Court of Appeal re-affirms the nullification of Senator Ovie Omo-Agege's re-election

The Court of Appeal sitting in Benin, the Edo State capital, has reaffirmed the nullification of the reelection of Ovie Omo-Agege, the senator representing Delta Central district on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and that of Francis Waive, who was declared winner of the Ughelli North, South and Udu House of Representatives seat on the APC platform.

In a judgement delivered by Justice Tosin Adegoke On March 18, the Federal High Court 1 sitting in Asaba, the Delta State capital, had sacked the Great Ogboru/Ovie Omo-Agege factional state executive committee of the APC led by Jones Erue and upheld the O'tega Emerhor faction led by Cyril Ogodo as the authentic state executive committee.



The Federal High Court also nullified all actions taken by the sacked Erue-led executive, including ward and local government congresses, party primaries and the list of candidates that emerged from the primaries held by Erue’s faction, declaring it null and void.



Following the judgement of the Federal High Court, Omo-Agege and Waive had approached the Court of Appeal sitting in Benin to seek the leave of the court to appeal the judgment nullifying their candidatures and reelection.



At the hearing of the case on Friday in Benin, the Court of Appeal dismissed the case filed by Omo-Agege and Francis Waive seeking a leave of court to appeal the Federal High Court judgement which sacked the Jones Erue-led state executive faction of the APC and nullified the list of its candidates.



After dismissing both applications for lacking in merit, the Appeal Court awarded a fine of N300,000 each to the two party candidates. The court said the plaintiffs could not claim to be unaware of the case, and as such they could not seek to be joined or challenge the judgement at this moment.

EXTRACTS from Defense and Foreign Affairs special analysis.

Here are Extracts from Defense and Foreign Affairs Special Analysis. March 11, 2019 in their Early Warning Column. “Democracy as Farce is the Prelude to Tyranny: The Case Of Nigeria.” - George R. Copley

Freestyle battle's from the Area master.

 Everybody run tinz.

Thugs carting away ballot boxes in the presence of the Police and Army at Omagwa, Ward 9 Unit1 of Ikwerre LGA Rivers State.

       This is sad,so so sad.

WINTER has come

Fans of  game of thrones should  step in here,the final season thrailer is out

 
April 14 is the date,save it.

Activist,Bisina Brutalized on election day takes case to human right commission and Coas.

WARRI- THE vicious battering of the  former Commissioner of Special Duties, Delta State and Executive Director of LITE-Africa, a nongovernmental organisation, Mr. Joel Bisina, by soldiers of the 19th Battalion, Koko,  February 24, has assumed a new dimension, as victim has taken his complaint to the Chief of Army Staff and Executive Secretary, National Human Rights Commission, NHRC, Abuja.

    Joel  bisina.


Bisina, allegedly pounded on the orders of the Acting Commander of Battalion inside the premises of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Koko, for telling the Chairman of Warri North Local Government Area, Mr. Aduge Okorodudu, how soldiers cowed him and other voters, February 23, on Warri waterways, had earlier petitioned the Brigade Commander, 4th Brigade, Benin City.

NDV obtained his fresh petition, entitled: Human Rights Violation: Dehumanization, physical assault and inhuman treatment of and Assault of Mr. Joel Bisina by Major Y.M. Kachalla, Acting Commanding Officer and other military officers of the 19th Battalion, Nigerian Army Koko, Delta State on the 24th of February 2019, yesterday.

I was beaten, physically and emotionally assaulted

He said: “On this fateful day, on the orders of Major Y.M. Kachalla, I was beaten, physically and emotionally assaulted,  violently dehumanized; slapped on the face, kicked on the leg, knocked on the head, struck with the nozzle of the gun, dragged and thrown into a military truck. I was deprived of my fundamental rights, including the right to fair hearing, by officers of the 19th Battalion.

“On Sunday, the 24th of February 2019, as a community leader and the national chairman of Ogbinbiri ward 9, I visited the INEC office located at Koko in Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State to ascertain the situation of the election carried out on Saturday 23rd February 2019 which was disrupted by soldiers of the Nigerian Army.

“At the premises of the INEC office, Mr. Aduge Okorodudu, the Warri North Local Government Chairman inquired about my experience at my polling unit during the election. I stated my experience on the day of election, including how among other electorate, we were delayed by officers and men of the Nigerian Army at Idebagbene (Lagos Junction) under the supervision of Lt. Kajiji, who constantly yelled at electorate, telling us that the military was under clear instructions to ‘shoot and kill.’

