Nigeria Content Online

The Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC), yesterday told a Federal High
Court sitting in Abuja that Mohammed Abacha, the son of late former
military Head of State, Sani Abacha, is the governorship candidate of
the Congress for Progress Change (CPC) for Kano State.

Mr Abacha, through
his lawyer, Abdullahi Haruna, had filed a case demanding that INEC
should not recognise any other candidate for the said election other
than him.

Specifically, INEC
through its counsel, Adegboyega Awomolo in its counter affidavit said
that in compliance with the Electoral Act, the CPC invited INEC to
supervise and monitor its primary election into various offices in
preparation for the forth coming general election in April, 2011. Mr
Awomolo said INEC responded to the request by sending its personnel to
supervise the exercise in Kano State. He said from the results compiled
at the end of the exercise, Lawal Ja’afar Isah scored 78,671 votes;
Rufai Sani Hanga got 45,618 votes; Awalu Anwar scored 30,410; Magaji
Abdullahi scored 5,795 and Mr Abacha scored 144,066. He added that none
of the candidates at the primaries has instituted any suit to challenge
the result of the primaries, neither did they serve any process
challenging the qualification of Mr Abacha.

In the suit filed by Mr Abacha’s, the CPC is 1st defendant, INEC
2nd defendant, and Lawal Ja’afar Isah 3rd defendant. The matter which
is before Gabriel Kolawole, the presiding Judge adjourned to Thursday
24, for adoption of written addresses.

The Minister of the
Federal Capital Territory, Bala Mohammed, has donated relief materials
worth millions of naira to victims of the recent civil disturbances in
Tafawa Balewa, Bauchi State.

The relief items donated include: 1000 bags each of rice and millet, jerry cans of palm oil, wrappers

as well as bundles of mats.

Over 40 people,
including women and children lost their lives in the disturbances which
broke out on January 24 in Tafawa Balewa. Many shops and residential
houses were also destroyed.

The Police Public
Relations Officer of the Bauchi State Police command, Mohammed Barau
said the problem started at a snooker joint,

The relief
materials were conveyed to the victims on behalf of Mr Mohammed by the
Bauchi State chairman of the Distribution of relief materials, Kaulaha
Aliyu, who urged the beneficiaries to use the items wisely.

The Minister urged
the victims to take their plight as an act of God and manage the little
assistance he rendered to them to alleviate their sufferings.

Meanwhile, the
Congress for Progressive Change candidate for Tafawa Balewa, Dass and
Bogoro Federal Constituency, Umar Jibo, has also donated bags of rice,
maize, mats and wrappers with a pledge to mobilise and bring more
assistance to the victims.

The Deputy
Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Tafawa Balewa, Daniel
Sharmi and Ward Head of Bununu, Salisu Mohammed, who received the items
on behalf of the victims, thanked the donors and pledged to make
judicious use of the materials.

The
police have deployed 700 officers ahead of President Goodluck
Jonathan’s visit to Bida in Niger. Mr. Jonathan is expected to pay a
courtesy visit to traditional ruler, the Etsu Nupe, Yahaya Abubakar, on
Tuesday before flagging off his campaign in Minna. The police area
commander in Bida, Ayo Olatunji, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)
on Monday that police officers had been deployed to strategic locations
to ensure an orderly visit. Mr. Abubakar also appealed to youth in the
area to be calm and not to do anything that would cause any hitches,
stressing that the police would deal with anyone seeking to cause a
breach of the peace.

Meanwhile, a former
minister of information, Jerry Gana, has appealed to Nupe people all
over the country to come home to welcome the president.

“We must all come out to give Mr. President a befitting welcome and convince him to support our demand for Edu State,” he said.

Earlier yesterday,
the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) says it was finalising arrangements
for President Goodluck Jonathan’s successful campaign across the seven
states in the North-West Zone. Baba Lawal-Aliyu, the North West Zonal
Secretary of the party, made this known in Kaduna on Monday in an
interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

He said that the presidential campaign train would visit all the states in the zone to canvass for support from the electorate.

“You see, this is a
critical zone to the party because we produced the vice-president and a
host of ministers, ambassadors and other political appointees. Our zone
is also the most populated region in the country with the highest
number of votes.

“That is why the PDP machinery at all levels would not want to take chances or squander opportunities,” Mr. Lawal-Aliyu said.

