My Father, Ademola Adeleke Remains The Governor Of Osun State - Sina Rambo

 My Father, Ademola Adeleke Remains The Governor Of Osun State - Sina Rambo 

Ademola Adeleke's son, Sina Rambo has stated that his father is still the governor of Osun State after the Tribunal court ruling on Friday January 27, IGBERETV reports.

Om Friday, the Osun Election Petitions Tribunal annulled the July 16 governorship election results and declared the former governor, Gboyega Oyetola, as the winner of the exercise.

Adeleke was declared winner of the governorship poll held back on July 16 under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). 

In August 2022, Gboyega Oyetola, who ran for re-election petitioned the tribunal to challenge the victory of Adeleke, with the claims that there was overvoting in 749 polling units across 10 LGAs of the state.

Delivering judgment on Friday, Jan. 27, the tribunal held that the governorship election was characterized by over-voting, adding that after deducting the excessive votes, Oyetola’s figures rose to 314, 921, while Adeleke’s came down to 290, 266.

The tribunal led by Justice Terste Kume then ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to withdraw the certificate of return issued to Adeleke and his deputy, Kola Adewusi. It directed that the certificate of return be issued to Oyetola instead.

Reacting to the judgment, Sina Rambo said, 

“Two judgments were issued today at the tribunal. One in favour of PDP. Nothing changed. Sen. Ademola Adeleke remains the governor of Osun State.

“We move to the appeal court. Peace be still. The mandate of Osun will not be stolen. H.E.Ademola Adeleke remains the Governor of Osun State.”

G-5: Atiku’s Men Adopt New Strategies

 Barely a month to the presidential election, the crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party is facing an uphill task to convince five of its elected governors to campaign for its flag bearer, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

Governors Nyesom Wike, Okezie Ikpeazu, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Seyi Makinde and Samuel Ortom of Rivers, Abia, Enugu, Oyo and Benue states respectively, had renounced their membership of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council in September 2022, demanding, among others, the resignation of the party’s National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, to pave the way for a southern successor.

Although the governors are believed to be working for two rival candidates, the intensity with which they attack the Ayu-led National Working Committee in the past few months appears to be waning.

The PUNCH gathered that the inability of the governors to agree on which particular candidate to support is partly responsible for the low spate activities in their ranks in recent times.

Our correspondent learnt that in Benue State, loyalists to the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, were busy reaching out to party faithful in their strongholds to drum up support for him.

A former Governor of the state, Gabriel Suswam, The PUNCH gathered, has been convening a series of stakeholders’ meetings in the Benue North-East Senatorial District, urging eligible voters to pitch tent with Atiku in spite of Governor Ortom’s opposition.

An associate of the governor, who pleaded anonymity, said Suswam and playwright, Professor Iyorwuese Hagher, had been doing a lot for Atiku since Ortom made his position clear that he was not going to support the PDP presidential standard bearer if Ayu failed to go.

“Suswam addressed stakeholders from Zone A recently and Iyorwuese has been talking with his kinsmen. They are doing it in such a way as not to offend Ortom. They are friends with the governor but they are also careful not to overdo things. As a result, there is a lack of statewide coordination,” he said.

He further noted that while Ortom had not openly endorsed a particular candidate, he had called on his foot soldiers to embrace Peter Obi of the Labour Party.

He continued, “Governor Ortom has already inaugurated an Obi team using his most trusted aides and allies. Former Governorship aspirant, Prof Dennis Tyavyar, is chairman of the group. He was Commissioner for Education under Ortom before he stepped down to contest the Governorship election.”

In Rivers State, a former PDP National Chairman, Uche Secondus, is leading the pro-Atiku support base. Alongside a former Governor of the state, Celestine Omehia, ex-Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Austin Opara, and an erstwhile federal lawmaker, Lee Maeba, Secondus is playing the good party man in defiance of Wike’s anti-Atiku’s posture.

Expectedly, Governors Ikpeazu and Ugwuanyi are rooting for Obi, using their foot soldiers to avoid the wrath of the PDP for anti-party activities.

