Bribery allegation divides Anambra State.

According to Val Obieyem Esq. Special Assistant Media to Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State, the allegation by Hon. Njideka Ezeigwe is a joke.  Barrister Obieyem further stressed that going by Governor Obi’s antecedents it will be an imaginary concoction of a mentally deranged person to opine and believe that Governor Obi will offer a bribe to the PDP dominated house. Obieyem said that it is the height of sadism for people to play chess with the development of Anambra. According to Obieyem it was out of obeisance to due process and rule of law to which Gov. Obi is a faithful adherent that made him present the budget to the house on December 27^th 2007, thinking others would be patriotically inclined to pass the budget before the end of the first quarter of 2008.

Barrister Obieyem was reacting to Hon. Njideka Ezeigwe, a leader of the Anambra State Assembly who had at a stakeholders rally organised by a faction of the PDP loyal to Andy Uba accused Governor Peter Obi of offering a bribe of N50 million naira each to the 30 members of the Assembly to rush them into signing the 2008 budget of N57.6billion.

In a related development, Anambra State Association of Town Unions has called on the House of Assembly to increase the 2008 Anambra state budget.  News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the House Committee on Finance and Appropriation slashed the budget from N84.2 billion to N57.6 billion, reducing allocations to all sectors of the state but increased the allocation to the assembly from N284million to N1.235 million.

Meanwhile a group of youths going by the name of Concerned Youths of PDP (CYPAS), gave the factional PDP state chairman Mr. Tony Nwoye a 48 hours ultimatum to vacate office or face the wrath of the youths. This fatwa is against the backdrop of the division of the division in the PDP led Assembly with 11 supporting Tony Nwoye’s leadership while 19 supports Bright Nebedum leadership.

 

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RE: Senate Clears Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello

1. When will this rubbish stop? Why should aa legislature, wwith its budget/appropriations duly approved collect funds from the ministries? Under which statutes ? Is the legislature haveing two streams of income- from the ministries and from the annual budget?
2. YOUR PROBES……… Where were all of you whether in the Obasanjo era when all this abracadabra was taking place? What happened to your oversight functions? You never went or never saw the despoilation of our common patrimony?
3. YOU all should be very very ashamed of yourselves. Youyr constituencies have no amenities , yet the ministries are having surpluses at the end of the year. Your constituencies lack almost every social amenitires and you are happy with a foreign account balance in the positive that is only diminishing in value by the day, no thanks to the falling dollar.
4. WHEN will you rise up to the occassion? After we all perish out of frustration? Are you not from families and homesteads across Nigeria?
5. WHY,WHY,WHY?

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Professor Grange to face 56 Count Charges.

 

The former minister of health, Professor Adenike Grange was today 8^th day of April arraigned with 9 others before an Abuja High Court by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) on 56 count charges which include corruptly enriching herself.  The court refused her bail application and ordered she be remanded in prison custody. She pleaded not guilty and the matter has been adjourned to 11^th day of April for hearing.

Prior to these formal charges, the health minister was forced to resign over unspent residue of N 300 million naira from the 2007 budget , which she claimed she was ill advised to spend contrary to presidential directive that all unspent monies as at December 31^st 2007 be returned by all ministries and agencies.

Also charged with her is Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, who was not in court. Senator Iyabo who heads the Senate Committee on Health is accused of personal receiving N 10 million naira and has failed to refund same in accordance with her undertaking at EFCC office during investigative stage of the matter.  According to an EFCC official, who pleaded anonymity,  the EFCC has perfected plans to bring Senator Iyabo to court at the next adjourned date.

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Iyabo Obasanjo Spent 10 Million Naira in Ghana

 In apparent bid to exonerate the Senate Committee on Health from the 300 million Naira scandal in the ministry of health, the chairperson of the committee, Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello has admitted that her committee received the sum of 10 million Naira to facilitate their retreat in Ghana from March 16 to 20 2008. Justifying her committee’s action, she quoted copiously section 3 of the Senate Rules of the Senate Code of Ethics. This Rule according to Senator Iyabo, empowers to receive support from any individual, organisation, so long as the such is targeted at public interest. Against presidential directives to return to the coffers of the federation all unspent monies spilling over from the 2007 budget, the ministry of health 300 million Naira. This has caused the minister, Prof. Grange to throw in the towel and join Hon. Olubumi Eteth (disgraced speaker of the House of Representative) in the swelling ranks of slain amazons in the murky water of Nigerian politics. Nigerians are not only worried at the fragrant disrespect of a presidential order, they are equally concerned why a Senate Committee on Health should be retreating in Ghana, where there are a lot of dead government owned specialist hospitals where this retreat could have taken place and afford the senators an on the spot assessment of the decay in the health sector. Furthermore, this year’s budget is yet to be passed. The senate committee with an over sight function must be aware of this and should have questioned the source of the “support”.