“I also informed him of how we were delayed for hours without any explanation and after two hours, I made an attempt to inquire why we were being delayed, adding that if there was no reason, we should be let go to enable us proceed to our polling units.

Officer smashed empty Pepsi bottle on Houseboat

“That, I also narrated how, immediately after my inquiry, Lt. Kajiji angrily ordered for his rifle. While waiting for his rifle, he began insulting everyone, pacing and panting furiously. Finally, without warning and regard for the safety and well-being of everyone around, he angrily smashed an empty Pepsi bottle on the handrail of the Houseboat, which sent broken pieces flying in several directions.

“Although nobody was physically hurt by the bottle, his action emotionally traumatised everyone. We finally arrived at our polling unit at Ogbinbiri at about 3:30 pm and voting commenced at about 4 pm and in less than four hours of voting, Lt. Kajiji interrupted the process and ordered ad-hoc staff to stop the voting process,” he asserted.

Bisina, a United Nations Peace Ambassador continued: “I also narrated how another military officer, Captain Sule ordered soldiers to confiscate all electoral materials, including sensitive and non- sensitive materials into the military boat and how, after this incident, we were further held up by the soldiers at Idebagbene (Lagos Junction) for almost an hour.”

How my ordeal started

“After narrating my experience to the LGA chairman, he also narrated his own ordeal with the soldier about the election. After about 10 minutes, the LGA chairman beckoned on me to come to where he was standing in the presence of security heads and INEC staff, including the Acting Commanding Officer of the 19th Battalion, the Divisional Police Officer, Koko, Head of Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corp, and INEC officials within the premises of the INEC office in Koko.

“That on my way to meet the LGA Chairman, where he was standing together with the security heads and INEC officials; The Acting Commanding Officer of the 19th Battalion, Major Y.M. Kachalla began yelling at me, saying: ‘Mr man where did you say they broke bottle on your head?” to which I replied, “broke bottle on my head? I did not say anyone broke bottle on my head. Major Kachalla interrupted me angrily, saying; ‘you are a liar, you have been lying, I have known you, this is how you have been lying.’

‘Double him’

“That Major Kachalla went further to order his officers to dehumanise me, saying, ‘Double him’ and four soldiers under his instruction publicly dehumanised me. One of them slapped me on the face, the other kicked me on my leg, another knocked me on my head and hit me at my back and the last one dragged me by my belt into the military van. After about two minutes, the officers were instructed to bring me down from the van, before Major Kachalla began to ask me to respond to the false accusation of lying.

“ I responded that ‘I have only one life to live and my life is only worth one breath, why am I being treated like a common criminal and what have I done to warrant this kind of treatment,’ one of the soldiers standing by screamed: ‘You are standing before an officer and you are still talking?’ Without provocation, a soldier standing by me struck me twice with the nozzle of his gun, which brutally bruised me, leaving me with bleeding wounds.

“Although I suffered bleeding wounds from the soldier’s rifle, the military never offered me access to medical services, which is a clear violation of our national law, the UN code and rules of engagement of law enforcement agencies.

Okorodudu’s intervention

“It took the intervention of the LGA chairman at this point to stop Major Kachalla and his soldiers from meting at me further cruel and dehumanising treatment. Later, at the instance of the LGA chairman, Major Kachalla asked me to narrate what happened from the beginning.

“I responded that since he had passed judgement and given out punishment to me without hearing my own side of the story, ‘I will only state my side of the story to people who would protect my right to a fair hearing.’

Appeal to CoS

“I make this petition to report what ordinary citizens suffer at the hands of military men. The treatment I received is not deserving of a common criminal let alone someone of my status who has contributed to the betterment of society through various capacity building projects and activities which include working with the IOC’s local and international reputable organisations, such as the Rotary International,” the activist noted.

He urged the Nigerian military authority “to properly investigate and bring the parties involved to justice in line with the military rules of engagement, the 1999 Constitution, UN Code of conduct for law enforcement officers, including the Voluntary Principles, which requires that perceived right violations be impartially and promptly investigated to protect citizens from further violations.”

He said: “If it is found that the actions of Major Y.M. Kachalla and the other officers, who acted on his orders are not consistent with laid down military rules of engagement, then, proper sanctions should be taken against them to serve as deterrent and guard against further violations…”

Source:
www.vanguardngr.com

Elections of Blood and Tears.

