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Chidinma Recants, Says I Don’t Know Who Killed Super TV Boss, Ataga

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A Lagos High Court sitting at the Tafawa Balewa Square, on Tuesday, continued the trial of Chidinma Ojukwu, who was alleged to have killed the Chief Executive Officer of Super TV, Usifo Ataga.

Ojukwu, an undergraduate of the University of Lagos, Akoka, was arraigned alongside Adedapo Quadri and Chioma Egbuchu on October, 12, 2021, on nine counts over the alleged murder of Ataga.

The court resumed watching the recorded video footage showing the confessional statement of Ojukwu before Justice Yetunde Adesanya.

In the video, she said she did not know who killed the deceased as she had gone out on the day of the incident.

She said she saw Ataga on the floor when she came back, and immediately packed her property and left because she was scared.

On the last adjourned date on October 11, 2022, the video recording was played, showing the lifeless body of Ataga.

A part of the video had also shown Ojukwu’s confession where she said she killed the deceased on her own.

In the video played on Tuesday, Ojukwu was asked why she denied knowing the deceased during interrogation.

She said she did not deny knowing him but that she did not kill him.

Ojukwu said, “I don’t know who came in after I left the room. When I came back, I saw him bleeding. I had to leave because I was scared, I did not kill him, I don’t know who killed him.”

She said she couldn’t call for help when she saw him in a pool of blood because she was scared, noting that she also picked the deceased’s two iPhones and Macbook, which were among her things before she left.

She further said the deceased ordered the Loud smoke and Rophynol.

The prosecutor, Yusuf Sule, called the ninth witness, DSP Olusegun Bamidele, who explained how the hand-written statement of the first defendant was taken and how other defendants were arrested.

Bamidele said, “She started writing by herself, but because her handwriting wasn’t eligible, I told her that she should ensure that her writing was legible or write in capital letters. It was at that point that she said I should write for her and she confessed to killing the deceased.

“She also mentioned how she killed Michael Usifo Ataga and went away with the knife, phones and Macbook laptop. We took the first defendant to Computer Village with her laptop and we located the phone hub.”

Bamidele said one Yomi confirmed that there was a transaction between his colleague and Ojukwu over the laptop.

He said, “That was how the Macbook was recovered and Ojukwu confessed that she was the one who sold the laptop to them. We studied her call logs and noticed that there was a frequent call log between June 15, 17, 18 and 21, which led to the arrest of the 2nd defendant. He threw away his phone through the window and also attempted to jump through the window before he was arrested.”

The witness said four other phones were recovered from the second defendant, who explained how he met Ojukwu.

Bamidele also said the second defendant disclosed how Ojukwu had asked him to procure Loud smoke and Rophynol for her a number of times which he delivered to Lekki.

The witness said the third defendant was arrested through the help of the foster father of Chidinma, Onoh Ojukwu, and their uncle, Obi, alongside their mother.

The case was adjourned till October 20, for continuation of trial.

The Punch

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Lagos Bags Recognition As City with Global Worst Road Traffic

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Traffic Index has released its annual report on global traffic congestion ranking for 2023 with Lagos State emerging as the city with the worst road traffic in the world.

Traffic Index is a web-based application built on top of the traffic layer within Google Maps.

The specified layer uses 4 colors to represent traffic congestion: green, orange, red, dark-red. The darker the color is, the more congestion can bee observed in that location.

Every 20 minutes, the web app saves an image for each tracked location, containing the traffic data reported by Google Maps.

After a couple of minutes, the images are analyzed, and the percentages of the 4 traffic colors are calculated.

The Traffic Index report, which contains only cities having at least five hundred thousand residents, revealed Lagos has the worst road traffic among all cities.

Riga, the capital and largest city of Latvia, came second on the list, followed by Tehran, the capital and largest city of Iran.

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Gov. Umo Eno Floors Bassey Albert, Akan Udofia, Udoedehe at Appeal Court

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The Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos has dismissed the appeal filed by Senator Bassey Albert Akpan and his party, Young Progressives Party, Akanimo Udofia of the All Progressives Congress, APC and Senator John Akpanudoedehe of the New Nigerian Peoples Party,NNPP, challenging the election of Governor Umo Eno of the Peoples Democratic Party.

At separate judgements delivered on Friday in Lagos, the Appellate Court struck out the respective appeals by the three appellants, describing them as lacking in merit.

The court ruled that the appellants missed the point by arguing that since they were not parties in the case, the judgement on the certificate matter was not binding on them.

“The declaratory judgment of a competent court is a judgement in rem is binding on the whole world, and not only on those who were parties in the case,” the court stated

The Court faulted the abuse of judicial process by the Appellants in re-litigating a matter that was dispensed at the High Court, Appeal Court and Supreme Court in favour of the 2nd respondent Pastor Umo Eno Bassey.

