning the world that a dangerous predator called Nigeria was on the prowl. Then, he wrote in dismay:

“Nigeria has a terrible reputation. Tell someone that you are going to Nigeria and if they haven’t been there themselves, they offer sympathy. Tell anyone who has been to Nigeria and they laugh. Then they offer sympathy. No tourists go there. Only companies rich enough to keep their staff removed from the realities of Nigerian life do business there. And big companies rarely mention Nigeria in their annual reports for fear of what it will do to their share price. Journalists treat it like a war zone. Diplomats regard it as a punishment posting.”

Dowden adds that, in fact, Nigeria’s popular image falls short of the reality – and that Nigeria is a failed state that somehow manages to keep standing. An American young man who took part in a Christian missionary group drilling water wells for poor villages all over Africa returned home and told his friends that he believed that God is probably using Nigeria for an experiment – that God is probably gathering the worst human beings into Nigeria in order to see what would happen if the worst human beings were gathered in a country. He added that he found in Nigeria something that cannot be classified as ordinary corruption – village heads demanding bribes from the missionaries as a condition for allowing the missionaries to drill the well for the villagers. A well-informed agency of the American government wrote in a report in 2004 that Nigeria could break up in 15 years.

Of course, we Nigerians know that these images are not fair to most of us. The influential citizens who have given us these images are only a minority among us – but they are the most visible ones among us. The foreigner who comes to Nigeria for some business would inevitably encounter our immigration officials, customs officials, police and security officials, may be military officials, then various levels of civil servants, Central Bank officials, ministers of state – and perhaps our President. Predictably, all of these men and women of our country’s frontline are likely to demand or take an illegitimate something from the foreigner. If the foreigner is a journalist or researcher of some kind, he will see most of the above; he may also see, during an election, high public officials grabbing and taking away ballot boxes in broad daylight in order to rig the election – and he will see police, military, and security officials helping the high public officials. If the foreigner happens to be a senior bank official in his own country, he very probably will encounter some Nigerian high public officials who have stolen huge amounts of Nigerian public money and who are seeking help to hide the loots in secret bank accounts. If he happens to be a realtor in his country, he will probably encounter clients who are Nigerian public officials seeking to invest large amounts of stolen public money on expensive real estate properties.

These are only a few examples. The manifestations are legion. And in reality, many of us too who are not public officials do cut corners in order to survive the poverty that our governments have foisted upon our country. Still, it is not fair to say that Nigerians are all thieves and takers of bribes – as lots of foreigners who come into contact with our country say (innocently or maliciously) about us.

However, fair or unfair, the image hurts. It has hurt us Nigerians, as well as our country, terribly. We live today in a world in which capital owned by investors from various parts of the world is crucial to development in every country. Most of that capital is searching for the best countries to invest in. We live in a world in which commerce – the exporting and importing of goods – builds most of the wealth of countries. And we live in a world in which tourism is one of the generators of the wealth of countries. We have a country that is wonderfully rich in resources, and that should be one of the world’s largest focal points of manufacturing, commerce, tourism, movements of finance, etc, but our country’s awful image inhibits our share of these things. What this translates to is poverty. We Nigerians live in undeserved poverty, and much of that poverty is generated by the terrible image that we have acquired in the world.

"...Bergdahl, 28, who had been held captive nearly five years, broke down in tears.

His release was secured after the Obama administration, working through Qatari government intermediaries, agreed to free five high-profile Afghan inmates held by the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The influential commanders, including the former head of the Taliban’s army, were loaded onto a U.S. military aircraft bound for Qatar after U.S. officials got confirmation that Bergdahl had been freed.

Bergdahl’s “safety and health were both in jeopardy,” and officials had to act quickly to obtain his release, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Sunday, according to the Associated Press."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/taliban-held-us-soldier-released-in-exchange-for-afghan-detainees/2014/05/31/8b764dac-e8db-11e3-a86b-362fd5443d19_story.html

shalomm:
there is nothing to figure out...... there are hidden reasons behind the visit that you might not know.....

his destination should have been Russia or China.

“A Prince must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.” The Prince - Nicolo Machiavelli

shalomm:
I love your sense of reasoning.....
The President is new to International Politic

omenka:
Cool.

A Boss will always be a Boss.

Baba we love you.

Unlike one Akpan we used to know...

barcanista:
What is not possible? Are there no muslim homosexuals? I never for once called Buhari an homo sympathiser but your post just drew my consciousness. Smh

tomakint:
This brilliant lawyer cum political analyst spoke my mind. Illegality must not be legalized under whatever guise in the politicosphere of this Country. Going by the postulations and premises of this brilliant piece, Saraki's illegality in the electoral process of Senate leadership must not be swept under the carpet because of future occurence. Based on the fake standing order manipulations that brought him in, I think in my own candid opinion, I can boldly declare that SARAKI IS TOAST ALREADY!