According to John Donne, 17thCentury Jacobean metaphysical poet-cleric, “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” Four centuries after, Dele Giwa, the late founding editor-in-chief of The Newswatch magazine, echoed Donne’s compelling insight: “One life taken in cold blood is as gruesome as millions lost in a pogrom.” Indeed, the essential theme of both existential insights speaks to the sacrosanctity of human life and not to the number of fatalities. In other words, it stresses the importance of a life as being the same as many more of it.  It is in this context that I seek to evaluate the blood-stained election that held last Saturday countrywide. To be sure, the election was also characterised by death. It was sordid that any life was lost at all. To now talk of the loss of many lives raises the question as to whether what we had last Saturday was an election or a war. It is remarkable that in his acceptance speech, a few hours after he was declared winner of the presidential election in the morning of Wednesday, February 27, President Muhammadu Buhari expressed sadness at what he described as “the grievous loss of lives during the election.” It is good that he promised that security agencies would step up effort to protect voters in the forthcoming state elections.

This time round, there was the absence of the usual presidential exhortations that the perpetrators of the dastardly acts would be brought to book.  But, as it were, it would appear that those who died last Saturday, some of them due to no fault of theirs, have died “for nothing”, to use the refrain of the late Afro beat music maestro, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. But I feel terribly sad over the lives that were lost in the course of the election. I would like to use this medium to urge readers of this piece to observe a minute silence in their honour. I refer, in this instance, to Ms. Ibisaki Amachree (the INEC ad hoc staff member killed by a soldier in Rivers during the election) and Police Corporal Sunday Idoko (killed last Sunday by yet-to-be-identified gunmen in Eredo Area of Yewa Local Government of Ogun State while escorting results from Ipokia to Ilaro Collation Centre).

I refer also to that first-time, enthusiastic 19-year-old voter, Daniel Usman, who was hit by a stray bullet while trying to cast his vote at a polling unit somewhere in Ayangba in Kogi State. I refer to Monsuru, that teenage graduate of St Luke’s College, Molete, Ibadan, who was killed at Polling Unit 2 of Ibadan Southeast Local Government by thugs after the counting of votes. I refer to the three people who were reportedly killed in election-related violence in Rivers State. Overall, I refer to the sixteen people that were reportedly killed in election violence across eight states, according Mr. Clement Nwankwo, convener of the Situation Room, which represents more than 70 civil society groups; or, more comprehensively, I refer to as many as 35 deaths cited by a Lagos-based consultancy- SBM Intelligence. These deaths, by any standard, are certainly too many for a single election or even a series of elections for that matter. That they happened in a single election is a greater indictment of our fractured political elite that encourage such acts of desperation, do-or-die politics and unbridled contestation for power. Our collective sense of humanity is unconscionably battered while our sensibility is viciously shattered.

In developed countries or advanced democracies, no such thing can happen by the hands of political opponents or even governments in power, otherwise the incumbent executive heads would be charged with crime against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC). It is only a terrorists’ attack, sans a war, that can cause such a huge number of human fatalities in those climes. This is the reason the international community must note the nationwide tragic electoral process  that have produced winners and losers at our national level of governance. Winners are in a celebratory mood while losers are in some corners licking their wounds and contemplating the next steps to take to mitigate their losses. It is in their respective places to so act. But they must, in their solitary moments, ponder the blood-stained election that produced their victories and losses. How they react to the human tragedy would mark them out as either statesmen or blood-thirsty demagogues.

Former President Goodluck Jonathan had written his name in gold when, possessed of the full complements of state power, chose to toe the path of peace and preservation of life and property. His personal declaration, in 2014/2015, that his reelection was not worth the blood of any Nigerian continues to resonate positively with history and posterity’s verdict. Jonathan, on that score, is sui generis. No Nigerian president, before or after him, so far, had been able to replicate his rare demonstration of humanity. I have a proclivity to believe that Jonathan has the magnitude of character and the capacity to reject a blood-stained electoral victory as flawed.  Although, no leader has yet demonstrated that kind of rejection, I look forward to a day when political leaderships will become so conscionable and responsive such that electoral victories will be rejected as flawed on the basis of rigging, bloodshed and killings.

If such begins, political partisans will become restrained by those positive acts of rejection by their benefactors who are supposed beneficiaries. This will be a good starting point in our quest for genuine national electoral renaissance. Such disposition will quicken the process of electoral reform by officialdom. It will mark the outset of governments that will consciously work for the purity of the nation’s electoral and governance processes. Granted that this will be revolutionary in outlook and scale, I believe that it will take one person to set off the process of cleansing the Augean stables of electoral fraud and violence in Nigeria.  I remember a story that a former Chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the late Chief Sunday Awoniyi, told me about how he reined in his supporters with a threat to reject his victory as flawed if there were reports that they rigged his senatorial election, in 1991, in his favour. And that helped to ensure the purity of the process. He won and it was difficult for his opponent to upturn his victory at the Tribunal.

