The Pan Yoruba Socio-Political Group, Afenifere, on Thursday described its insistence that power returns to the South and specifically to the South East, as a clarion call for equity, inclusiveness and respect for the abiding covenant of the national engagement.
The group, said its position on the 2023 presidential election, was informed by the fact that other parts of the Southern Nigeria, had taken their shots, at the presidency.
The position of Afenifere, was re-emphasised by the former Secretary General of the group, Chairman Presidential Advisory Committee on the 2014 National Conference, Senator Femi Okunrounmu, in a statement entitled “The Imperative of Nigerian President from South East Extraction.”
Okunrounmu, who highlighted some of the recommendations of the 2014 CONFAB, said the issue of federal character and power rotation, was paramount.
He said “the government of Goodluck Jonathan constituted the 2014 National Conference which I had the privilege of being appointed as Chairman of its Presidential Advisory Committee and a delegate.
The resolutions at the 2014 CONFAB have since become the new testament of our national political engagement.
One of the fundamental gains from the Conference which derived from earlier conferences under Abacha and Obasanjo, was the rotation of the office of the President between the North and South and amongst the constituent six geo-political zones.
“While the military imposed 1999 Constitution, has made itself not amenable in its fundamental essence, the rotational principle has become the binding convention which can only be breached at the health of the federation.”
“
On the rotational presidency, Okunrounmu specifically, said the South West and South-South had taken their turns through Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, respectively.
He said, “Thus those who delinquently run their mouths against Ayo Adebanjo, Leader of Afenifere for expressing in the strongest terms that the denial of the South East its legitimate turn may sound the death knell of the federation are only being hypocritical or in the uneasy foreboding of losing unmerited privileges in the Nigeria contraption.
The resolutions at the 2014 CONFAB have since become the new testament of our national political engagement.
One of the fundamental gains from the Conference which derived from earlier conferences under Abacha and Obasanjo, was the rotation of the office of the President between the North and South and amongst the constituent six geo-political zones.
“While the military imposed 1999 Constitution, has made itself not amenable in its fundamental essence, the rotational principle has become the binding convention which can only be breached at the health of the federation.”
“
On the rotational presidency, Okunrounmu specifically, said the South West and South-South had taken their turns through Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan, respectively.
He said, “Thus those who delinquently run their mouths against Ayo Adebanjo, Leader of Afenifere for expressing in the strongest terms that the denial of the South East its legitimate turn may sound the death knell of the federation are only being hypocritical or in the uneasy foreboding of losing unmerited privileges in the Nigeria contraption.
In a bid to service and manage millions of ordinary Nigerians supporting his vision for new Nigeria , Peter Obi has set up a functional call centre to interact with millions of his supporters across Nigeria . Just like MTN call centre , Obi Datti Call centre gives you opportunity to speak in the language of your choice.
BVI Channel 1 online called one of the numbers to confirm the efficacy of the call centre management and the result was excellent. However, members of the public who desire a new political order are encouraged to contact the centre for any clarification concerning Peter Obi new Nigeria project .
The numbers are :
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092206555
07000811478
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President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to recirculate the old N200 bank notes, which will remain legal tender with the newly re-designed N200, N500 and N1,000 notes until April 10, 2023.
The President disclosed this in a national broadcast to Nigerians on Thursday morning in reaction to the escalating cash scarcity in the nation as a result of the redesigning of the N200, N500 and N1,000 notes and the nationwide uproar which had attended the cash scarcity.
He assured the CBN would continue to ensure the new notes are released into the system for citizens to have access to them as the administration continues to monitor the success of the policy to ensure Nigerians are not unnecessarily suffering.
Speaking on reason for the current hardship experienced as a result of the policy, the President noted the situation had been occasioned by the activities of those he described as unscrupulous banking operators and expressed sympathies with citizens for the hardship so far faced.
“To further ease the supply pressures particularly to our citizens, I have given approval to the CBN that the old N200 bank notes be released back into circulation and that it should also be allowed to circulate as legal tender with the new N200, N500, and N1000 banknotes for 60 days from February 10, 2023 to April 10 2023 when the old N200 notes ceases to be legal tender.
“In line with Section 20(3) of the CBN Act 2007, all existing old N1000 and N500 notes remain redeemable at the CBN and designated points.
“Considering the health of our economy and the legacy we must bequeath to the next administration and future generations of Nigerians, I admonish every citizen to strive harder to make their deposits by taking advantage of the platforms and windows being provided by the CBN,” he said.
The Supreme Court has adjourned till February 22 hearing in a suit filed by Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara states against the Federal Government seeking a restraining order to stop the full implementation of the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Ni wellgeria (CBN).