The above stated procedure for convocation and inauguration of the Senate was not complied with on the 9th of June, 2015, when the election purportedly took place. All the senators-elect did not assemble before the Clerk and his cohorts committed their grand fraud. It is after the senators-elect ( not 57 or 75 of them, but all of them, save those who may be unavoidably absent, for example in the case of death, illness, detention in police or prison custody, or deliberate, clear and willful abstention from or boycott of the inauguration) had fully assembled that the Clerk can legally proceed to read the proclamation. By reading the proclamation to a half empty Senate Chambers, the Clerk willfully committed an act of illegality. But this is not the only procedural error knowingly committed by the Clerk on that date. Upon reading the proclamation to a Senate Chamber that was half empty, the Clerk persisted in his aberration by not proceeding to the roll call and confirming the writs of election as well as declaration of assets and liabilities of the Senators- Elect ( again, we posit, not 57 or 74 of them, but all of them, save those who may be unavoidably absent, for example in the case of death, illness , detention in police or prison custody, or deliberate, clear and willful abstention from or boycott of the inauguration) in alphabetical order. The Rules say each Senator Elect called shall present the writ of election and the receipt for declaration of assets and liabilities which shall be laid upon the table by the Clerk. Being part of a conspiracy to foist a fait accompli on the absent senators, the Clerk was in a hurry to consummate an infamy.

We submit that having failed or refused to comply with the Senate Rules contained in Order 2 ( Rules 1-3) in Chapter II of the Senate Orders, 2011, the condition precedent to the election of the senate president and deputy senate president was not satisfied , and thus all the steps taken thereafter, including nominations, acceptance of nominations, declaration as being elected unopposed, voting, conducting the president-elect to the chair of the Senate President, administering of oaths, all are a nullity.

To the rabblerousing defenders of the illegality that took place in the Senate Chambers on that day who are contending that a quorum was formed to constitute the leadership of the Senate with 57 Senators, and later 75 Senators being in attendance, we say that you are wrong.

These rabble-rousers bandy, in isolation, Order 10 (1) of the Senate Standing Orders ( Quorum) to justify their contention that there was a quorum to elect the Senate leadership. But Order 10 ( Rules 1, 2 and 3) of the Senate Standing Orders, 2011 provide thus: "(1) The quorum of the Senate shall be one-third ( 1/3) of members of the Senate; ( 2) if, at any time during the daily sessions of the Senate, a question is raised by any senator as to the presence of a quorum, the presiding officer shall within 15 minutes forthwith, direct the Clerk to call the roll and announce the result and these proceedings shall be without debate; ( 3) whenever after such roll call, it shall be ascertained that a quorum is not present, the President of the Senate may direct Sergeant at arms to request and, when necessary, to compel the attendance of the absent senators, which order shall be determined without debate; and pending its execution, and until a quorum shall be present, no debate nor motion except to adjourn or to suspend sitting shall be in order"

Section 54 of the Constitution also provides more forcefully in subsections 1-4 as follows: "(1) the quorum of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall be one-third of all the members of the Legislative House concerned. "; "(2) the quorum of a joint sitting of both the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall be one-third of all the members of both Houses."; "(3) If objection is taken by any member of the Senate or the House of Representatives present that there are present in the House of which he is a member (besides the person presiding) fewer than one-third of all the members of that House and that it is not competent for the House to transact business, and after such interval as may be prescribed in the rules of procedure of the House, the person presiding ascertains that the number of members present is still less than one-third of all the members of the House he shall adjourn the House."; and " (4) The foregoing provisions of this section shall apply in relation to a joint sitting of both Houses of the National Assembly as they apply in relation to a House of the National Assembly as if references to the Senate or the House of Representatives and a member of either Houses are references to both Houses and to any member of the National Assembly, respectively."

When the provisions of Order 10 ( 1-3) of the Senate Standing Orders and the above-cited provisions of the Constitution are properly read and construed, it becomes clear that those provisions do not apply to the first sitting of the Senate, and in particular the election of presiding officers of the Senate. They do not. In constituting the leadership of the Senate, all senators-elect not only have the right to contest in the election, but they also have the right to participate in the election. They have the right to vote and be voted for. Therefore, none of them can be excluded, based on the forced application of the "one-third ( 1/3) of members of the Senate" quorum clause. The quorum clause applies to the ordinary sitting ( or daily sessions) of the Senate, its committees or its joint sitting with the House of Representatives. It does not apply to the first sitting of the Senate, which, in the context of the Senate Standing Orders, is not a sitting, properly so called. At the inaugural first "sitting" of the Senate, all senators-elect are expected to assemble and participate in the election. Not one-third of them.

A sitting of the Senate, to which "one-third ( 1/3) of members of the Senate" quorum clause applies can only start or take place after the first "sitting" of the Senate, that is after the election of the Senate's presiding officers, and not before. The Senate cannot sit without presiding officers. A court cannot sit without a judge or panel of judges presiding. Gathering to elect a leadership of the Senate may be a meeting or an assembly, but certainly not a sitting.