The Awoniyi case was a classic example that leaders can set good examples that will help strengthen the integrity of our electoral process. Unless political leaders are able to demonstrate that kind of selflessness by putting national interest above parochial interests, so long shall our nation continue to wallow in the sea of her antediluvian fault-lines of ethnic jingoism, religious bigotry and other considerations that have constantly been deployed in promoting the emergence of leaders through processes that are anything but honest. Concluding, the question of integrity of the process has to be answered by stakeholders and political players. Can the electoral and governance processes ever be credible in this clime? The answer is blowing in the wind. In fact, the subsisting fear is that until the motivation for public offices ceases to be pecuniary, there will always be rampaging desperation or quest for power, especially at the governorship and presidential levels in order to have an unfettered access to the public treasuries and an undisciplined management of the same. Sad!

Source:
guardian.ng

The "Jagabanisation" of lagos politics.

On Wednesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared President Muhammadu Buhari winner of the February 23 presidential poll.

INEC chairman, said Buhari, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, polled 15,191,847 votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who garnered 11,262,978 votes.

Ambode, Tinubu and Sanwoolu
Expectedly, Atiku rejected the result, calling it a sham and vowing to challenge it in court.

Although those declared winners will dismiss his claim as the ranting of a sore loser, some Nigerians will agree when he said that in his three decades of democratic struggles, he had never seen Nigeria’s democracy so debased.

His assertion that though the 2007 poll was a challenge but remarkably different from the 2019 election because then President, Yar’Adua, was remorseful unlike now when those who trampled on the country’s democracy are thumping their noses down on Nigerians, strikes a chord with most people except those who have elevated hypocrisy to an art.

As Nigerians are wont to do, he has been advised to move on because power belongs to God and He gives it to whoever pleases Him.

It is only here that people are called upon to vote in elections and God, rather than the ballot, determines winners.

But if I were Atiku, I will not break a sweat. I will simply move on and wish Nigeria well. He should not mount a legal challenge to Buhari’s victory, not because of the God-factor, but because the country does not deserve such sacrifice. He has done his bit. After all, is it not said that people get the government they deserve? If the result was a fair reflection of the wishes of Nigerians, then they deserve Buhari. Even if the election was rigged, the manipulation was done by Nigerians. At the end of the day, the joke is on all of us.

But I am worried that Nigeria after 20 years of unbroken democracy has made no progress in electoral politics, even as we spend more money during every new election cycle. As we saw on Saturday, the 2019 elections cannot by any stretch of the imagination be adjudged better than the 2015 polls, no-matter what happens at on March 9.

Yet, the 2019 elections will go down in history as the most expensive.

Daily Trust newspaper did a yeoman job on the issue last year when President Buhari presented N242.45b ($672.35m) to the National Assembly for the 2019 polls, which was about $50m higher than the $625m budgeted in 2015 and more than half of the N450b INEC got as electoral expenditure in the five general elections held from 1999 to 2015.

The money was to be shared between INEC, which got N190 billion (73.51 percent) and five security agencies – Office of the National Security Adviser (N4.28b), Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (N3. 57b), Nigeria Police Force (N30.54b), Nigeria Immigration Service (N2.63b) and Directorate of State Security (N12.21b).

Yet, we neither had free and fair poll nor security. The warlords had a field day.

What is your impression about conduct of Presidential, NASS polls?

Not only is each administration outdoing the previous ones, we are also breaking global records in electoral expenditure. For instance, the 2019 INEC budget was higher than the $600m the Electoral Commission of India, ECI, spent during the 2014 general elections in which 553.8m people voted out of 815m registered voters and the £113m the United Kingdom spent during its 2010 parliamentary elections in which 45.6m voted.

Not many Nigerians know that the electoral expenditure started with N1.5b (1999), N29b (2002), N45.5b (2006), N111b (2010) and N87.8b (2014).

INEC’s Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, Director of Voter Education and Publicity, said last year that the humongous budget will be used to procure and upgrade enough card readers for the polls.

The jury is still out on the extent the “upgraded” card readers enhanced the conduct of the Presidential and National Assembly polls.

But what is not in doubt from what transpired on Saturday is that Nigeria spent more money to enable a more violent election.

Politicians were more brazen buying votes and inducing electoral officials,Those who refused to be bought were taken hostage.

