Lawyer Charged For Stealing N 150,000.
August 18, 2008 by 
Che Oyimnatumba · Leave a Comment
Barrister Abdulkarem an Ekiti State based lawyer and 4 others were on Friday 15th August 2008, arraigned in an Ado-Ekiti Chief Mageistrate Court for stealing N 150,000:00 (One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira Only) and vandalising properties belonging to the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) Oke-Itunu worth N1.7 million.
The lawyer and his culprits are also facing charges of false imprisonment, assault and kidnapping as it was alleged that they abducted two officials of CAC and detained them at an Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) detention camp.
The lawyer was granted bail on personal recognition and a bail bond of N50,000:00. The matter was adjourned to October 15th for hearing.
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Nigeria Hands Over Bakassi
August 14, 2008 by Felix Ashimole · Leave a Comment
Amidst mixed reactions and crocodile tears from those who have been “ripping” apart the Niger Delta because of crude oil, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice of Nigeria officially handed over to Cameroon, the Bakassi Peninsula. Today’s ceremony was carried out in honour of the Green Tree Treaty entered into by Nigeria and Cameroon, as an Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanism (ADR) on the dispute over Bakassi.
According to President Yar’Adua, the handing over is painful but needful as it will restore the image of Nigeria in the international community as a big African Brother, worthy of honouring agreements. It will be recalled that the PDP government under President Olusegun Obasanjo conceded to peaceful resolution instead of the full legal gauntlet at the International Court of Justice. Cameroon had taken Nigeria to the ICJ over Bakassi.
This it is painful tears of Yar’Adua, is not over the displaced people of Bakassi who still desire to be part of Nigeria but the lost revenue that would have accrued to the federation account had the oil deposit found in the peninsula exploited by Nigeria.
We wish Bakassi well in Cameroon, for going by the inhumane treatment given to the peoples of Niger Delta; one cannot help but wish Bakassi well.
We also hope that the people of Bakassi will learn from the ill treatment meted out to Niger Delta and start early to agitate for a better social corporate responsibility from those French companies lining up to start exploration. Above all, they should politically engage Paul Biya to relax some of his draconian policy and open up the political space he has dominated since 1982.
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Nigerian Judiciary: A benchmark of corruption.
August 13, 2008 by Che Oyimnatumba · Leave a Comment
The rot in the Nigerian Judiciary received a hoot of disapproval with the questionable and inconsistent interpretation of the Electoral Act which midwifed the April 2007 General Election, believed to be the worst in Nigeria history. This rot has been heaped at the door step of the Court of Appeal, especially after the stench from Osun state and the abracadabra in Jos that upturned the judgment of the lower tribunal and returned David Mark as the winner.
But what most Nigerians have closed their eyes to, is that the corruption in the judiciary goes beyond the Election Tribunals. The real rot commences in the Registry of the Nigeria judiciary. A lawyer who spoke with us, said that these Process Unit staff as they are called, are responsible for missing content in a litigant’s file, contrary dates of adjournments. Apart from extorting a litigant by claiming that there is no file to house his writ of summons and other originating documents, these junior staff willingly tell litigants which judge is open to receiving bribes.
Another source of corruption in the Nigerian judiciary is the lawyers. A good number of lawyers in a bid to get ahead encourage the corrupt practices by these junior staff. A good number shunt due process and compromise the judiciary staff into inserting documents into a file out of time; some go to the extent of informing litigants that there is need to pay certain amount of fees to facilitate favourable judgment. When their matter is not assigned to an amiable judge, they refile and grease palms in order to get their process before the “appropriate” judge.
If the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA-Umbrella body for all lawyers in Nigeria) is serious about the fight against corruption in Nigeria, there is need for her to start from members of the bar, rather than this crocodile tears over Ribadu and EFCC.
The judiciary Service Commission, should clamp down on any judge fingered in corrupt practices. As a deterrent, any judge whose name is whispered in questionable deal, should be placed on suspension and in innocent, the accuser should be disrobed if a lawyer and if a litigant, be prosecuted for obstructing justice.
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Rotimi Amaechi’s Victory Challenged
July 29, 2008 by Che Oyimnatumba · 1 Comment
Finally, a ray of judicial hope appears in the questionable imposition of Rotimi Amaechi as governor of Rivers State by the Supreme Court. The Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) candidate in the 14 April 2007 election in Rivers State, Sergeant Awuse has petitioned the National Judicial Council (NJC) over the refusal of both the Rivers State Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal to hear his appeal challenging the victory of the PDP in the election.