According to him, the zonal executive committee and zonal working
committee will consider the composition of campaign committees and
itinerary as well as other sundry issues that will make the programme a
success. He urged party members and supporters to remain steadfast,
loyal and law abiding. The zone comprises Kaduna, Kano, Katsina,
Sokoto, Kebbi, Jigawa and Zamfara States. Meanwhile, the PDP has
inaugurated an eight-member reconciliation committee for the zone with
a Veteran Journalist, Abba Dabo, as Chairman. Mr. Lawal-Aliyu said that
an educationist, Suleiman Kauru, would serve as the committee’s
secretary. He said Ladan Shuni, Babajo Funtua, Sule Buba, Samaila
Dankasa, Isa Bahutu and Mohammed Bawa would serve as members. In a
related development, Ibrahim Kazaure, has since assumed duties as the
new zonal chairman of the party with a pledge to refocus and improve
PDP’s fortunes in the North-West zone.

A
NEXT investigation has shown that the media assistant to President
Goodluck Jonathan, Ima Niboro, lied when he tried to contest this
newspaper’s exclusive story that President Jonathan hired 133 advisers
and assistants whose wages cost the nation about N780million per annum.
Mr. Niboro claimed in his telephone rejoinder that Mr. Jonathan only
appointed a few aides upon assuming office and that the “majority of
all the names on the list are old names; most of them have been there
since Obasanjo’s time.”

A review of the dates of appointment of
the aides, however, shows that none of the 133 presidential aides, in
the official list as published by NEXT, was appointed during the tenure
of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Mr. Jonathan appointed 57 of the
aides upon becoming president while the remaining 76 were appointed
while he was the vice president.

Our findings show that Mr. Jonathan,
who assumed office on May 6, 2010, appointed the first set of eight
presidential aides on May 24, 2010. Two weeks later, four aides were
appointed on June 9, 2010. A month later, the first lady got 11
presidential aides, including one of her ladies-in waiting, Justin
Adaba.

Mr. Niboro was also wrong when he said
that he “ignored those enquiries because they did not come through the
state house correspondent.”

The lead reporter of the original
story, Elor Nkereuwem, sent her questions to Mr. Niboro through text
messages when he did not answer his phone. The state house
correspondent for NEXT, Elizabeth Archibong, also sent Mr. Niboro a
reminder. Several attempts were also made by other reporters and
editors to seek Mr. Niboro’s clarification. The presidential spokesman
still did not respond.

Civil society condemns large number of aides

The Human and Environmental Development
Agenda has condemned the high number of presidential aides. Olanrewaju
Suraj, the chairman of the group, stated this in a telephone interview.
Mr. Suraj condemned the position of the secretary to the government of
the federation whose spokesperson stated that “the president has all
the right to choose his assistants and advisers and there is no
constitutional limit to the number he decides upon.”

“If the constitution does not limit the
presidential aides, is that now enough reason to waste taxpayers’ money
for such high number of aides who are largely irrelevant to the growth
of the nation?” Mr. Suraj asked.

We approve presidential aides

But the chairman of the House of
Representatives Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Eseme Eyiboh,
yesterday defended the president’s large number of aides.

“I do know that the president usually sends that request (the number of aides required) to the National Assembly,” he said.

Section 151(2) of the 1999 constitution empowers the National
Assembly to limit the number of presidential aides. “The number of such
advisers and their remuneration and allowances shall be as prescribed
by law or by resolution of the National Assembly,” the law states.

Justice Jonathan
Shakarho of the Federal High Court, Ibadan, on Monday, adjourned
indefinitely the hearing of a contempt suit brought against the Oyo
State Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala. The judge said that he was making
the decision on moral grounds, having been accused of receiving N50
million from Mr. Alao-Akala to rule in his favour last week. The case
was brought before the court by Wole Oyelese, Yekini Adeojo, Lekan
Balogun, Azeem Gbolarumi and 33 other members of the People’s
Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo state to challenge the emergence of the
governor and other nominees as the party’s candidates for the April
polls. The group asked the court to declare that Mr. Akala and the
other candidates’ nominations were products of ‘illegal party
primaries’.

Although the court was to reconvene on Monday to begin the hearing on the contempt suit and substantive matter, Mr.

Shakarho said he would have to wait for a directive from the office of the chief justice of Nigeria, Alloysius Kastina-Alu.