Order 5 of the Senate Standing Orders provides that after their respective elections, "the President and Deputy President of the Senate shall take and subscribe to the oath/ affirmation of allegiance and membership prescribed in the Constitution before the Clerk to the National Assembly". Order 6 of the Senate Standing Orders provides that " having been sworn, the President of the Senate returns his acknowledgment to the Senate for the honours confirmed upon him, thereupon takes the Chair, and then the mace ( which hitherto lay under the table shall be laid upon the table)." Order 8 of the Senate Standing Orders provides that " every senate elect shall, before taking his seat, take and subscribe to the oath/ affirmation of allegiance and membership prescribed in the 7th Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, before the President of the Senate." And Order11 ( contained in Chapter III-Sittings of the Senate) of the Senate Standing Orders provides that "(1) the President of the Senate shall allocate a seat to each senator; and ( 2) a senator may only speak from a seat allocated to him, provided that the President of the Senate may change the allocation from time to time"

In the same vein, and foundationally, Section 52. (1) of the Constitution of Nigeria provides that "every member of the Senate or the House of Representatives shall, before taking his seat, declare his assets and liabilities as prescribed in this Constitution and subsequently take and subscribe the Oath of Allegiance and the oath of membership as prescribed in the Seventh Schedule to this Constitution before the President of the Senate or, as the case may be, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, but a member may before taking the oaths take part in the election of a President and a Deputy President of the Senate, as the case may be, or a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Section 52(2) of the Constitution provides that "the President and Deputy President of the Senate and the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representative shall declare their assets and liabilities as prescribed in this Constitution and subsequently take and subscribe the Oath of Allegiance and the oath of membership prescribed as aforesaid before the Clerk of the National Assembly." And Section 53. (1)(a) of the Constitution provides that " at any sitting of the National Assembly - (a) in the case of the Senate, the President of the Senate shall preside, and in his absence the Deputy President shall preside;"

Reading these orders and cited provisions of Sections 52 and 53 of the Constitution together, in relation to the "one-third ( 1/3) of members of the Senate" quorum clause, it should be very clear, even to the dull and unintelligent, that until the President and Deputy Senate President are sworn, take the Chair, the Mace of the Senate is laid on the table, every senator-elect is sworn and takes his seat, and the President of the Senate allocates a seat to each Senator, there can be no sitting or session of the Senate to which the "one-third ( 1/3) of members of the Senate" quorum clause can apply. At any sitting of the Senate, the President or Deputy Senate President must preside. A gathering of senators, where the President and Deputy President are yet to be elected, let alone presiding, is, thus, not a sitting for the purpose of applicability of the quorum clause. Without a sitting, no sensible person can be talking about a quorum. Clearly, senators-elect, including aspirant presiding officers (who are yet to be elected) cannot sit until all the afore-stated protocols are completed. Quorum applies to a sitting of the Senate, and not to an assembly of senators who are gathered for the sole purpose of constituting a leadership that will preside over the Senate, so that sitting may commence. The Senate cannot sit before the election of presiding officers. And it is when the Senate does sit that the "one-third ( 1/3) of members of the Senate" quorum clause can apply.

Order 17 (1) of the Senate Standing Orders, 2011 provides that "no person shall be admitted to the lobby or the floor of the Senate while in session, except the following and only by consent of the Senate." The Order then provides a long list of current and former public office holders, who, with permission of the Senate, are eligible to be admitted into the Chambers. These include the president and vice president, former elected presidents and vice presidents, former president and former deputy presidents of the senate, former senators and senators-elect, judges of the Supreme Court, Governors of State and former elected Governors, et cetera. As every observer of the charade called an election in the Senate witnessed, the Senate Chambers was invaded by PDP cheerleaders, including PDP Governors, who stormed the Senate to " supervise the election". This fact gives credence to our submission that no sitting or session of the Senate took place on that day to which "one-third ( 1/3) of members of the Senate" quorum clause could apply. If the Senate was in session, its permission would have been sought and obtained before the admittance of those intruders. There was no "session" or "sitting" of the Senate on that day, and there was no leadership to give any consent to the invaders or strangers to come into the Chambers and participate in the sham process as observers. Even if we were to assume that the Clerk of the National Assembly allowed the invasion, the Clerk of the National Assembly is not the Senate. Thus, he, lawfully, could not have given any consent to the intruders to come in. If he did so, he acted unlawfully.