Awuse wants the NJC to reconstitute an Election Petition Tribunal to hear his petition alleging massive irregularities. According to Awuse, the law cannot trade off these irregularities, rigging, allotment of votes and unlawful votes INEC donated to PDP. He further more stated that the Supreme Court’s resolution of the PDP primary crisis in favour of Amaechi, is different from the general election.
Both the Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, has refused to hear Awuse’s petition on the grounds that the Supreme Court had ordered Amaeachi the rightful PDP candidate and all votes cast for PDP in the election be deemed for Amaechi. It is this blank cheque that Awuse is challenging, reasoning that, the election that produced the votes PDP claimed, was rigged and should be held up to the rules of the Electoral Act.
In the run up to the election, Amaechi’s name was substituted with Celestine Omehia, who contested the general election on the platform of the PDP against other political parties in accordance with the Electoral Act.
Rotimi Amaechi, never stood for the general election, as he was not fielded by the PDP.
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PDP Disagrees with Ondo Tribunal Verdict.
July 27, 2008 by Che Oyimnatumba · 1 Comment
In deed how the cookies crumble. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Ondo State Chapter, are up in arms, shouting blue murder over the July 25th judgment of the Ondo Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Akure. The tribunal had nullified the election of incumbent PDP governor Dr. Olusegun Agagu and ordered that the Labour Party (LP) candidate Dr. Olusegun Mimiko be sworn in as governor.
In an advertorial in the major national dailies, signed by Dr. Tayo and Professor Olusoga Olopade State Chairman and State Legal adviser of PDP respectively, the PDP accused the tribunal of frustrating their efforts to get a Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment, to enable them file an appeal within 21 days as prescribed by the rules of the Electoral Act. The advertorial further alleged that the judgment was not ready after over 2 hours despite the chairman Justice Garuba Nabraruma’s promise in open court that the judgment is ready.
Another curious expose by the advertorial, is that the judgment was not wholly type written. This lacuna has given PDP a life line to impute that the untyped part is reserved for adulteration to balance the judgment delivered in favour of LP’s candidate.
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Mimiko’s Victory: A life line for Labour Movement In Nigeria?
July 26, 2008 by Che Oyimnatumba · Leave a Comment
The Election Tribunal sitting in Akure Ondo State after 14 months, yesterday pronounced the Labour Party’s gubernatorial candidate Dr. Rahman Olusegun Mimiko as the winner of the April 14th 2007 governorship election. Justice Garba Nabaruma, who read the lead judgment, said that the petitioner proved his case beyond reasonable and scored highest lawful votes cast in all the 18 Local Government Areas of the state. Mimiko scored 198,269 against PDP’s incumbent governor Olusegun Agagu’s 128,669. Governor Agagu speaking to the people of Ondo, appealed to them to remain calm and law abiding, as he has briefed his lawyers to file an appeal within 21 days as provided by the rules of the Electoral Act. The tribunal ordered that Mimiko be sworn in instantly as the governor.
Before this rare courageous judgment, the Edo Electoral Tribunal sitting in Benin City had announced Adams Oshiomhole as winner and ordered immediate swearing in. Its over four months since this historic judgment and the Court of Appeal to which Professor Osunbour took his appeal to, have not given a date to hear the matter.
Like an abandoned orphan, the labour movement in Nigeria appears to leave Adams to his travails, arguing that the platform under which he contested poses a credibility question should the Labour
Movement move in to engage the judiciary over the Court of Appeal’s detached attitude towards Professor Osunbour appeal. Adams was the immediate past president of Nigerian Labpur Congress (NLC) and ran for election under the flag of Action Congress (AC), a party formed and funded by the former Vice President Atiku. During the romantic days of Atiku and the ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, Atiku was like his Oga anti-labour, especially the anti-fuel hike price strikes by NLC. Nigerians are still at sea why Adams left Labour Party to contest under a mirror image of PDP. Professor Osunbor, is a professor of law, which many input may be responsible for the nonchalant attitude of his learned colleagues towards speedy hearing of the appeal.
With this victory in Akure of Mimiko, who was a member of the PDP and a minister of Housing and Urban Development in Obasanjo’s regime before the 2007 election, Nigerians are apprehensive that comatose NLC under Umar may have found a tonic to be relevant. Many a time, the tribunal of first instance have ruled brilliantly but such erudite judgments have been upturned at the Court of Appeal. A fresh sour reminder is the judicial murder by the Court of Appeal Jos division in the case of David Mark, the Senate President.