Speaking exclusively with our correspondent, the Director General of ‘House to House Campaign for Atiku Abubakar and Ifeanyi Okowa’ in Borno State, Mustapha Shehu, said the initiative would be replicated in the five states.

“The House to House campaign will definitely break not only the G-5 governors’ hold on their states, but will also pose a significant threat to incumbent non-PDP governors. The Borno House to House has proved to be a check on the Wike-sponsored PDP stalwarts, including some in the state Executive. It has also positioned Atiku as the candidate to beat in the state despite the APC governor and the APC presidential running mate, Kashim Shettima,” Shehu said.

Wike had promised to reveal the preferred presidential candidate of the aggrieved governors in January; a pledge that he is yet to fulfil.

The Tinubu-Buhari Cold War Is Becoming A Hot War By Farooq A. Kperogi

 This week's column uses insights gleaned from sources and the past to argue that the cold war between Tinubu and Buhari that bubbled to the surface this week with Tinubu's impassioned Abeokuta outburst will graduate to a real hot war in short order:

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

It was always obvious to keen, disinterested observers that Bola Tinubu’s gamble in helping Buhari to ascend to power won’t pay off in the end; that his opportunistic political love affair with Buhari won’t be requited; and that the brittle, delicately thin thread that held their relational dynamic would snap sooner or later. I wrote countless columns on this.

Tinubu won the nomination of the APC not because of Buhari and the cabal of provincial power brokers that prop him but in spite of them. Tinubu was compelled to ventilate his famously impassioned “emi lo kan” outburst in Abeokuta (in the Yoruba language, no less) when it became nakedly apparent that Buhari and his cabal had perfected plans to edge him out of the APC presidential primary contest.

People who know Tinubu from his inchoate age in Iragbiji tell me that he is a dogged, rugged, never-say-die fighter who would rather die fighting than give up a fight. His contemporaries dreaded fights with him not because he was strong but because his fights were often brutal and never-ending until he won. Even when he was bloodied and beaten to a pulp, he would get up and continue the fight if not immediately then later.

The story I heard of Tinubu’s childhood in Iragbiji reminded me of someone I grew up with in my hometown whom we nicknamed Mohammed Shaytan. Mohammed was his given name, but his bizarre emotional investment in endlessly ferocious fights with anyone until he won earned him the name Shaytan, the Arabic word for Satan. We used to allow him to “defeat” us so we would have peace. Perpetual personal strife, which he thrived in, wasn’t physically, mentally, and emotionally sustainable for a lot of us.

When the cabal was plotting to exclude Tinubu from the APC presidential contest, I had an informal chit-chat with a higher-up who had some associational affinities with the cabal. I told him that based on what I’d learned about Tinubu’s childhood and teenage years (some of which I can’t disclose publicly) and which seem to have endured into his adulthood, he would rather be dead than give up the APC nomination.

After the “emi lo kan” blow-up, which shook Buhari and his inner circle to their roots, my older acquaintance called to tell me I was right. The speech—and, of course, the support of APC’s northern governors, and his deep pockets— caused him to win the battle, but he is now in danger of losing the war, if he hasn’t already lost it. Here’s why.

Tinubu’s fervent, arrogant, and vaguely vituperative speech in Abeokuta at once unnerved, humiliated, and alienated Buhari and his inner circle in ways they had never been since 2015. Buhari never forgives, but he is also diffident, hates direct confrontation, and evades taking responsibility. That’s why he is such an ineffective but dangerous leader. 

All indications clearly point to the fact that Buhari is still nursing the hurt of his well-justified humiliation by Tinubu. His inner loop of advisers is also waiting in the wings to exact revenge against Tinubu, which is frankly inexplicably self-indulgent, even hypocritical, because they would not have supported Tinubu even if he didn’t humiliate them on national television, even if he praised them to high heaven from now till kingdom come. Well, they seem to be now out for Tinubu in full force.

This signal first emerged in the open when Alhaji Sani Zangon Daura, a former minister in Obasanjo’s administration who is very close to Buhari, Mamman Daura and members of the cabal, gave a sermon in his mosque in Kaduna where he importuned northerners to support their own. It’s entirely possible that this opinion is his alone.

