Television Nigerian

The Labour Party’s Lamidi Apapa faction has recommended the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to seek another political platform to pursue its presidential dream ahead of the 2027 polls.

The Apapa group, whose legitimacy was just confirmed by the Edo Division of the Court of Appeal, said that it had begun looking for a new presidential candidate ahead of the 2027 election.

Abayomi Arabambi, the faction’s spokesman, confirmed this in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.

Arambambi spoke against the backdrop of Obi’s appeal filed at the Supreme Court on Tuesday to dispute the ruling of the Presidential Election Petitions Court, which recognised President Bola Tinubu as the victor of the 2023 presidential election.
The Apapa-led LP had distanced itself from Obi and the Julius Abure faction’s determination to contest Tinubu’s victory in court.

On August 14, the Edo division of the Court of Appeal pronounced Apapa to be the genuine National Chairman of the Labour Party.

Arabambi told our correspondent on Wednesday that Obi should not waste his time appealing Tinubu’s Supreme Court victory.

Obi definitely lost the election, he claims, because to his alleged misuse of human resources.

“My advice is for him (Obi) to go and start planning for 2027,” Arabambi added. But it must be in another party, not the LP. We will not tolerate such scum in 2027. As far as we are concerned, we will hunt for a new candidate.

Read Also: Presidential poll: Atiku, Obi persuade Supreme Court that Abuja cannot be 37th state

“Obi is free to run for APGA again, not Labour Party.” We don’t want to keep appeasing a character who believes no one, other than himself, has anything upstairs. He is not an effective human resource manager. That was why he lost so badly.

“Let me ask Obi who is accusing President Bola Tinubu of certificate fraud this question.” Obi claimed to have a B.Sc. Did he include the B.Sc in his application? Wasn’t that the school diploma he scribbled there? Why is he concealing his B.Sc? That’s because he knew they might summon the vice chancellor or the registrar to establish its validity.”

Yunusa Tanko, spokeswoman for the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council, downplayed Arabambi’s warning, saying, “They (the Apapa faction) do not own Labour Party.” That’s why I don’t want to argue with them. There’s no need to pay attention to these people.”

Kehinde Edun, the LP’s National Legal Adviser, also chastised the Apapa faction, claiming that the Independent National Electoral Commission recognised the Abure faction.

“Do they have authority over the party?” he asked. They are party members who have been suspended. So, how do they decide who will be the flag bearer? These people have resorted to comedy.

“INEC has the statutory authority to monitor and keep records of political party activities.” So, who are they going to propose the candidate to? It is the same INEC, and the election umpire can only accept nominations from the party’s recognised National Executive Committee. The national chairman must also nominate any candidate.

“As of today, the recognised leadership of the party is the one led by Abure, not Apapa or whatever they call themselves.” Nothing they say moves us. They’re just impersonators and comedians pretending to be something they’re not. We know they’ll soon run out of steam. Nigerians no longer take them seriously because they can see through their games.”

After the state’s Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal dismissed New Nigerian People’s Party governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, the Kano State administration on Wednesday imposed a 24-hour curfew to prevent a breakdown in law and order.

The All Progressives Congress candidate, Nasir Gawuna, was declared the winner of the state’s March 2023 gubernatorial election by the three-member election tribunal presided over by Justice Oluyemi Akintan-Osadebay. This led to heightened security throughout Kano’s metropolis on Wednesday.

The curfew order was verified by Mohammed Gumel, the state commissioner of police, who said in a statement that it was in place from Wednesday at 6 p.m. until Thursday at 6 p.m. (today).

Gumel threatened to arrest those who disobeyed the order and subject them to the full force of the law, vowing to enforce strict adherence to it.
“The state government has communicated a 24-hour curfew order via letter with reference no: K/SEC/H/435/T.1/153 dated September 20, 2023,” he stated. The curfew will be in place from Wednesday, September 20, 2023, at 6 p.m., to Thursday, September 21, 2023, at 6 p.m.

“The Kano State Police Command has mapped out strategies in that direction and called on the good people of the state to give the necessary confidence and support, in light of the Nigeria Police Force’s constitutional mandate to preserve law and order in the state alongside the relevant internal security and law enforcement agencies.

Residents of Kano State are urged to be aware that, in order to guarantee the rigorous enforcement of the curfew, joint security forces have already been deployed to all corners of the state, including its entrances and exits. Violators will be taken into custody and exposed to the full force of the law.
Gumel continued, “Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude to all of the state’s peace-loving citizens and to encourage them to continue abiding by the law since it is in everyone’s best interests that we work together to uphold law and order in the state.