The CBN had originally fixed January 31 as the deadline for old notes to be in circulation but extended it in response to pressure from Nigerians. However, before the February 10 deadline, Kogi, Kaduna and Zamfara States approached the Supreme Court, seeking that the CBN be restrained from going ahead with the deadline.
The court began hearing on the case today February 15.
The reason why people struggle financially throughout their lives is because they have spent years in school but learned nothing about money . The result is that people learn to work for money but never learn to have money work for them. These days , people go to school to acquire certificates instead of skills .
GGM Cooperative goes for skill to solve existing societal problem. Offer a solution,you will make money . Ask yourself,what solution are you offering?
This is to inform the general public who are willing to deposit their old Naira notes that CBN has put the following guideline :
1-Go to CBN website and fill an online form to generate a code or Come along with the money to the nearest CBN Branch in your state to obtain the form and fill
2- Come along with any means of identification Card,
3- A teller would be issued to you at the CBN
– The operation start from 9am to 2pm ,from 13th of Feb- to 17th
-The deadline is Friday 17-2023
Please come early so that they would attend you in time
Femi Gbajabiamila, the speaker of the House of Representatives, has attributed the current hardship occasioned by fuel and naira scarcity to “elements” bent on scuttling APC presidential candidate Bola Tinubu’s victory at the February 25 poll.
Mr Gbajabiamila stated this in Lagos on Tuesday during the launching of the second phase of a transport initiative called ‘Gbaja Ride’ for his Surulere constituents. The 35 low-fare buses will ply different routes in Surulere and its environs.
“As your representative and speaker, I have a good understanding of the current hardships and discomfort being faced by many Nigerians, without exception to my constituents,” Mr Gbajabiamila explained. “The lower legislative chamber under my leadership has been on the side of the people, working tirelessly to rescue them from these difficulties. I am glad that the judiciary has also confirmed our position on the implementation of the policy of naira redesign.”
He explained that the new naira banknotes policy was a well-thought-out one, which had unfortunately been hijacked and politicised, alleging that some elements created a crisis around the policy to stop Mr Tinubu from becoming the next president.
Mr Gbajabiamila said the plot seemed to be failing as Nigerians still keep faith with the APC and Mr Tinubu despite the chaos following the naira scarcity.
“Nobody can convince me that it is not a plot to stop Asiwaju from becoming the president of this country. But I am glad that our God is a wonderful being as the plot these people sat together to hatch, he has intervened,” said Mr Gbajabiamila.
He added, “I have followed the campaign team to the East, North and everywhere with Asiwaju, and I doff my hat for Nigerians.”
When I opened my WhatsApp on Saturday, I saw a higher than usual volume of messages and forwards from friends. The first one I opened was a riotously uneducated, sidesplittingly error-ridden, indefensibly malapropistic press statement attacking me for calling out the Supreme Court’s bizarre perversion of justice in recognizing Senate President Ahmed Lawan as Yobe North’s APC senatorial candidate when he didn’t participate in a primary election.
The statement was such an uproariously juvenile drivel that I sincerely thought it was written by someone who was trying his hand at textual comedy—following the wild success of online video comic skits.
I laughed hysterically as I read the statement. Who won’t laugh after reading of “abysmal pit of irredeemable ignorance,” “convoluted anger,” “caution-gate of self-control,” “pen-happy Kperogi,” “mood of bellicose jingoism,” “ineptly scripted toxic article,” and several other hilariously sophomoric howlers?
I opened another WhatsApp message and found that the press statement was headline news in all major newspapers in Nigeria. That was when I realized that it wasn’t a comedic script written by a barely literate high schooler choking on the ill-digested vocabularies he swallowed hurriedly; it was actually an official statement from Nigeria’s Supreme Court! Good gracious!
Facility for and proficiency in language (in Nigeria’s case the English language) and mastery of logic are as central to the job of lawyers and judges as stethoscopes are to the job of a physician. But here’s a Supreme Court that can’t write a statement that isn’t a ludicrous travesty of the language it uses for official business.
I’d never heard of the Supreme Court of any country responding to the criticism of its judgment by singling out a private individual who called them out. This is a world record of supreme infantilism.
Well, the fact that they had a need to isolate my criticism and pour such venom on me shows that I hit them at the right spot, that I exposed an uncomfortable truth about them that they’d thought had been hidden from public knowledge, which is basically that most of them are rapacious, unprincipled, conscienceless, and cash-and-carry judges who sell “justice” to the highest bidder.