Our third ground for reaching the conclusion that the election of Senator Bukola Saraki and Senator Ekweremadu as senate president and deputy senate president is a nullity is that the "election" was not in conformity with the spirit and letters of the Constitution. It did not pass the test of an inclusive and participatory democratic process under the Constitution. 57 senators or 75 senators cannot validly elect the leadership of the National Assembly, even if the Senate Rules were not doctored, save in the exceptional situations suggested above. . Section 50. (1) of the Constitution provides that: "there shall be:- (a) a President and a Deputy President of the Senate, who shall be elected by the members of that House from among themselves". Under Section 50, there is no provision stipulating "one-third ( 1/3) of members of the Senate" as the quorum for the first "sitting" of the Senate where the Senate leadership is elected. Thus, the one-third quorum cannot and should not be imported into Section 50. In electing the leadership of the Senate, the intendment of the framers of the Constitution is that all the senators, who are to be inaugurated and sworn in at that first "sitting" will assemble and be eligible to vote and be voted for. It affronts common sense for anyone to imagine that one-third members of the Senate can validly elect its leadership, under Section 50 of the Constitution, when the same Section 50 provides in subsection 2(c) thereof that : "the President or Deputy President of the Senate or the Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives shall vacate his office - if he is removed from office by a resolution of the Senate or of the House of Representatives, as the case may be, by the votes of not less than two-thirds majority of the members of that House.". If it takes two-third majority of the members of the Senate to remove a senate president and his deputy once they are elected, why will one-third of the members be able to form an alleged quorum to elect the same officers?

Under our formulated third ground, may we point out that it is not only because 51 senators and later 33 senators were disenfranchised and thus could not participate in the said "election" that we are contending that the election is a nullity, but also because almost half of the people of Nigeria were shut out of that process. The National Assembly is the first arm or branch of government, and the Nigerian people participate in its affairs through their elected representatives. In a representative democracy, legislators perform the functions of representation, legislation, appropriation, passing resolutions, oversight, and governance. Being representatives, when the senators are electing their leadership, they are direct electors representing indirect electors in their respective senatorial districts. They are like an electoral college. Therefore, if a fragment of the Senate engages in a conspiracy and chicanery to elect the senate leadership, in the absence of other senators, the right of Nigerians, who are being represented by those shut out senators, to participate in the government of their country is violated. The right of a people to participate in the government of their own country is an internationally recognized civil and political right.

Let us put it more graphically. In that so called election, save the party Governor Fayose's Senators from Ekiti State, an Ogun State Senator and two Ondo State Senators, the peoples of South-West Nigeria did not participate in constituting the senate leadership. Two-third of the people of Benue State did not participate, Senators George Akume and Barnabas Gemade not being there. And largely the people of Kaduna, Kano and Katsina States did not participate, their elected senators not being in the Senate. This is not the kind of senate leadership election that is envisaged by the Constitution. Constitutional processes governing compositions of arms of government must not be reduced to a game of power-grabbing stratagem in which chicaners use foul means to win , and gleefully declare thereafter: " I have defeated you, let us move on"

We refuse to move on. A terrible unconstitutional precedent wittingly or unwittingly must not be created because the actors prefer to cut a deal and settle their differences . A fundamental breach of the provisions of the Constitution cannot be allowed to pass because the dramatis personae have agreed to share offices. Did the President and the Vice President and the dissatisfied senators not swear to protect, defend and uphold the provisions of the Constitution?. They sure did. And now this is the litmus test.

The Senate should return to the path of constitutionalism and rule of law. The first "sitting" of the Senate has not taken place. All that has taken place is a cocktail of illegalities. All the senators must properly assemble, pursuant to the relevant constitutional provisions and Senate Standing Orders 2011; and the proclamation must be read to all of them. Thereafter, a proper roll call must be made and an election of which all senators and the entire Nigerian people shall be proud must be conducted. This is the way to change and govern a country.

Mr. Ogunye, lawyer, public interest attorney, legal commentator, author, and essayist, is the Legal adviser of Premium Times.

First, by their own declarations and admissions, the organizers of the sham election on the floor of the Senate on the 9th of June, principally the Clerk of the National Assembly and his cohorts, claimed that they organized that election pursuant to the Senate Standing Orders, 2015, as amended, which purportedly provided that elections into the two offices shall be by secret ballot, instead of the open ballot as provided by Orders 72 and 73 of the Senate Standing Orders, 2011. As it has now become glaring, there was, in fact, no such Senate Standing Orders, 2015. As at the time of the dissolution of the 7th National Assembly, on the 4th of June, 2015, the operative Rules of the Senate were Senate Standing Orders, 2011. Between that dissolution and the inauguration of the 8th Senate on the 9th of June, the Senate was not in existence. It was a period of interregnum. The Senate leadership of the 7th Senate went with the dissolution of that Senate. Therefore, that leadership, acting alone, or in concert with the generality of the members of the 7th Senate could not have amended the Senate Rules to produce the Senate Standing Orders, 2015. By virtue of Order 110(5) of the Senate Standing Orders, 2011, two-thirds majority of the Senate shall decide proposed amendments and such amendments shall form part of the Rules of the Senate. This purported amendment is the act of forgery that is being alleged against David Mark, Ekweremadu and the Clerk of the National Assembly, which has now become the subject of police investigation. While the crime of forgery that is alleged may lead to prosecution and conviction if investigation establishes a prima facie case, the effect of that forged or manipulated document on the election at the Senate is stark. Being the foundation of that election, the election is rendered illegal, null and void. No senate president or deputy senate president can be elected pursuant to a non-existent or forged Senate Standing Orders.