Concerned vendors hastily closed their doors in the main marketplaces and retail centres before to the curfew, as locals headed home after the tribunal declared Yusuf’s election as Kano State governor to be void.

The court directed that Gawuna receive a fresh certificate of return and ordered Yusuf to revoke his original one.

The panel has started using Zoom to broadcast the proceedings from the tribunal’s Miller Road location.

Weeks after the attorneys on both sides presented their closing arguments on August 21 on behalf of their clients, the decision was rendered.

The court declared the governor’s 165,663 votes to be void.

The judge declared that the 165,663 voters’ ballots were invalid since they were not signed and stamped.
The APC’s nominee received 890,705 votes, but the NNPP received 1,019,602 votes, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission. Consequently, the NNPP candidate prevailed by a margin of 128,897 votes.

To contest the results announced by the electoral board, the APC, however, submitted an appeal to the judiciary.

The tribunal stated in its ruling that the party’s internal affairs handle sponsorship and membership matters.

The NNPP’s interim National Chairman, Abba Ali, responded to the ruling by claiming that it was a rewrite of the 2019 governorship election, in which the tribunal had purportedly nullified the electorate’s mandate and given it to the loser.

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As it urged millions of its followers in the state and across to keep calm and keep the peace, the party said that the purportedly unfair ruling would not stand.

“The New Nigeria People’s Party receives the Kano State Election Petition Tribunal’s ruling on the March 18, 2023, governorship election with utter incredulity and disbelief,” Ali stated.

“With regret, the NNPP remembers that this tribunal has merely reversed the will of the people and granted election results to the losing candidates, thereby reproducing the unholy script of 2019.”

“The reported judgement voids our governorship candidate, Engineer Abba Kabir Yusuf, who boldly gave the election to APC candidate Nasiru Gawuna, despite it being a free, credible, and widely recognised fair election.”

Claiming that the tribunal arbitrarily subtracted Yusuf’s votes by 165,663 and gave them to the APC candidate, it labelled the decision as absurd and a miscarriage of justice.

The tribunal’s ruling is a slap in the face of constitutionalism and the rule of law, and it may further erode public trust in the legal system. The party declared, “The NNPP will appeal this egregiously unfair judgement.”

Bashir Wada, the NNPP’s attorney, announced that his clients would file an appeal of the tribunal’s decision.

“The tribunal has delivered its own judgement. We will consult with our clients, and I can assure you that we will appeal against this judgement because we felt it did not reflect the fairness of the situation. I can assure you that this decision will be overturned on appeal,” he said.

The Osun State tribunal’s ruling, which is nearly identical to this one in that it permits the tribunal to review a document that was brought before it even in the absence of proof, is not new. By God’s grace, I can guarantee that the Court of Appeal will not consider this ruling.

The NNPP Presidential Campaign Council’s spokesperson, Ladipo Johnson, added that the party would file an appeal of the decision.

Enraged that the Nigeria Customs Service had neglected to appear before it on Tuesday, the House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee looking into the sales and disposition of government assets was fuming.

Professor Julius Ihonvbere, the chairman of the ad hoc committee, criticized the NCS for not showing up for the committee’s rescheduled hearing after it had been called upon twice.

Last week, the panel threatened to use pertinent constitutional provisions to force Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to appear before it if necessary. The panel is tasked with investigating how public property was disposed of between 2010 and 2022, as well as investigating claims of illicit auctioning of public property and non-remittance of revenue realized into the Consolidated Revenue of the Federation.

In addition to denouncing the head of MDAs’ “arrogance of power,” House Leader Ihonvbere requested that customs appear before the panel, stating that the parliament will do everything within its power to ensure that the agency honors its summons.

In his words, “We have written. We’ve made the summons available in the newspapers. The summons included an appearance deadline. Then they send me some innocent-looking letters, signed by a Deputy Comptroller General for Finance, Administration, and Technical Services, who doesn’t even feel large enough to visit us in person. This system needs to eradicate such indiscipline and power hubris. It cannot go on.

Additionally, the constitution gives us the authority to ensure that government organizations receiving funding from the National Assembly act morally. Furthermore, people have to act morally, whether or not the customs approve of it.

The customs department seems to be operating under the assumption that the ad hoc committee will always exist. You import a car just like that. Before it enters demurrage, you have this window of time to clear it. And after a while, they’ll do what needs to be done, including bidding on whatever kind of automobile you have.

