Headline

Senate Empowered to Call Buhari’s Bluff on Election Change

Published

6 years ago

March 17, 2018

Eric

The Senate has been advised to ignore the reasons given by President Muhammadu Buhari for not signing the Electoral Act 2010 Amendment Bill passed by the National Assembly.

Based on the advice from the Senate’s Legal Department, the upper chamber has vowed to proceed with the process to override the President’s veto on the bill, which seeks to reorder the sequence of elections.

A new Section 25 in the Electoral Act, which states that the sequence of the elections will commence with National Assembly, to be followed by governorship and state Houses of Assembly, while presidential poll will come last.

Earlier, Buhari had written to both chambers of the National Assembly on his decision to withhold assent to the amendment bill.

In the letter dated March 8, 2018, the President had said the amendments made by the lawmakers were in conflict with the existing laws.

The Senate had resolved on Tuesday when the letter was read to members to seek legal advice from the Legal Department.

The department listed what it considers to be the holes in all the three arguments raised by Buhari.

The lawyers said while the President claimed that the amendment introducing a specific sequence for elections under Section 25 of the Principal Act 2010 infringed on the discretion of INEC to “organise, undertake and supervise elections,” the section cited by Buhari had been amended.

They argued that the correct legal position was contained in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 First Alteration Act 2010, Act No. 1, “specifically Section 5 provides that ‘Section 76 of the Principal Act is altered thus…(a) Subsection (1) Line 2, by inserting immediately after the word ‘commission’ the words ‘in accordance with the Electoral Act.’”

The department stated, “From the above amendment, it is crystal clear that the power to regulate the principal elements of all federal electoral process were expressly, by the above amendment, removed from the Independent National Electoral Commission and vested in the National Assembly, which has the power to pass laws for ‘peace, order and good government’ of the Federal Republic of Nigeria or any part thereof.”

The department further said the President argued that the sequencing of the elections under Section 25 infringed on the discretion of INEC, “without expressly pointing out in what specific aspects or ways and manner cannot be a basis for legal or constitutional argument or decision.”

The lawyers added, “With due respect, the opinion expressed is too general to establish a basis for the exercise of a legal or constitutional power, more so because ‘discretion’ is a principle governed by the rules of Administrative Law and not that of Constitutional Law, which the President claimed to have anchored his arguments.”

They further argued that the term, ‘organise, undertake and supervise,’ might have conferred a wide discretion on INEC in matters of logistics in the preparation and conduct of elections, stating that the issue of discretion only comes to fore in the actual details of the preparation, organising and conducting elections.

“It is respectfully submitted that the sequencing of the elections in a bill as to which was scheduled as first or last in the conduct does not in any way hamper or affect the discretion and capacity of INEC to organise, undertake and conduct these elections into various constitutional offices provided,” the department stated.

The lawyers also said the new Subsection 3 introduced into Section 138 of the Electoral Act, which the President argued repealed two crucial grounds upon which elections could be challenged, “is not entirely correct and the view could be misplaced.”

Citing reasons for the displacement of Buhari’s argument, the department stated that the new subsection actually clarified the ambiguity contained in Subsection 1 of the Principal Act and reinforces the constitutional standards specified in Sections 65, 106, 131 and 177 of the 1999 Constitution.

“In addition, it further provides that no person shall be qualified to contest elections in breach of any of the Sections 66, 107, 137 or 182 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended,” the lawyers said.

The department further stated that the amendment to Section 152 (3) to (5), which collectively imposed an obligation on the State Independent Electoral Commissions to apply the standard of ‘free, fair and credible elections in the conduct of local government elections is within the competence of the National Assembly’ to make laws in respect of the procedure regulating elections into the local government councils.

This, they said, is in accordance with Item 11 of the Concurrent Legislative List of the 1999 Constitution.

Headline

We’ve Become Embarrassment to the World, TY Danjuma Laments

Published

7 mins ago

April 20, 2024

Eric

By Eric Elezuo

A former Minister of Defence, and Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (rtd), has lamented that Nigeria is a war front, and has become an embarrassment to the world, while appealing to all and sundry to be their brother’s keeper and cease killing one another, in order to attract foreign investors from across the world.

Danjuma, who spoke Friday at the opening ceremony of the Nwonyo International Fishing and Cultural Festival in Ibi Local Government Area of Taraba State, said Nigeria has devolved into a war zone where citizens are killing one another.

He said: “There is no sane foreign person that will come to our country to celebrate with us if we continue to kill each other and make our roads unsafe for people to move around.

“As we are today as Nigeria we are a disgrace to the whole world. The country is a war front where our people are against our own people.

“We must put our house in order because right now we are a laughing stock to the whole world.

“We must stop killing each other. We must make our roads safe. We must stop kidnappings.

“If we are expecting this festival to be truly international, we must have peace in our State and throughout the country.”

It would be recalled that the former Minister, in rare fit of outburst, while speaking at the maiden convocation of the Taraba State University, called out the military, accusing them of colluding with terrorists in an attempt to indulge in ethnic cleansing.

Born about 86 years ago, Danjuma was the Chief of Army Staff from July 1975 to October 1978. He was also Minister of Defence under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.