In underscoring the nullity of the Saraki and Ekweremadu's presidency and deputy presidency, we find it very apt to use the analogy of a familiar legal principle.

"A court can only be competent, if among other things, all the conditions precedent for its having jurisdiction are fulfilled. In Madukolu and Ors. v. Nkemdilim (1962) 1 All N.L.R. (Pt.4) 587 at 594 Bairamian, F. J, (as he then was) stated the principles which , ever since, have been accepted in successive cases in the Supreme Court of Nigeria. 'A court is competent, he said, 'when- (1)it is properly constituted as regards numbers and qualifications of the members of the bench, and no member is disqualified for one reason or another; (2) the subject matter of the case is within its jurisdiction, and there is no feature in the case which prevents the court from exercising its jurisdiction; and (3) the case comes before the court initiated by due process of law, and upon fulfillment of any condition precedent to the exercise of jurisdiction. Any defect in competence is fatal, for the proceedings are a nullity however well conducted and decided; the defect being extrinsic to the adjudication.' See Skenconsult(Mg.)Ltd, &Anor. v. Ukey (l98l) 1 SC 6 at 15

For example, a judgment that is given without jurisdiction, or a judgment which is a nullity, which is liable to be set aside, cannot give birth to a good execution. It does not even matter that the Judgment sought to be set aside has been executed. In such a situation, both the judgment that is liable to be set aside and the execution that is predicated thereon will suffer the same fate. The oft-cited dictum of Lord Denning in the case of Macfoy v. U.A.C. Ltd (1961) 3 W.L.R. 1405 at p. 1409 P1] comes to mind here. He said: "any purported exercise of any function being without any legal or constitutional authority was null and void and of no effect. If an act is void, then it is in law a nullity. It is not only bad but incurably bad. There is no need for an order of the court to set it aside. It is automatically null and void without much ado, though it is sometimes convenient to have the court declare it to be so. And every proceeding, which is founded on it, is also bad and incurably bad. You cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stay there. It will collapse"

Thus, it does not matter that following the purported election of Saraki and Ekweremadu, they were subsequently sworn in and they later administered the oath to the other senators. All that is a grandiose nullity. And also it does not matter that following that farce of an election Senators Saraki and Ekweremade have been receiving courtesy visitors, including the Nigerian Bar Association Leadership ( a big shame!) and some funny civil society elections monitors. This sham of an election is incurably defective, and cannot be cured by this ineffectual showmanship. .

Also, it does no matter that the APC and the APC Presidency have accepted the sham election in the Senate as a successful coup d'état. They said " a somewhat constitutional process has taken place" and that they are ready to live with it. No sirs. You are wrong. There can be no equivocation on the critical question of whether an act in constitutional or not. If politicians prevaricate, the law does not. It is either a constitutional process has taken place or it has not taken place. An unconstitutional act cannot become "somewhat constitutional" because of the disposition to condone and accommodate such an act, based on political expediency or naïveté .

It is thus our submission that consequently, any Nigerian, be he a senator or not who is affected by that election and is aggrieved has a right under Section 6(6)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, to invoke the Court's power of judicial review and the Court is empowered ex debito justitiae to nullify the purported election. Mercifully, before his glorious transition, Chief Gani Fawehinmi, SAN & SAM, of blessed memory had helped in liberalizing the anti-public interest litigation rigidity of the legal principle of locus standi ( standing or capacity to sue).

Secondly, even if the election in the Senate had been conducted on the basis of the Senate Standing Orders, 2011, it still would have been flawed, for not following the due process and for lack of compliance with the provisions of the Senate Standing Orders, 2011.

Order 2 ( Rules 1-3) in Chapter II of the Senate Orders, 2011, provides for the first sitting of the Senate as follows: "on the first sitting of a new Senate, pursuant to the proclamation of the first sitting of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senators-Elect shall assemble at the time and place so appointed; ( 2) Senators-elect, having assembled, the Clerk to the National Assembly shall: (a) read the proclamation for the holding of the first session of the Senate; ( b) call the Senate to order, and proceed to the roll call and confirmation of writs of election as well as declaration of assets and liabilities of the Senators- Elect in alphabetical order; and ( c) after the roll call, but before their swearing in, preside over the election of the President and Deputy President of the Senate; ( 3) each Senator Elect called shall present the writ of election and the receipt for declaration of assets and liabilities which shall be laid upon the table by the Clerk."