In Imo State for instance, Prof Ibeawuchi, the Returning Officer for the Imo West Senatorial poll, alleged that Governor Rochas Okorocha, the APC senatorial candidate, held him hostage until he was declared winner.

The social media was awash with videos of INEC officials whose houses were barricaded by military personnel at the behest of politicians sending out SOS messages to their superiors.

Political thugs no longer snatch ballot boxes and run away. They stay back, aware that they are videoed but not caring a hoot knowing who their sponsors are, to burn the ballot papers.

A N27 billion investment in technology that left us with card readers which could not authenticate the number of people verified to cast their ballot is a waste.

But the most frightening phenomenon is the “Jagabanisation” of Lagos politics which made some people to take it upon themselves to decide for the Igbo how to vote and who to vote for as a condition for allowing them to live in peace and do their legitimate businesses in their own country.

In many parts of Lagos, Ndigbo were disenfranchised because they were perceived to be more disposed to an Atiku presidency that Buhari’s.

Even now that the election has been won and lost, the hoodlums, obviously enjoying the support of the powers-that-be in Lagos, are attacking and vandalising their shops.

On Wednesday, the miscreants, armed with dangerous weapons like cutlasses, broken bottles, wood and knives struck at the Oluwole, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Tinubu, Bamgbose and Alli Streets market on the Island, beating Igbo traders and destroying their wares worth millions of Naira.

Ndigbo were warned to go back to their states to do business because “this is Lagos”.

“We campaigned for them to vote for Buhari but they refused and voted for Atiku. They cannot come here to do business again. They must follow us to vote whoever we ask them to vote for. This is just a sample for them, if they ever vote for PDP again, that will be their end,” the hoodlums threatened. No arrests have been made. I doubt if any will ever be made.

On Monday, it was the turn of the traders at Oshodi market. They were beaten and their wares destroyed.

Ohanaeze leader, Nnia Nwodo, said he called the acting Inspector General of Police thrice and he refused to pick the calls. Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has not deemed it fit to say something on the matter.

Yet, these are the same people that claim political sophistication.

Neither Buhari nor Atiku is Yoruba. Both APC and PDP are national political parties. The PDP won in Ondo and Oyo states, voted for by Yoruba.

In Lagos, Buhari polled 580,814 votes against Atiku’s 448,016 votes. There are as many Yoruba in PDP as there are in APC.

Buhari garnered votes in all the South East states as he did in every other region just as Atiku also did. So, what is the issue?

Is Jimi Agbaje, the Lagos State PDP governorship candidate not Yoruba? How then could a vote for him be a vote against Yoruba interest? Is Chief Ayo Adebanjo no longer Yoruba? Is Chief Bode George not a Yoruba man? What is this overarching Yoruba interest that the Igbo must pay for with their blood and who determines it?

In any case, if there is Yoruba interest as indeed there should be since politics is a game of interest, is it not only fair that Ndigbo must also have the right to determine what their interest is in the context of Nigeria and who serves it best? So, why must other interests be respected when Igbo interest is an anathema? Why must Igbo interest be subsumed into the Yoruba interest?

Those egging these hoodlums to attack Ndigbo for exercising their franchise should know that they are on a political slippery slope on account of their invidious scheming.

Source:
www.vanguardngr.com

Northern Man Thanks Yoruba Slaves For Supporting Buhari.

Video of Election rigging somewhere in the north.

 Look carefully at the tag on one of the inec official's.

Rival cults clash in Ughelli.

Reports reaching tenaija blog says that cult clashes in Ughelli have claimed the lives of not less than six youths in the town,the clash  is reportedly between black axe aka aiye and vikings aka baggars,one peter onochoja was gunned down on the 17th of February in second emekpa by suspected rival cultist.

   

Funny video.

 Creative guy's.

Governor Okowa pay's condolence visit to the family of his murdered political Aide,Mr Ngozi Ijei.

   "Today, I paid a condolence visit to the family of my political aide, Mr Ngozi Ijei who was assassinated on the eve of the botched Presidential and National Assembly elections in Ekpan, Uvwie local government area of Delta State.
Ngozi was an architect of peace in the new Ekpan of our dream; he had worked largely with the security agencies in the last two years to make Ekpan peaceful, but, unfortunately, those who do not value life decided to strike.
I know that the loss of a dear one is very painful but I urge the wife, Mrs Veronica Ijei to stay strong, and I also urge other members of the family to take heart & take solace in the fact that nothing happens without the knowledge of God.

May he rest in the bosom of the Lord!
Investigations are on to unravel those behind the dastardly act.