Threats have been flying in the direction of the Court of Appeal following this victorious judgment for the Labour Party. The little unknown Labour Party is puffing but I wonder if the will get the needful support from the NLC, which has been silent in the face of nagging national issues. Since Umar took over from Adams, a lot of national issues requiring NLC intervention have been lying fallow. Despite Umar being the president of NUT, NLC is dragging her feet in the lingering nationwide teachers strike over harmonised salary structure and better working condition.
As is customary in Nigeria, anti-PDP parties, hailed the judgment as a triumph of justice, victory for the truth.
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David Mark,Onyinola, Get Kangaroo Judgment; failure of the opposition in Nigeria.
July 16, 2008 by Che Oyimnatumba · Leave a Comment
There is a common saying among my religious friends that “voice of the people, is voice of God” The learned ones, claim that when a knotty legal issue clouds the mind of the judge, he uses a test called the layman’s reasoning.
If these two maxims by the highest institution coined by man-Religion because we will all die and meet God. The Judiciary because we shall be plead our innocence before a judge called god-believe that sanity rests with the people, can the judgment coming from Court of Appeal Jos and Osun State Electoral Tribunal be said to have met those standards?
In Osun State, the petitioner, Action Congress Gubernatorial candidate in the April 2007 election, Rauf Aregbesola at the dusk hour of the tribunal have alleged that the justices of the tribunal have been compromised via questionable communication between the counsel to the respondent and incumbent governor, Oyinola, Mr. Kunle Kalajaye SAN. The latest two editions of The News Magazine published a call log, believed to be that of exchange between the learned SAN and the judges of the tribunal.
To the man on the street, this exposure whether true or not, did cast a shadow on the integrity of the tribunal and one would have thought for the avoidance of doubt, the tribunal should have arrested her judgment till the stench hanging around them have been expunged, either by the Judicial Service Commission or The president of Court of Appeal. But to further rob salt into a fresh wound, the tribunal brought forward the date of judgment delivery to Tuesday July 15th and dealt a mortal blow on the faith of the common man in the judiciary as the last hope of an aggrieved person. Lawyers are speaking grammar on the admissibility or otherwise of the documents that would have furthered their case. Well a tinted judiciary has delivered a tinted judgment. The battle front has been shifted to the Court of Appeal, which in recent judgments have shown that there is no hope.
It was at the Court of Appeal sitting in Jos that the judges did America wonder. The election tribunal sitting in Markudi had ruled calling for a re-run in two LGA and declared that of the valid votes counted, Young Alhaji dusted David Mark. The tribunal had the fear of God and gave a twisted judgment that led to appeal by Mark and cross appeal by Young Alhaji. If Young Alhaji scored the highest of the valid votes counted, why not declare him winner?
But PDP hell bent on implementing her 60 years must rule, drafted in the judge that delivered a questionable judgment in another division, to do the hatchet job. Instead of upholding the judgment of the lower tribunal defective as it was, the Court of Appeal drove in the spear and dared Nigerians. David Mark was declared winner of the election!
Nigerians on the street believe that the court of Appeal gave Judgment without Justice. Justice to the people of Benue and all believers in Rule of Law was raped. Nigerians are crying; where is justice? Can a wife be raped in front of her husband without the rapist keeping a date with his maker?
The docility of Nigerians have been exposed with these kangaroo judgments and other Africans are asking, what kind of leadership example is Nigerians showing with regards to the defense of their mandate since the court has failed?
It’s over three months since Adams Oshiomhole defeated a professor of law in Edo state, yet no judgment has been delivered. If in deed that the sweetness of excreta can be ascertained by the smell of fart, Oshiomhole and lovers of democracy should belt up for the Ukrainian method of mandate defense. It is apparent that there is no opposition party to organize Nigerians to wrestle power from the PDP. Hope only lies in the movement of the people to emancipate them from the criminal bondage of the PDP. The victory of David Mark and Oyinola with the active connivance of the judiciary is due to the dearth of opposition party politics in Nigeria. Where are all those impotently claiming to be champions of democracy because they quarreled with Obasanjo over third term? Are they not part of the train of Ali Baba and the forty thieves?
In case you don’t know, the one party state structure in Nigeria has started.
Let us stop this academic hot air puffing that the dominance of one party cannot happen in Nigeria, it is already here. Were was other parties when the Senate went on recess to prepare for eventuality in case that conscience catches up with the Court of Appeal and they rule in line with facts on ground? When the last time was any of these Socio-cultural clubs masquerading as political parties held any sensitization rally or protest any policy of this sleeping government?
Nigerians Unite! The era of the gods descending like Songo to frighten leaders have gone. Our destiny towards a 21st Century democratic, economic and technological giant is in our hands.
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