PDP Crisis: Court Reinstates Sheriff’s Faction

A Federal High Court siting in Abuja has nullified the national convention held by the Peoples Democratic Party on May 21 in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, saying the Sen. Ahmed Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party is illegal.

Justice Okon Abang said this in preliminary ruling in an application filed the Ali Modu Sheriff-faction of the party.

It was at that convention that the National Working Committee of the party led by former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff was dissolved and a caretaker committee led by former Governor Ahmed Markarfi was constituted.

The Sheriff faction of the party had filed an application on July 4 for an interlocutory injunction seeking to stop the national convention of the party, which was planned by the Makarfi faction and scheduled for August 17.

The faction said it filed the suit numbered FHC/ABJ/CS/464/2016 for themselves and on behalf of the Executive Committee/National Working Committee of the PDP.

The suit has only the Independent National Electoral Commission and the PDP as the defendants.

The plaintiffs had contended that that by virtue of the PDP’s Constitution, they must remain in office till 2018.

They also urged the court to declare all moves aimed at removing, replacing or conducting fresh elections into their offices as illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional, null and void.

Group Urges Buhari to Name Aso Rock After Gen Aguiyi Ironsi

Fifty years after the first military coup d’état which tragically claimed the life of the then Head of State, Late General Johnson Thomas Aguiyi Ironsi, Ohanaeze Youth Council, OYC, has called on the Federal Government to immortalize the slain Head of State.

Ohanaeze Youths argued that the late Ironsi staked his life for the unity of the country and therefore, deserved to be immortalized and given his proper place in the annals of Nigerian history, according to a report by Vanguard Newspaper.

In a press statement issued by its National President, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro, Ohanaeze Youth Council expressed great regret that 50 years after his tragic death, the Federal Government was yet to immortalize Ironsi “who staked his life to unite Nigeria”.

OYC suggested that the Federal Government should “name the nation’s seat of power, Aso Rock after the late Head of State in recognition of his invaluable sacrifices for the unity of Nigeria.”

According to the statement, while the masterminds of the heinous act “are still moving around and parading themselves as statesmen, the members of Aguiyi Ironsi’s family have continued to wallow in pains and poverty.”

OYC therefore, enjoined the Federal and as well as the various State Governments to give attention to the welfare of the family to assuage their pains.

Meanwhile, the Aguiyi Ironsi family is organizing a memorial service in Umuahia to mark the 50 years anniversary of the tragic death of their father.

According to the matriarch of the family and wife of the late General, Lady Victoria Aguiyi Ironsi, a church service will hold today at the Mater Dei Catholic Cathedral, Umuahia, which will be followed by a reception at the family house.

PDP Against Igbo Presidency – APC Group

Sen. Modu Sherif, PDP National Chairman

The Buhari South East Youth Movement [BSEYM] has accused the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] of working against the emergence of President of Igbo extraction. Vanguard newspaper is quoting the group as saying that, by its recent zoning, PDP has automatically ruled out the possibility an Igbo man becoming the President of Nigeria, saying that singular act has shown that the party does not regard Ndigbo.

BSEYM, in a statement therefore, called on Ndigbo, especially the youths and women, to reject PDP, which it alleged “has greatly improvised the zone in their 16 years of misrule”.

The group urged South members of the party to withdraw their membership of the party in totality, claiming that the party has nothing good for them.

In the statement jointly signed by BSEYM’s director-general Engr. Nwabueze Onwuneme and the publicity secretary, Comrade Igwe Samuel Obinna, it said PDP’s zoning of the Presidency to the North ahead of 2019 “goes to show the disdain the PDP has for the people of the zone”.

The statement further said that the zoning “seriously goes against the spirit of justice, fairness and equity in the rotation of power between the North and South”.

According to the group, “peradventure the PDP succeeds, it will extend the Igbo Presidency project to year 2027 from the earlier year 2023 been projected for the emergence of a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction, which would now leave the North there for twelve years as against eight years been projected by the APC”.

Urging Ndigbo to reject PDP, the group noted that “by the end of President Muhammad Buhari’s second tenure it will then be ripe for the Igbos as the only ethnic nationality in southern Nigeria yet to produce an elected President after both the South-west and south-south have all had their shots on the Presidency of the nation”.

Anti-Corruption Ambassador: Ekweremadu Media Team Reacts To EFCC Denial

The attention of the Office of the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, has been drawn to a statement purportedly issued by the spokesperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, denying that the agency decorated the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu as its Anti-Corruption Ambassador.

We want to put it on record that the EFCC Liaison Officer to the National Assembly, Mr. Suleiman Bakari, and his team, applied for and susbsequently paid a courtesy call on the Deputy President of the Senate in his Office on Tuesday, April 19, 2016.

Mr. Bakari, amongst other issues he raised, solicited the support of the Senate and National Assembly towards the anti-corruption crusade of the present administration, and even presented a frame with a bold picture of President Muhammadu Buhari, bearing the inscription: “If we dont kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria”.

Mr. Bakari also, on behalf of the Acting Chairman, management, and staff of the EFCC decorated Senator Ekweremadu as an Anti-Corruption Ambassador of the EFCC.

His words: “It is, therefore my honour, Your Excellency, to on behalf of my Acting Chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Mustafa Magu and the entire management and staff of the EFCC, decorate you as

Saraki Seeks CCT Chair’s Withdrawal From Trial

Embattled Senate President, Bukola Saraki has asked Danladi Umar, chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), to withdraw himself from his trial for alleged false declaration of assets, according to latest reports from TheCable.

In an application filed by Raphael Oluyede, Saraki’s lawyer, and seen by TheCable, the senate president asked Umar to disqualify himself from the case on the grounds that he was biased.

The application, which was filed on Wednesday at the CCT, read in part: “An order disqualifying/recusing the Honourable Justice Danladi Umar (Chairman of this tribunal) from sitting on the panel of this tribunal for hearing and determination of the charges filed in these proceedings for the reason that his continued presence on the said panel of this tribunal offends the provisions of section 36 (1) of the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria which prescribes that ‘In the determination of his civil rights and obligations, including any question or determination by or against any government or authority, a person shall be entitled to a fair hearing within a reasonable time by a court or other tribunal established by law and constituted in such manner as to secure its independence and impartiality.’

It also read: “A likelihood of bias by the tribunal against the appellant… undermines and withdraws from the tribunal, the jurisdiction which it is normally endowed….”

In March, Saraki had filed an application asking the judge to declare he had no jurisdiction to hear the matter. But Umar dismissed his application and ordered the commencement of trial.