Nonetheless, as many people have observed, Buhari has so far studiously refrained from asking voters to vote for Tinubu. He raises Tinubu’s hands on the campaign trail, but it’s as a mere ritual political gesture that he is required to perform. He also raises the hands of other APC candidates. But he has so far not directly solicited votes for Tinubu. 

In a November 10, 2022, interview with Premium Times on the so-called currency redesign, which has gone viral in the last few days, Buhari justified the currency redesign by gratuitously invoking the specter of unscrupulous moneybags who use thugs to win elections, which many people, including [b]Tinubu’s people, understood as an indirect attack on Tinubu.

“Nigerians should vote for whoever they like from whichever party. Nobody will be allowed to mobilize resources and thugs to intimidate people in any constituency,” Buhari said in what seems like a sneaky barb at Tinubu who infamously uses money and thugs to win elections, including elections that Buhari has benefited from. “This is what I want to go down into Nigerian history for.”
[/b]
Of course, when Premium Times’ reporter pushed him to speak on his support for Tinubu, he uttered platitudinous, half-hearted, mealy-mouthed praises of Tinubu and Lagos and said, “the party was lucky to get [Tinubu to] accept to be its candidate.” We all know it wasn’t the party that got Tinubu to accept to be its candidate; it was Tinubu who fought tooth and nail against the machinations of Buhari and his cabal to become the party’s candidate.

In the aftermath of the renewed attention to and intra-party criticisms of Buhari’s failure to publicly urge his supporters to vote for Tinubu, Buhari’s associates organized a charade in Bauchi. During the APC presidential campaign in Bauchi, Buhari was asked to speak in support of Tinubu. Then, suddenly, the microphone mysteriously developed a malfunction—or there was a power cut—and Buhari left the venue of the campaign in a faux huff. It seemed all carefully choreographed. 

Being the aggressively wily and perceptive political fox that Tinubu is, he has sensed all the Machiavellian political mischief that’s afoot. And he has had enough. So, he threw another pugilistic rhetorical blow at Buhari and his cabal in Abeokuta—and in the Yoruba language. When he is drowning and is fighting for his political life, Tinubu cries in Yoruba. English has no capacity to carry the full weight of his fury.

Unfortunately for Tinubu, his avoidably self-inflicted reputational injury in the Muslim North by his inability to recite the first chapter of the Qur’an is eroding his support. Salafi clerics in the Hausaphone Muslim North who used to preach that a vote for the Tinubu-Shettima Muslim-Muslim ticket was a jihad in the service of Islam have gone quiet. They can’t justify calling someone who can’t recite the fatiha a Muslim. In fact, the clerics have become objects of ridicule now.

This was completely preventable political self-harm. All he needed to do was continue being seen praying in mosques and going to Mecca for hajj. No one ever asks Muslims, not least wealthy ones like Tinubu, to justify their claims to their faith by reciting verses of the Qur’an. Most northern Muslim elites, including Buhari, know next to nothing about their religion. But it’s sufficient that they are seen in public performing the rituals of the religion.

Tinubu would have benefitted from having northern Muslims in his inner circle. They would have advised him against attempting to recite the fatiha that he has obviously lost because he doesn’t use.

The only silver lining in the cloud of political troubles for Tinubu in the Muslim North, which he needs to have a fighting chance, is that almost all APC governors in the region are solidly behind him for two reasons. The first is the embarrassment of betraying him after he stood with them in the 2015 and 2019 elections. Nasir El-Rufai is the arrowhead of this sentiment. He thinks it would be a treachery for the history books should the entire Muslim North forsake Tinubu. 

The second reason is more selfish. Should Atiku Abubakar win the election, the dreams of another northern Muslim from the northern governors’ ranks becoming a president would be perpetually deferred. Even though Atiku has said he would do only one term, it would be almost impossible for another Muslim to succeed him after four years.

It remains to be seen if the support of the governors can reverse Tinubu’s lost ground in the Muslim North. But the fight is on, and it’s just getting started!