In my opinion, the Nigerian customer is being careless by accepting this House’s invitation. They perceive this as a farce. To reassure them, I am prepared to follow the law to the letter, adhering to Nigerian customs. He said, “They have to come before the House.

Abuja — Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Mr. Peter Obi, the candidate for the Labour Party (LP), filed separate challenges with the Supreme Court yesterday in an attempt to overturn President Bola Tinubu’s victory.

In their appeals, the two contenders asked the Supreme Court to overturn the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), which had declared All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Tinubu the victor of the February 25 presidential contest.

They specifically claimed that Tinubu did not receive at least 25% of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory, or FCT, Abuja, and that the Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC, erred in its ruling because it purposefully refused to send the poll results electronically to its portal in compliance with its regulations.

In spite of their strong evidence, they further said that the PEPC ignored their allegations of election manipulation, which were carried out in violation of the electoral statute and the constitution.

While Obi, using a group of attorneys headed by Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, filed 51 grounds of appeal before the supreme court, Atiku, using his coalition of 67 attorneys, which included 18 Senior Advocates of Nigeria under the direction of Chief Chris Uche, SAN, filed 35 grounds of appeal to contest Tinubu’s victory.

Atiku: The PEPC verdict represents a serious injustice.

In particular, Atiku contended in his appeal that the ruling of the five-member Court of Appeal panel, presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani, which dismissed his petition contesting the results of the presidential election on September 6 was not only “against the weight of evidence,” but also constituted a grave injustice against him.

Even after evidence was presented to the PEPC panel demonstrating that the Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC, had violated existing laws and regulations governing election conduct, the former vice president insisted that the panel had erred in law by failing to declare the presidential election null and void on the grounds of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022.

He charged that the Electoral Act of 2022 and the 1999 Constitution, as amended, were grossly misconstrued and misrepresented in order for the PEPC to reach its unanimous conclusion.

In his own words, “The lower court committed a legal error when it declined to support the Electoral Act of 2022’s mandated electronic transmission of results for final results verification and confirmation, which is necessary to ensure transparency and integrity of results in line with the Act’s principles.”

willful disregard for election regulations

He contended that the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, or BVAS, machines for the electronic transmission of election results from polling places to INEC’s collation system for the verification, confirmation, and collation of results before announcement was mandated by Sections 64(4) and (5) of the Electoral Act as well as INEC’s Regulations and Guidelines for the conduct of the election, which he tendered in evidence.

The results of the National Assembly election, which was held concurrently, were easily transmitted electronically, according to Atiku, who informed the top court that some of the presiding officers who personally operated the BVAS machines at polling places on election day had “confirmed the non-transmission of the presidential election results electronically from the BVAS machines” in their testimony before the PEPC.

Atiku continued, “The election result was significantly impacted by the nationwide circumvention of the use of the mandated verification technology, which affected all polling places and the collation of results throughout Nigeria.”
An error in the e-transmission of results was not explained by INEC.

Furthermore, he informed the court that Lawrence Bayode, the only witness for INEC, acknowledged that the Commission had encountered a technical issue that prevented the system from functioning on election day, “which technical glitch was not explained by the 1st Respondent.”

Furthermore, he contended that the INEC guidelines and rules had legal effect since they were a direct result of the Constitution and hence qualified as subsidiary legislation under Section 169(1) of the Constitution and Section 148 of the Electoral Act.

Atiku informed the supreme court that there was widespread non-compliance with the Electoral Act, affecting 176, 846 voting places nationally. He said that this had a significant impact on the election’s result.

“The case of the Appellants was that, by means of credible evidence, they established the First Respondent’s deliberate non-compliance with the electronic transmission of election results, which was nationwide, under the new legal regime of technology-based collation of results under the Electoral Act 2022.”

The justified expectation doctrine

“Based on the doctrine of legitimate expectation,” he claimed, the election’s result should have been declared invalid.

Mandatory FCT 25% requirements apply; Abuja is not the 37th state

Atiku contended that the constitutional requirement of one-quarter of the votes in two-thirds of the states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, was an extra and necessary requirement to the rules pertaining to the highest lawful votes and, as such, a prerequisite to an INEC declaration.

The lower court’s interpretation of the aforementioned Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, as the 37th state of Nigeria is not consistent with the explicit stipulations of sections 2(2) and 3(1) of the 1999 Constitution.

“In interpreting the crucial word ‘AND’ in the aforementioned sub-section, the lower court failed in its obligation.

A presidential contender must receive at least 25% of the vote in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, according to Section 134(2)(b) of the Constitution.