Since the National Assembly (NA) erupted in crisis during the "inauguration" of the 8th NA and the "election" of the leadership of the Senate and House of Representatives on Tuesday, the 9th of June, 2015, a lot has been said and written about the issues in dispute in the crisis. Unfortunately, rather than subject the "election" in the NA, in particular in the Senate, on that day, to a rigorous legal examination, in order to determine the legality of that election, many of the principal actors in the NA leadership crisis or in the All Progressives Congress (APC) imbroglio, and a host of other interveners have been discussing the politics of the crisis and its "mishandling" by the APC leadership, who, according to these interveners, was hell bent on foisting a leadership on the NA. Many simple-minded gloaters have even reduced the serious issues thrown up by the crisis to a celebration of the " political defeat of Bola Ahmed Tinubu", as if that alleged defeat was all that was needed to make the aberration that occurred in the NA acceptable. In this intervention, we seek to redirect the discourse. We argue that the NA leadership crisis primarily should be discussed and resolved on the basis of enquiries as to whether there had been a violation of the rule of law and the provisions of the Constitution. Jiti Ogunye

What transpired in the NA on Tuesday, 9th June, 2015 was a coup d'état. If it was merely a coup d'état by the treacherous members of the APC against their party's choices for the offices that constitute the leadership of the NA, we would not have been bothered. We are bothered because it was also a coup d'état against the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and the rule of law.

On that day, while Senator Bukola Saraki of the APC, who has confessed that, like a typical coup d'état leader, he sneaked into the premises of the NA at dawn, was "elected unopposed" as the Senate President, by 57 Senators, in the absence of 51 Senators, who were "ambushed" into a fence-mending and ranks-closing meeting that eventually turned out to be a hoax, Senator Ike Ekweremadu of the People Democratic Party ( PDP) "defeated" his opponent, Senator Ali Ndume of the APC by 50 votes to 24 votes ( with one abstention) to clinch the post of the Deputy Senate President. Instructively, the APC controls the Senate with 59 ( now 58) Senators, while the PDP has 49 Senators, meaning that 108 members ought to have congregated on the Senate Floor on the said date to constitute the leadership of the Senate. Alas, only 57 senators and 75 senators took part in the elections into the two offices.

In the run up to the "inauguration" of the NA on 9th of June, 2015, after the initial intra-party horse-trading and compromises, two blocks within the APC, keenly interested in fielding candidates and contesting available positions in the NA leadership, had emerged: The offices are that of the Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker of House of Representatives and Deputy Speaker of House of Representatives. For the House of Representatives, there was the Femi Gbajabiamila and Yakubu Dogara Blocks, and for the Senate, there were the Bukola Saraki and Ahmed Lawan Blocks. To put its house in order, the APC, correctly and responsibly, in our view, conducted a straw poll amongst her elected legislators to determine the popularity and acceptability of the aspirants and adopt consensus candidates of the party for the positions. It would not have made any sense for the APC to have allowed its aspirant members to go on the floors of the Senate and the House to slugger it out amongst themselves. That is not the way a responsible party behaves. Strangely, some dubious partisans and jaundiced interveners have condemned the APC for striving to forge consensuses amongst its party members, insisting that the NA should have been left alone to self-constitute its leadership, without the input of the parties of the respective members. This position that is being laundered as the correct approach that ought to have been adopted by the APC in order to guarantee the independence of the legislature is ignorant, plain dumb and silly.

At the end of the straw poll, which the Saraki and Dogara Blocks boycotted and walked out of, obviously because they were in the minority and because they did not want the decision of the majority to bind them, the Lawan and Gbajabiamila Blocks emerged victorious. Consequently, the APC directed all its legislators that were to participate in the NA Leadership Elections to tow the party line and vote for the party's candidates in the elections.

Upon realizing that they did not command the following of a majority of their party members, the Saraki and Dogara blocks surreptitiously hatched a conspiracy against their party's interest and forged a coalition with the PDP against their party choices That coalition led to the "defeat" of the APC choices in the elections, and the triumphs of the Saraki and Dogara Blocks. In the House of Representatives leadership election, Dogara scored 182 votes to Gbajabiamila's 174 votes. Given the result of the election, it was obvious that out of the 209 APC legislators in the House, about 36 of them leagued up with PDP legislators to defeat Gbajabiamila, their "party's" candidate for the office of the speaker, and Monguno, their party's candidate for the office of the Deputy Speaker. Saraki, Dogara, and Lasun, all defectors from the PDP, simply reached out to their kith and kin in the PDP. And it only took the infusion of Ekweremadu for the family reunion to be complete. Blood, as we know, is always thicker than water. It was an act of gross betrayal and misconduct.

Was that act of betrayal illegal or unconstitutional? No, even if it is immoral. Section 50 (1) of the Constitution says so. It provides that " there shall be:- (a) a President and a Deputy President of the Senate, who shall be elected by the members of that House from among themselves; and (b) a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, who shall be elected by the members of that House from among themselves". By virtue of this provision, any member of the Senate or House of Representatives, be s/he of the majority party or minority party can be elected into any of the aforementioned positions, in so far as he or she is a member of the Senate or House of Representatives. It only stands to reason that if any legislator, regardless of the numerical strength of his party, can aspire to a leadership position in the upper and lower chambers, he or she can draw his electors from his own party or from other parties in the legislature. And any member can elect any other member of his choice to occupy any of the said positions, regardless of political party affinity or divide.