Court Sacks Senator Albert Akpan, Orders Fresh Election

 The Federal High Court in Abuja has sacked the senator representing Akwa Ibom North East district, Albert Akpan, over his defection, last year, from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The court declared his seat vacant and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a bye-election to fill it within 14 days, counting from 20 January when the judgement was delivered.

Although Mr Akpan was recently convicted and jailed for corruption, his sacking by the court has nothing to do with that.

His sacking by the court is based on his defection from the PDP to the Young Progressives Party (YPP).

The convict, who is on post-conviction bail, is the Akwa Ibom State governorship candidate of his new party, the YPP, in the forthcoming March 2023 governorship election.

Delivering judgement in the political suit filed against him by the PDP, the judge, Fadima Aminu, ruled that he was not qualified to retain the seat after resigning from the party which sponsored his election to the Senate for a four-year tenure in 2019.

The judge ordered Mr Akpan to stop parading himself as a senator and ordered him to pay N5 million in costs to PDP which sued him over his defection to the YPP.

Ms Aminu said Mr Akpan, a two-term senator, failed in his obligation to prove that his defection from PDP was necessitated by serious rancour and steep differences in the ranks of the party.

Without a justifiable reason, the judge said, the defection violated section 68(1)(g) of the Nigerian constitution and implied that he must vacate his seat.

“Therefore, this honourable court holds that the 1st defendant (Mr Akpan) who resigned from the plaintiff (PDP) but failed in his duty before this honourable court to prove the alleged serious rancour and steep differences in the ranks of the plaintiff (PDP) which made him to resign or defect to Young Progressives Party (YPP), the 1st defendant is in violation of section 68(1)(g) of the 1999 Constitution by refusing to vacate his seat as a senator in the senate won under the sponsorship of the plaintiff,” the judge said.

PREMIUM TIMES saw a certified true copy of the judgement on Friday.

Defection and suit
Mr Akpan defected from the PDP in July 2022 citing unresolved grievances from the party’s governorship primary election in Akwa Ibom State.

He announced the YPP as his new party in his letter notifying the Senate President of his defection from the PDP.

He was among federal lawmakers who switched parties in the aftermath of last year’s primary elections across parties.

Following the development, the PDP sued Mr Akpan on 28 July 2022, urging the court to declare his seat vacant by virtue of the provisions of sections 68(1), and 62(b) of the Nigerian constitution affirmed by a plethora of Supreme Court decisions.

The party joined the Senate President and INEC as defendants.

Parties’ arguments and judgement
The PDP argued that there was no division in its fold to warrant Mr Akpan’s defection to another party.

It presented in court among other exhibits, Mr Akpan’s letter of resignation from the party. The letter dated 15 July 2022 was sent to the chairman of the PDP in his Ibiono Ibom Eastern Ward I in Ibiono Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, Ariekamauwen Asuquo.

PDP said Mr Akpan ought to have voluntarily relinquished his seat in the Senate after defecting to another party, but chose to continue to take benefit of his election into the Senate on its platform.

But Mr Akpan argued that the PDP lacked the right to file the suit as it was not listed among the authorities with powers to enforce section 68(1) of the constitution to declare his seat vacant.

He said by virtue of the provision of the constitution, only the President of the Senate, with regard to a senator, or the Speaker of the House of Representatives, for a member of the lower house, could validly enforce the constitutional provision.

But the judge held that the argument was “misconceived”, adding that “there is nothing in the provision of section 68(2) of the constitution that expressly provides that it is only the persons stated in the referenced section that can give effect to the provision of section.”

The judge, who backed her reasoning with judicial precedents, also dismissed the arguments and claims put forward in the senator’s defence by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan.

An affidavit deposed on behalf of Mr Lawan had said he had yet to receive formal communication from Mr Akpan about his defection. The claim is contradicted by the wide reportage given to the Senate President’s reading of the senator’s defection letter on the floor of the Senate on 20 July 2022.

Contradicting itself, the affidavit said Mr Lawan had read reports, which he believed to be true, about the divisions in the PDP in Akwa Ibom State.

The judge held that the self-contradiction in the Senate President’s affidavit had destroyed all the facts stated in it.