“We can’t go on
with the case by the undoing of some of the plaintiffs,” Mr. Shakarho
said. “I am leaving the case as it is. When there is a directive from
my chief judge, we will go on”.

Yekini Atoyebi, one
of the plaintiffs, had in a petition asked the chief justice to
investigate an alleged induced reversal of an interlocutory injunction
earlier given by Mr. Shakarho. Mr. Atoyebi, in his petition, alleged
that the judge’s body language when he reversed his initial order
restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from
recognizing the governor and others as PDP contestants suggested that
he had made up his mind to tilt the ruling in their favour.

‘What is my business?’

Speaking on the
petition and the implication on his continued sitting over the suits,
Mr. Shakarho said: “Once one person writes against me, we cannot go on.
He (Mr. Atoyebi) said in his last paragraph that, in his view, it was
clear they cannot obtain justice before me. I want another judge to
hear the matter. Can I, in the face of this, go further in this matter?
This case is adjourned sine die. ‘Case yi, o ti ba je’ (This case has
gone bad). They shot themselves on the leg. It is their own case, if
they want to put block on it, ‘ki lo kan mi ni be? (what is my
business?)”, he asked in Yoruba.

Efforts by Sanyaolu Akinyele, one of the counsel to the plaintiffs, to get the court to strike out the name of Mr.

Atoyebi and
continue the case proved abortive. The judge insisted that he would
wait until the chief justice directed him to proceed.

Reaction

Dotun Oyelade,
special adviser to Mr. Alao-Akala on public communications, reacted to
the adjournment, describing it as a sad day for the relationship
between politicians and the judiciary.

“What manner of
politicians are these who will turn the innocent into villains within
the twinkle of an eye because a case did not go their way? Resorting to
cheap blackmail to pervert the course of justice does not augur well
for democracy. We strongly suggest that the National Judicial Council
should investigate this and bring the culprits to book,” he said in a
release to journalists on Monday.

Lateef Fagbemi and Richard Akinjide, counsel to the defendants,
agreed with the court on the indefinite adjournment. An appeal filed by
the plaintiffs against the controversial vacation order has been slated
for Monday, February 28 at the Ibadan division of the Court of Appeal.

Aloysius
Katsina-Alu, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), yesterday ended the
controversy surrounding his retirement age by announcing that he would
step down in August this year at the age of 70.

In a press statement, he sought to clarify his position on when he would statutorily step down.

“For the purpose of
keeping the records straight, Katsina-Alu was born on August 28, 1941
and he is due for retirement on 28 August, 2011 when he will clock 70
years.

“There has never
been any controversy over this, as all his records from the date of
birth through all the institutions he attended vis-à-vis the various
organisations he has worked before being elevated to the office of the
Chief Justice of Nigeria have never been different from what they have
always been,” the statement read.

The present
controversy may not be unconnected to the recent saga which involved
the unexpected elevation and reversal of the president of the Court of
Appeal, Ayo Salami. In a move seen to have political undertones, Mr.
Salami had accused the Chief Justice of trying to remove him from
office.

Mr. Salami, in a
letter addressed to Mr. Katsina-Alu, who is also the chairman of the
National Judicial Council, alleged that his planned removal was
initiated during meetings of the Federal Judicial Service Commission
held on February 1 and 2 while he was away at Ilroin, Kwara State.

In the letter,
dated February 4, and addressed to Mr. Katsina-Alu, Mr. Salami alleged
that the action was a validation of months of rumours of his planned
ousting which he had then dismissed as “talk shop gossip” originating
from mischief makers.

Mr. Salami had
dragged Mr. Katsina-Alu and the National Judicial Council (NJC) to a
Federal High Court in Abuja, challenging his unprecedented elevation to
the Supreme Court.

Mr. Katsina-Alu was
reacting to a recent publication over the actual date for his
retirement. This follows perceived discrepancy in the prescribed date
and procedure for his retirement, vis-à-vis, and the convention in the
nation’s judicial system.

Records at the apex
court indicate that the incumbent CJN who was appointed on December 31,
2009, is expected to leave office on August 28, this year.

But observers note
that going by tradition, his tenure is due to elapse by May 28, when he
would have reached the official retirement age of 70 years, as
stipulated for justices of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal by
the constitution.