Without any doubt, the leadership tussle in the NA has shown clearly the fault lines in Section 50 (1) of the Constitution. Section 50(1) needs an urgent amendment, such that the indubitable legislative intendment of having a majority party constitute the leadership of the parliament, while the minorities parties play the role of the parliamentary opposition can become more manifest and taken out of its current state of wooliness.

We have argued that the act of betrayal of the APC insurgents is not illegal or unconstitutional but immoral. But do we all not know that immorality, lack of integrity, opportunism and perennial power and money hunting are the hallmarks of a majority of Nigerian politicians? Lacking in scruples, values, principles and ideology, they change political parties, switch political allegiances and positions on any matter, based on their whims, caprices, political calculations and expectations, and pecuniary interests. Most of them are nothing but charlatans and political mercenaries. Lacking shame, noble comportment and decorum, but fixated on grabbing power for primitive accumulation and self aggrandizement, they do not mind dumping a " national conscience party", "a national salvation congress", or people redemption movement" for " a kidnappers party of Nigeria", or "congress of Nigerian armed robbers ", regardless of the repugnance of such names, if the platforms give them an assurance of a short cut to power, and a shorter and surer route to the public till.

The APC that is now talking about party loyalty and supremacy, and is bellyaching about the treachery of the renegades within her ranks reeks of the vice of political prostitution, which usually is masked as patriotic expediency, political pragmatism, and free exercise of the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of association. We are, therefore, not concerned about the moral wrong that the APC has suffered in the hands of her saboteur members, who, apparently fled a leprous PDP into the APC in the belief that staying back in the PDP in the 2015 general elections was going to harm their ambitions to get elected or re-elected into political offices. It was a mutation from one party to the other for political survival. It was "change", indeed.

As we have stated above, we are bothered because the events of 9th of June, 2015 have serious implications for Nigeria's democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law.

It is our considered view that the election of Bukola Saraki as the Senate President and Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President is illegal, unconstitutional, null and void. It is a sham. Put in another way, Bukola Saraki and Ekweremadu, are not, legally speaking, the Senate President and Deputy Senate President of Nigeria. They are impostors, who should stop parading themselves as senate president and deputy senate president. Asking Ekweremadu to yield up the office of the Deputy Senate President, as some partisans who have labeled him a PDP usurper have suggested, does not arise. De jure, he is not occupying the office of the Deputy Senate President from which he may resign. You cannot resign from an office you do not occupy. Why do we say so?

Hatred is a special type of attitude. It is a deep aversion or revulsion. In this sense, it is a running away from something in a very profound way. It is also an ego trait that is very common in human beings.

Hatred is a way to shut down the mind to a degree, in order to handle overwhelming stress or trauma. One simply says “No” to the situation or person, and this revulsion or rejection is called hatred. In this regard, hatred is always a generalization and a false conclusion.

Another word for it may be prejudice, which takes a few incidents or qualities or a person or group or something else and then generalizes from it. Hatred is of this nature.

Our minds are designed to reason inductively. This means we can take a few facts, and we can generalize and draw conclusions based upon them. This is an important mental faculty. However, if the faculty is not well balanced with deductive reasoning and wisdom, which is a quality of doubting, confirming and re-affirming our conclusions, we often end up with judgment and then it turns easily to strong aversion and hatred.

Hatred is therefore a hardening of the mind and spirit in a direction of revulsion. Hatred is a form of neurosis, fixation, reversal and judgment. All of these words describe a type of mental illness that is always harmful for oneself and for others. If persisted in, it always leads to war with others and to disease in the body. (ref: http://drlwilson.com/ARTICLES/HATRED.htm)

azimibraun:
Femi Adesina was on Channelstv and I thought it was an opportunity to tear him and Buhari's administration apart. To my greatest surprise, 8 out of 10 Nigerians who called in would shower praises and on the Buhari rebuilding process and are all optimistic he would deliver change. The only different voice in the studio who was Mr Tokunbo a lawyer who was so armed to the teeth to rip Mr Adesina and Buhari's administration apart left very convinced that a lot of job is being done to fix the country. My question is this; where did all the Critics of the administration go? Abi una no watch channels. Sunrise? I was convinced myself Mr Buhari is Sam Sneed.

shachris:
use his account number, go to GTB and report him.

They would put his account on closedown till he comes and clears the issue.

Even if the account holder might not be him, but the owner must have some links to him.

Go and do it so we can stop this useless scammers.

But next time, don't be too greedy.

Name: Akinlade James (most likely fake)
Account Number:0149354045

@barcanista

I have read some of your posts in the past and I must confess that you have something to offer provided you are able to channel your energy towards resourceful endeavours. You are incredibly talented no doubt and have that magnetic power to always attract attention to yourself wherever you are. You have this imposing personality that makes you to be easily noticeable anywhere you are. But the problem with your kind of people is that you always end up exaggerating your prowess and see yourself as being the best thing to have happened to this universe. The people like you ended up with a bigger-than-life complex and therefore ruin the enormous talents they are loaded with.