“Therefore, the statement of the 2nd defendant is self-contradictory as the 2nd defendant claims on one hand that there has been no formal communication to him of the defection of the 1st defendant from the plaintiff and yet, on the other hand, agrees that the 1st defendant notified him of his defection and resignation from the plaintiff and being also aware of the division and factionalisation of the plaintiff in Akwa Ibom State as the reason for the 1st defendant’s defection.

“This honourable court agrees with the submission of the learned counsel for the plaintiff that once an affidavit is self-contradictory, it needs not be challenged by the other party as whatever facts the affidavit intends to establish would have been destroyed by the contradiction,” Ms Aminu ruled.

The judge said Mr Akpan’s resignation letter dated 18 July 2022 which he also publicised via his Twitter handle with other information about his defection “stands in the defence of the case of the plaintiff (PDP).”

The court, therefore, held that the PDP successfully proved its case “on the preponderance of evidence”

Akpan appeals to Court of Appeal, PDP seeks enforcement of judgement

Meanwhile, Mr Akpan has since appealed to the Court of Appeal in Abuja to avert the implementation of the judgement, with fresh elections to usher in a new set of senators a few weeks away.

The judgement came about a month before the general election to fill all 109 seats in the Senate.

The four-year tenure of the current senators elected in 2019 expires in early June, approximately four months away.

But PDP’s lawyers from the law firm of Tayo Oyetibo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, have written to the INEC chairman to “immediately take steps to timeously comply with the court’s order.”

A copy of the letter seen by PREMIUM TIMES and its authenticity confirmed to one of our reporters in a phone call to one of the signatories, Olaniran Obele, is dated 24 January and bears INEC’s acknowledgement stamp dated 25 January.

Defiant defections
The Supreme Court has ruled on different occasions that a division within the ranks of a political party must be so deep that the party can no longer function at the national level for it to be an acceptable excuse for the defection of a state or federal lawmaker.

But despite the judicial precedents, lawmakers still defect without justification. The presiding officers of the legislative houses empowered to declare the seats of such lawmakers are always lethargic to make such pronouncements, regardless of the party affiliations of the defectors.

PDP took benefit of such defection when, in 2018, then Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and some other senators joined its fold upon their dumping the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Confusion As New Naira Note Shortage Takes Toll On Nigerians!!

 As the January 31 deadline to phase out old naira notes inches closer, the new banknotes’ shortage across the country takes its toll on Nigerians.

The heat continues to mount as the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila threatens to issue an arrest warrant on CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele over his refusal to honour the House Committee’s invitation.

Commercial banks on Thursday were forced to shut down their ATMs over a shortage of the new banknotes in major cities, Warri, Lagos, Abuja, and Benin, DAILY POST learnt.

Deposit Money Banks have been battling a shortage of old banknotes amid a directive by the CBN that lenders should load only their ATMs with the new notes.

It is the same situation in Ogun, Lagos, Warri, Port-Harcourt, and Benin as Nigerians scramble with the pains of getting the new naira notes.

Israel Kona, a resident of Lekki, said he could not get the new note when he visited the bank on Thursday.

“Most Banks’ ATMs have been shut down due to the high demand for cash, so I had to make an over-the-counter withdrawal to get cash, but it was the old naira notes,” he said.

Simon Oluwa, a trader in Warri, said he could not buy anything at the market on Udu road because he did not have the new notes.

He also lamented that Point of Sale, POS, agents have suddenly stopped collecting the old currencies over the difficulty of getting the new naira notes.

“It is tiring, the situation Nigerians face daily; some businesses at Udu road have started rejecting the old notes, even POS operators”, he said.

Mr Olawale Ayodele, a resident of Ogun State, expressed frustration after he went to major ATMs in Ota but could not find cash.

“I went round Ota till yesterday night (Thursday) looking for cash at the ATMs around this area but could not get. Honestly, the stress is not worth it. I cannot withdraw my own money again?” He lamented.

Emeka Michael, a lawyer in Abuja, disclosed that ATMs he visited in CBD, Garki, are not dispensing cash.

“The situation is terrible, to say the least; I had to go several places within the CBD but could not see any ATM dispensing cash. Honestly, ‘wahala’ plenty for this country”, he said.