“There was no forged certificate presented to INEC. It has already been held to be genuine by the supreme Court, so the issue is resolved against the appellant.”

Ruling further on the appeal by the YPP governorship candidate, the appellate court also faulted the inability of the appellants to summon witnesses who were at the elections as polling agents, to prove their case of elections irregularities.

The court was of the opinion that Bassey Albert and his party only depended on documentary evidences amounting to hearsay, to allege irregularities, without making efforts to bring those who witnessed and took part in the elections at the polling units.

On the local government collation agents that the YPP candidate paraded before the court, the court held that “it is possible to say that the evidence given by Bassey Albert’s witnesses amounted to drama scripts meant to entertain the gallery and not serious statements that could influence the emergence of a Governor.”

Noting further”In pleading a petition, you can’t compel a party to call a witness of your choice, the appellant could if they so wish call any witness. The petitioner must also tender all documents, electoral forms and witnesses who saw it all to prove the alleged illegalities and give life to the documents tendered”

The appeal court also dismissed the preliminary objection by Bassey Albert’s counsel, Tunde Falola, and ruled that the briefs filed by the respondents did not violate the Appeal Court practice direction.

Falola had raised objections, arguing that the briefs of argument by the respondents ran more than the number of pages stipulated by the court practice guidelines and should be rejected.

But the court dismissed the objection insisting that the extra pages did not constitute part of the briefs l, but were mere acknowledgment of authorities and addresses of parties.

The Court ruled that the burden of proof in the allegations that the name of the 2nd Respondent was not the same as the names on the 1981 and 1983 WAEC certificates, was on the Appellants, adding that they failed to establish the proof.Appeal Court Upholds Umo Eno’s election as Akwa Ibom Governor and then awarded a cost of N500,000 in favour of Governor Eno and the PDP .

Following the March 2023 election, INEC declared Umo Eno winner polling 356,348 votes to defeat his closest rival, Bassey Albert of the YPP who polled 136,262 votes.

Recall that the Akwa Ibom electoral petition tribunal had earlier affirmed the election of Umo Eno as the governor of the state.

In its judgement, the tribunal dismissed the petition marked EPT/AKW/GOV/01/2023 instituted by Albert Bassey and his party, the Young Progressives Party (YPP), which challenged the election of the Akwa Ibom state governor.

The unanimous judgement read by Adekunle Adeleye, who led the panel, held that the issue of Eno’s qualification had already been settled by the supreme court.

The tribunal held that the WAEC official summoned via a subpoena as PW10 authenticated the certificates, insisting that “WAEC did not disclaim the 1981 and 1983 WAEC certificates. Without a disclaimer by the issuing authority, the certificates remain valid,” the court held.

The court also held that “There is no legislation in Nigeria that a person’s name should be arranged in a particular order on a document.

“In the absence of any other person holding claims to the said 1981 and 1983 WAEC certificates, I hold that the certificates belong to the 2nd Respondent.

“Even the 1st petitioner himself told the court he was a victim of the same issue as three documents bearing his name tendered as exhibits before the tribunal carried different arrangements of his name, Albert Bassey, Akpan Bassey Albert and Bassey Albert Akpan. This is a case of a pot calling the kettle black.”

Summarily, the tribunal dismissed Bassey’s petition describing it as frivolous and baseless.

The tribunal had also dismissed the petition of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Akanimo Udofia.

Udofia sought the nullification of Eno’s election on the grounds that he presented forged documents to INEC, and also did not score the highest number of valid votes in the March 18, governorship poll.

Udofia also accused the 2nd respondent of being convicted by an Abuja magistrate court, hence not qualified to be fielded for elections.

However, the tribunal ruled that the allegations of substantial non-compliance with the electoral law in the conduct of the elections were not sufficiently proven by the petitioners in their case.

The panel also ruled that the magistrate court, in its judgment, nullified its earlier conviction of Eno and that once a judgment is nullified, it ceases to exist.

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Court Grants Emefiele N300m Bail

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Justice Hamza Muazu of the Federal Capital Territory High Court Abuja, has granted the immediate past Governor of the Central Bank, Mr Godwin Emefiele, bail in the sum of N300 million and two sureties in like sum.

The sureties must have certificates of occupancy and titles of properties within the Maitama District.

Emefiele is mandated to deposit all his travel documents with the registrar of the court and must remain within the Abuja Municipal Council.

He is expected to remain in Kuje Correctional Centre pending when he meets the bail conditions.

Emefiele was absent Wednesday morning for the ruling on his bail application. His lawyer, Mr Mathew Burkaa, however, said it was normal, as he is already at the Kuje Correctional Centre.

This comes four months after the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos granted him bail in the sum of N20 million.

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