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Sir (Dr.) Peter Odili:A Questionable Reprieve!

Written By: Ashimole Felix Esq.

The immediate past governor of the oil rich Niger Delta state of Rivers, was yesterday granted a perpetual injunction against prosecution and arrest by the Economic And Financial Crime commission (EFCC).

Sir Peter Odili had gone to court seeking an order to restraining the EFCC from arresting him, and investigating his activities in office as governor of Rivers state, between 1999 and 2007

The case with suit number FHC/PH/1291/07, after suffering series of adjournment was heard on 5th March 2008 and the presiding judge, Justice Ibrahim Buba gave an injunction restraining EFCC by themselves, their agent and privy from arresting and prosecuting the embattled governor.

It will be recalled that Sir Peter Odili is married to Justice Mary Odili, a Justice of the Court Appeal. Tongues are still wagging whether Justice Odili was the most senior judge in Rivers State and by right of seniority at the bar, eligible for the catapulting to Court of Appeal.

Sir Peter Odili has been on the wanted list of corrupt ex-governors and Nigerians believed that for the anti graft war to be seen as meaningful, Odili must be brought to book. His counterpart in oil rich Delta State, James Onanefe Ibori had been a guest in Kaduna prison over his infamous conduct as a governor and inclination towards allowing “ladies” with shop lifted items to escape. During the live span of the Obasanjo regime, Sir Odili’s state was the most visited by Obasanjo. Even when the ex-president visited neighboring state, he spends the night in Port Harcourt. We know it just can’t be the enviable backside of Kalabari girls. Members of the Nigerian People’s Parliament (free readers found at newspaper vendor’s stand) opine that Odili is the mirror image of corrupt Obasanjo, who deceived Odili into believing that the presidential ticket of the PDP had been signed, sealed and delivered to him (Peter). Since the rest is history, it will serve students of history good, to find out what cowed Sir Odili, who had mobilized the South-South Assembly and heat up the polity to chicken out of the race, when his partner in…brought out a reluctant dark horse Yar’Adua to turn the apple cart.

An injunction is a discretionary order of the court, given judicially and justiciably to maintain the status quo till the substantive suit is dealt with. It is not a final judgment. And where its grant will occasion injustice, make the continuation of the case nugatory, it SHALL not be granted.

But his lordship by giving perpetual injunction to Sir Odili, has given judgment on the matter before it was heard. This amounts to going to heaven through the back door. In the most recent past, Nigerians are rekindling hope in the judiciary. But this ruling by the Federal High Court Port Harcourt, is a lamentable degeneration. This ruling coming at the heels of the Presidential Election Tribunal on the consolidated suit of Gen. Buhari of the ANPP and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the AC, in a pungent reminder that the fluke witnessed in some quarters of the judicial arm, is not a significant development that a Daniel has come to court. Akin to this is the “questionable” affirmation of the election of the Speaker of Kogi State House of Assemble, who is now acting Governor. The Court of first instance, had nullified the election and ordered for a bye-election. But the Court of Appeal, emboldened by the rape and conscienceless ruling of the 5 wise (sic) men in the Presidential (s)Election on 26th February 2008, over ruled the lower court.

This one yes on no ruling of the court, shows that we the ordinary Nigerians who thought our vote will count even if our candidate lost the election,are in for a rude shock as the hanging judgments in other guber tribunals, may not give us a cause to believe in the judiciary as the last hope of the common man. In deed in Nigeria, the scale of justice is badly tilted in favour of who has the heaviest “Ghana Must Go”, who can invite the judge’s wife to diner, award questionable legal consultancy contracts to the family members of a sitting tribunal judge.

Let all members of the judicial and fellow Nigerians be notified, the grave yard silence of Nigerians over their joint rape by the Police, the Army is not an act of cowardice, as the gentility of the cat is not synonymous with cowardice. While Nigerians await the ruling of the Supreme court, I make bold to say, this interlude, is a calm before the storm.

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