According to Wikipedia, Danjuma was born in Takum, Taraba State (formally Gongola), Nigeria, to Kuru Danjuma and Rufkatu Asibi. Takum was mainly a farming community when Danjuma was young, and yams, rice, cassava, and beniseed were largely cultivated by families and clans. His father was a hardworking peasant whose ancestors were all highly respected members of the community. Kuru Danjuma was a farmer who traded metal parts for farming implements and tools.

He started his education at St Bartholomew’s Primary School in Wusasa and moved on to the Benue Provincial Secondary School in Katsina-Ala where he was the captain of the school cricket 1st XI team; he received his Higher School Certificate in 1958. In 1959, Danjuma enrolled at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science, and Technology in Zaria (Ahmadu Bello University) to study History on a Northern Nigeria Scholarship.

However, by the end of 1960, Danjuma had left the university to enroll in the Nigerian Army.

Danjuma’s military sojourn will be incomplete without a recount of the role he played on the July 29, 1966, when he, alongside other officers of northern extraction, stage a retaliation coup, killing the Head of State, General Aguiyi Ironsi, and his host, Lt. Col. Adekunle Fajuyi, in Ibadan, Oyo State.

The operation, code named July Rematch, also had Murtala Mohammed, Buka Suka Dimka, Muhammadu Buhari, Sani Abacha, Musa Usman, Ibrahim Taiwo, Ibrahim Bako, Ibrahim Babangida, and others as participants.

Though Danjuma had denied the roles he supposedly played in the coup and killings of the two ranking officers, reports detail as follows: “Danjuma picked up Nigeria’s first military Head of State General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi and first military Governor of the former Western Region Lt Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi (who was hosting Aguiyi-Ironsi at his residence in Ibadan) from the side of the road, as there were escaping an ambush orchestrated by Danjuma, Mohammed, Dimka, Buhari and others.

“Danjuma held them captive in the back of his car and drove off to an isolated area in Oyo state, where he ordered them to get out and shot them in cold blood.”

The events of that day turned out to be the harbinger of a 30 months catastrophic war, which claimed millions of lives, especially from the South East region of the country.

Today, Danjuma is in the habit of giving back to the society, using his TY Danjuma Foundation. The foundation has continued to take care of persons and institutions the distinguished soldier come across with.

“To show my gratitude to my country and to the Almighty God, I give,” he said

Headline

Breaking: Wike Plans to Attend Thursday’s PDP NEC Meeting

Published

3 days ago

April 17, 2024

Eric

By Eric Elezuo

The immediate past Governor of Rivers State, and Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr Nyesom Wike, may have concluded plans to attend the much advertised National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), billed to hold on Thursday, in Abuja.

Impeccable source, who is in the know, told The Boss that the minister, whose membership of the PDP is yet to be revoked even as he frolicks with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and serving in the President Bola Tinubu government as a minister.

The Source told The Boss that Wike’s impending presence at the NECeeting on Thursday is not unconnected with plans, already hatched with some governors, to weaken the opposition PDP.

“Yes, we have on good authority that FCT minister, Wike is planning to attend the NEC meeting tomorrow all in a bid to weaken the fabrics of the PDP, and pave the way for the continuation of the Tinubu administration come 2027, and by extension, relapse Nigeria to a full blown one party state.

“From every indication, Wike and his co-travellers, are bent on unleashing the same crisis ravaging the third force, Labour Party, and Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso’s Nigerian National People’s Party (NNPP) on the PDP for the APC to remain the only political party in the country, and ensure that Tinubu has no challenger, come 2027,” the Source said.

It would be recalled that Wike has boasted over and again that there’s no opposition against Tinubu’s re-emergence in 2027, and that they have made sure of that. He has been compensated with the Ministerial job after he withdrew support for his party, and supported the APC and Tinubu to emerge as national government.

The Source further revealed that in the attempt to actualize the intended one party state, a lot of funding is ongoing to ensure that concerned stakeholders are ‘settled’ handsomely.

Wike, prior, during and after the 2023 general elections, has been floating in between the two major political parties; the APC and the PDP. While he claim to still be a member of the PDP, he is functioning as a minister in an APC government, mocking the inability of his party to discipline him.

Political stakeholders have concluded that the outcome of Thursday’s PDP NEC meeting will determine the path Nigeria’s political trajectory will take, and that it may portend the end of multi-party system and political democracy if Wike succeeds in his plan.

Headline

Bribery, Corruption: APC Suspends National Chairman, Ganduje

Published

5 days ago

April 15, 2024

Eric

The All Progressives Congress ward in Ganduje, Dawakin Tofa Local Government Area, has suspended the party’s National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje.

The party ward legal adviser, Halliru Gwanzo, announced the suspension while addressing newsmen in Kano State on Monday.

Gwanzo cited allegations of bribery against Ganduje levelled by the Kano State Government as the reason for the suspension.

“We decided to suspend Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje from the party due to the seriousness of the allegations against him,” Gwanzo said.

Meanwhile, efforts to contact the Chief Press Secretary to the APC National Chairman, Mr Edwin Olufo, failed as his mobile phone was unreachable.