Hello brother, don't get me wrong, I'm not here to destroy you but to help you in retracing your step back to your normal self so that humanity can benefit from your latent and consuming energies the Power Above has deemed it fit to bestow on you.

The problem with you is that you are trying to cover your shortcomings, and in doing so, you bring in all your prowess as identified above (and many more) to convince yourself that you are still who you are. The first complex I noticed in you is the Infallibility Complex or the god complex wherein you convince yourself that you can never make a mistake. How do I mean, just a second.

I will like to take you back to your switch-over post that inadvertently altered your natural configurations. Initially that post is meant to express an independent opinion different from the popular one among your peers; to be sincere with you - the post was innocuous - but you misfired because the time of that post and circumstances playing out around that time made it inappropriate. That was the mistake you made and in trying to convince others to see it your way, you ended up exposing your other vulnerabilities. So people can see the other side of you. If you'll agree with me, the reactions you got to that post really hurt you bad, my brother. And since then, you have been on the revenge mission to take back your pride by defeating your imaginary "enemies" (your once trusted comrades). Since you are always an opinion moulder, you believe you couldn't do it alone, hence your switch-over to the other side.

Your case is like a commander in a battle that have given his best to winning a battle and suddenly found himself to be betrayed by his fellow comrades when the victory is almost within the reach. So what did you do? You decided to declare an all out war on your "new enemies" forgetting that you have exposed them to all your strengths and weaknesses when they were still on your side. You have invested heavily in the campaign for APC in trying to convince yourself that you made the right choice. And that is your second mistake, because you failed to realise that not all those who are with you today will be by your side when the chips are down.

So since then, like a drowning man, you have been clutching to anything within your reach to erase your past and relaunch yourself back to reckoning. You forget Robert Green's "The non-engagement Strategy of War" in his 33 strategies of war you should apply to Everyday Life.

The Non-Engagement Strategy
To retreat in the face of a strong enemy is not a sign of weakness but of strength. By resisting the temptation to respond to an aggressor, you buy yourself valuable time — time to recover, to think, to gain perspective. Sometimes you can accomplish most by doing nothing.

So my brother there you have it. In your effort to combat your former self, you have destroyed your reputations and made yourself ordinary. I know you are burning inside to attack me, but take a moment to ponder. Go back to your pre-February 26 posts and compare it to what you posted thereafter. Therein lies the answer to your problem.

From then onwards, you developed what is termed Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). To help you, take a cursory look at the following:

Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

In order for a person to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) they must meet five or more of the following symptoms:

Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
Requires excessive admiration
Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

So much for the long epistle, but before I go, let me leave you with the following:

Please know that we have had fine individuals of brilliant mind like you in this forum and will never be short of them. Some are still with us though somehow inactive while some have deactivated their accounts long time ago. Prior to 2011 elections, there was once a certain moniker by the name beaf. He was very influential and was a thorn in the flesh for some people just like you prior to Feb 26th. Now it is your time to shine in this 2015 election period and I give it to you, you are one hell of a guy. It is very rare to find someone who will create a thread and within some moments, the thread will grow to like 10 and above pages. Oh boy, you try. But please, don't let that your energy drains away on a fruitless battle.

The Buhari battle is too strong for you to fight because it was revealed to you long time ago when you yourself were not even sure of its reality. Your signature then was that two things will happen in May this year, Buhari being crowned as the Nigeria President and Barcelona being crowned the UEFA Champion. The two events have already taken place even though one of them to your detriment. Don't sweat it. Take your time off politics because as it is now, that part of you has been infected. Use your energy elsewhere to benefit humanity.

It's good to know you now have a blog of your own. In the meantime, while you are trying to reconfigure your political life, put your prowess into use by writing on other human endeavours aside politics. By the time you relaunch yourself, my brother, you will come out smoking.

Find time to heal yourself. I have helped you identify your complex, make efforts to find solution to it. HEAL THYSELF, OH BARCANISTA.

Valē habēque somnia suāvēs!

The Non-Engagement Strategy
To retreat in the face of a strong enemy is not a sign of weakness but of strength. By resisting the temptation to respond to an aggressor, you buy yourself valuable time — time to recover, to think, to gain perspective. Sometimes you can accomplish most by doing nothing.

Symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder

In order for a person to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) they must meet five or more of the following symptoms:

Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
Requires excessive admiration
Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

faroukfahima:
https://www.forumspotz.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMG-20150611.jpg

Former VP Atiku and Chairman of the APC BOT today held meetings with PDP big wigs

They include Jimi agbaje, akpabio, imoke and others

It is instructive to note that Atiku also heard an audience with Saraki soon after he emerged the Senate president in controversy circumstances.

http://www.forumspotz.net/atiku-abubakar-held-meeting-with-jimi-agbajeakpabio-and-others-photos/

https://www.forumspotz.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMG-20150611-1.jpg

lalasticlala, Ishilove