In the appeal he filed with the PDP, Atiku went on to say, “There is no ambiguity or absurdity in the provision of Section 134 (2) (b) of the Constitution to warrant a resort to any other interpretation other than the literal rule as the lower court erroneously did.”

As a result, the appellants asked the supreme court to accept the appeal, overturn the PEPC’s decision, and provide their primary or supplementary remedies.

Among other things, he asked the Supreme Court to rule that Tinubu was not legitimately elected by the majority of valid votes cast in the election and to declare him ineligible to be named the victor.

Atiku asked the court to order a run-off between him and Tinubu or to declare the entire poll invalid and require INEC to conduct a new one, in addition to pleading with the court to proclaim him the legitimate victor of the election and order his inauguration as president. INEC, Tinubu, and the APC were listed as Respondents in the appeal.

Law was broken by PEPC – Obi

Obi, who finished third in the presidential election, argued in his own appeal that the PEPC panel made legal errors and came to the incorrect decision when it denied his plea.

He claimed that the panel misapplied its judgment in assessing the information he presented to it and committed a serious injustice when it determined that he had neglected to name the polling places in which irregularities had taken place during the election.

Obi and the LP also criticized the PEPC for rejecting their case on the grounds that they failed to provide specific numbers for the votes or scores that they claimed were manipulated or manipulated to favor President Tinubu and the APC.

They further charged that the panel headed by Justice Tsammani had committed legal errors when it excluded certain parts of the petition based on the First Schedule to the Electoral Act 2022 and articles 4(1)(d)(2) and 54.

Accusing the lower court of violating his right to a fair trial, Obi maintained that his witnesses’ evidence was improperly thrown out for lack of competence.

He claimed before the supreme court that his claim that INEC submitted 18, 088 blurry results to its IReV platform was unfairly rejected by the panel.

Furthermore, Obi claimed that the lower court disregarded his claim that the certified true copies of the documents, which stated that they were the CTC of polling unit results for the presidential election, that INEC had sent to his legal team included 8, 123 blurred results with blank A4 papers, pictures, and images of unidentified people.

“When they held and concluded that he failed to establish the allegation of corrupt practices and over-voting, the learned justices of the court below committed a legal error and caused a miscarriage of justice,” Obi continued.

By-passing its e-transmission rule, INEC

He claimed that the lower court erred in rejecting his claim that INEC disregarded its own rules by refusing to electronically transfer election results from polling places to the IReV by citing the legal doctrine of estoppel.

“The petitioners presented strong and convincing evidence, both oral and documentary, demonstrating the Respondents’ material non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022 in the way the election was conducted.

The Appellants claimed that the panel erroneously rejected the claim of double nomination made against Tinubu’s vice president, Kashim Shettima, and that “the court below overlooked that the Respondents failed to disprove the evidence of substantial non-compliance adduced by the petitioners.” Tinubu was charged with drug-related offenses and fined $460,000.

Similarly, Obi said that the PEPC disregarded proof proving President Tinubu was previously charged with a narcotics offense in the United States and fined $460,000.

In his appeal, Obi added, “Imposition of a fine is not limited to a criminal conviction, as the word, in law, includes a civil forfeiture.”

LP: The reason we’re at S-Court

The Labour Party announced yesterday that it has decided to contest Tinubu’s election at the highest court because it believed the lower court had made legal and factual errors in reaching its decisions. This was said in a statement released by the party’s national publicity secretary, Obiora Ifoh.

Ifoh stated: “The 51 grounds are regarded as a legal error as the party’s legal team aims to prove that Bola Tinubu, the APC’s presidential candidate, did not win the election and that it was incorrect for the PEPC and INEC to declare him the victor when numerous indisputable evidence pointed to the contrary.

“Obi and the Labour Party are requesting four main things from the Supreme Court: Permit the appeal, overturn the PEPC’s erroneous ruling, and provide the relief requested in the petition, either in full or in part.

Regarding the 25% requirement for Abuja, Obi and the Labour Party enumerated the specific details of the PEPC’s inaccuracy as follows:

“That the PEPC neglected to recognize that in order for the President to take office or hold the position of President, he must also obtain 25% of the votes cast in the Federal Capital Territory.

Additionally, they charged that the PEPC had failed to consider the greater significance of Section 299, which would become clearer upon a careful reading of Section 301 of the Constitution.

The decision of Senator Bala Mohammed as the state’s legitimately elected governor has been upheld by the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which is convening in Bauchi State.

The three-member panel led by P.T. Kwahar gave the verdict.

Details Later…