NEWS
Tribunal Dismisses Atiku’s Petitions Against Tinubu
Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate for the People Democratic Party in the February elections, submitted petitions on Wednesday, but the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal on Wednesday struck out several paragraphs of those petitions in order to invalidate Tinubu’s victory as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Additionally, the tribunal rejected and discounted exhibits submitted by Abubakar, including witness statements, in order to substantiate his claims of electoral irregularities.
Delivering judgment in some objections argued by Tinubu’s lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun SAN, Justice Moses Ugoh, held that several parts of Atiku’s petition could neither stand nor survive, hence, is incompetent.
In a similar judgement meted to presentations by Labour Party’s Peter Obi, the Court held that Abubakar failed to provide several facts fundamentally required to support his petition.
Inter alia, the court said the PDP candidate failed to name the places where ballot boxes were snatched, the ways and manners the BVAS machines were manipulated, and specific polling units where the alleged malpractices happened.
Abubakar, who claimed to have polled the majority of lawful votes was said to have failed to state, in strong terms, the total lawful votes he claimed to have scored.
The Tribunal held that although the former Vice President alleged that Tinubu did not score the majority of lawful votes, he failed to reveal the perceived lawful votes in his petition to the Tribunal.
Correspondingly, the Tribunal said Abubakar made grievous allegations against Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State and Chairman of Olamaboro Local Government Area of Kogi, Friday Adejoh, but neglected to join them as respondents in the petition.
Justice Ugoh held that failure to join the governor, who was accused of electoral fraud obstructed the petition because the governor was denied the opportunity to defend himself as required by law.
Therefore, the Tribunal dismissed the allegations of over-voting nationwide by the petitioner saying such pleadings run foul of the law because he failed to mention the specific locations where the alleged over-voting took place.
Abubakar’s petition was also faulted for introducing several facts and allegations in unlawful ways that caught the respondents unaware, adding that the tactic employed was unfair and made him clever by half.
Amongst the new facts he was said to have wrongfully introduced were the allegations of certificate forgery, criminal conviction, and dual citizenship of Guinea, made against Tinubu outside the mode of filing a petition.
Justice Stephen Adah, who read another ruling on objections against the petition, expunged several documents tendered by Atiku on the ground that the exhibits were made during the pendency of the petition.
Additionally, the tribunal removed from the tribunal record a number of important witnesses for Abubakar because they had been called in ways that were illegal. It was decided that many paragraphs should be deleted since they lacked validity due to the improper structuring of the petition by the presidential candidate from Adamawa.
The President of the African School of Governance, Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu has admonished state actors against resorting to brutal force in the bid to muscle out separatist agitators.
In the aftermath of Mazi Simon Ekpa, the Finland based Biafran nationalist agitator being caught in legal web and the Nigerian government moving swiftly to seek his repatriation, the former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has cautioned that ‘We either fix our problems, or our problems will eventually “fix” us. No alternative to a renegotiated union.’
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The political economist, while expressing his hope in Nigeria, made it clear that “hope is not a strategy”.
He bared his mind in a series of posts on his verified handle on micro-blogging site, X on Friday.
Moghalu wrote, “Despite sustained contemporary difficulties, I am hopeful about Nigeria. But hope is not a strategy. We need to improve state capacity for effective governance.
“We either fix our problems, or our problems will eventually “fix” us. No alternative to a renegotiated union.
“We must learn to be honest with ourselves and address the root causes of our problems. Why ignore them, when the problem is actually quite solvable? The problem with continuing with this approach is that when the danger crystallizes, those who thought they were benefiting from
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has criticized the federal government’s plan to secure an additional N1.7 trillion loan through Eurobonds to cover a shortfall in the 2024 budget, describing the borrowing as unsustainable and harmful to Nigeria’s economy.
In a statement shared on Thursday via his X (formerly Twitter) handle, Atiku accused the Bola Tinubu-led administration of burdening Nigerians with debt while failing to provide clear answers about the country’s fiscal challenges.
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He also faulted the National Assembly for enabling what he called a “voracious appetite” for loans.
The former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate expressed alarm over a recent World Bank report ranking Nigeria as the third most indebted country to the International Development Association (IDA), calling the development troubling.
“The recent report released by the World Bank, showing Nigeria as the third most indebted country to the International Development Association (IDA), is very concerning,” Atiku stated.
He raised further concerns about the government’s decision to benchmark the proposed loan at an exchange rate of 1 USD to N800, despite the Central Bank of Nigeria’s official rate being over N1,600.
“What makes this particular loan proposal even more concerning is that it is benchmarked at the exchange rate of 1 USD to N800, whereas the current exchange rate from the Central Bank of Nigeria stands at over N1,600 to 1 USD,” he said.
Atiku questioned the need for additional borrowing, given the government’s earlier claims of record-high revenue collection.
“In July this year, Tinubu boasted that the FIRS and Customs under his watch had collected all-time high revenues to finance the budget. Why are they still borrowing?” he said
He accused the government of a lack of transparency, describing the borrowing spree as detrimental to Nigerians already struggling under economic hardship.
“There is something that they are not telling Nigerians, even as they are being crushed by a combination of their failed trial-and-error policies and loan rackets.”
Atiku also referenced a report by BudgIT, a budget monitoring group, which criticized the 2024 budget for its inefficiencies.
He alleged that corruption, rather than infrastructure or development needs, was driving the government’s borrowing decisions.
“These loans are powered by corruption and not for infrastructure and development needs. This voracious appetite for humongous loans is deeply concerning,” he said.
Reflecting on Nigeria’s financial history, Atiku lamented the return to significant foreign indebtedness just years after former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration cleared the country’s debt.
“It is agonizing to see that just a few years after the Obasanjo administration took us out of foreign indebtedness, we are today back at the top spot in the same conundrum,” he stated.
He called for a more cautious approach to borrowing, urging the government to prioritize fiscal responsibility and transparency to avoid worsening Nigeria’s economic challenges.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has taken a historic step, issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The charges include crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed during Israel’s recent assault on Gaza.
In a detailed statement, the ICC accused the Israeli leaders of “intentionally and knowingly depriving the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”
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The ICC’s move marks a significant escalation in international scrutiny of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu and Gallant are alleged to have orchestrated policies that caused severe harm to the civilian population in Gaza, leading to widespread condemnation from human rights organizations.
Alongside the charges against Israeli officials, the ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif. Deif has long been a central figure in Hamas’s military operations. Israel’s military claims to have killed him in a July airstrike, although this has not been independently verified.
The warrants highlight growing calls for accountability amid the ongoing conflict in the region. The ICC’s actions are likely to provoke heated debate and may complicate diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the crisis.
With the warrants issued, global attention now turns to how the international community will respond and whether any practical steps will be taken to enforce them.
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