The current Chief Justice of Nigeria, in fact, makes no pretenses about where his financially induced political biases lie. The other day, he was invited by Governor Nyesom Wike to commission projects during which he made openly partisan political statements and turned himself into Wike’s pitiful praise poet.
When I called him out, he issued a statement to deny making the politically compromising statements he made in Port Harcourt that I’d quoted. But after I shared the video clip of him saying exactly what he denied saying–and more–he shut up but bottled up the anger and bile that welled up in him, which he ventilated yesterday using the opportunity that my biting censure of the Supreme Court provided.
The truth is that he violated Rule 1(5) of the Judicial Code of Conduct, which says that “a judge must avoid social relationships that are improper…. or that may cast doubt on the ability of a Judicial Officer to decide cases impartially.”
So, it is either that Justice Olukayode Ariwoola is a fundamentally dishonest person who lies blatantly, or he was so helplessly inebriated by Wike’s treats that he didn’t know what he was saying in Port Harcourt, which is frankly a distinction without a difference.
The cockamamie judgments that have been emanating from the Supreme Court lately reflect the character—or lack thereof—of the man who leads it. Of course, he is not alone in this brazen-faced, in-your-face moral depravity. Most of his colleagues are also purchasable judicial mountebanks with zero self-worth. Thank God for the few honest ones among them.
In its embarrassingly rambling, incoherent riot of a press statement attacking me, the Supreme Court didn’t say a word about the judicial merit of its judgement. It only says it’s not “Father Christmas” and that “no one can get what he or she didn’t ask for.”
In other words, the Court is confessing that it doesn’t dispense justice to whoever deserves it; its “justice” is the exclusive preserve of people who “ask for” it, which is obviously code for those who pay for it. That’s straight-up judicial banditry!
But here are the issues. During the senate confirmation hearing of former CJN Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad (another hopelessly inept and compromised CJN that left his position in disgrace), Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe called attention to the legal and moral burden of overlooking the merit of cases before the Supreme Court on the basis of “mere technicality.”
“In the 2018 case of Akeredolu vs Abraham, the Supreme Court said, ‘technicality in the administration of justice shuts out justice.’…It is therefore better to have a case heard and determined on its merit than to leave the court with the shield of victory obtained on mere technicality,” Abaribe said.
In other words, the Supreme Court had laid a precedent that says the Court should not invoke procedural inanities as a pretext to subvert the legal merit of cases, which is precisely what Ariwoola’s Supreme Court did in Lawan’s case—and most cases involving generous bribe givers.
In my July 20, 2019, column titled “A ‘Technically’ Incompetent Chief Justice of Nigeria,” I wrote: “All over the world, courts rely on precedents to adjudicate current cases. Precedents may be modified, but they are rarely overturned without a compelling reason, certainly not within a few years after they were established. That is what legal scholars call stare decisis, that is, the doctrine that courts should follow precedent.”
A senior lawyer who followed my articles on the Ahmed Lawan case had told me months ago that I should forget thinking I could change anything and preserve my intellectual energies for more productive causes because the Supreme Court had already been “settled” and would deliver tendentious judgements to legitimize the electoral frauds by politicians who were too busy running for president to have time to participate in the primary elections for senatorial positions.
It was hard to believe, but it happened exactly as he said it would. So, the Supreme Court already had a conclusion (i.e., that big men with money to “spoil” Supreme Court justices must get what they “ask for,” to use the statement from the Court) and were merely searching for “evidence” to support the conclusion, instead of the other way around.
They invented the “evidence” in “technicalities,” which their own precedent had invalidated. In rhetorical studies we call that finalism.
That’s why it’s customary to say that “judgment” and “justice” are not synonymous. Some judgements pervert justice. The Nigerian Supreme Court in the last few years has shown that it’s not in the business of dispensing justice; it only gives judgments to favor people who “ask for it” the “right” way. They are not the “Father Christmas” of justice. They are wolfish judicial bandits who operate a judgment-for-sale racket with impunity.
At this rate, this Supreme Court of judicial bandits may give us a “Supreme Court president,” that is, a person who comes fourth (a la Hope Uzodinma of Imo State) in the presidential election but who has enough money to “ask for” a favorable judgement from the two-bit mercenary charlatans at the Supreme Court.
In June 2020, Malawians took to the streets and the judges joined to resist the attempt by President Peter Mutharika to fire Chief Justice Andrew Nyirenda in order to enable him rig a presidential re-run. The people trusted the Chief Justice more than the president, so they got rid of the president in order to keep the Chief Justice. One month later, in Mali, an uprising began when an unpopular ruling party used the Constitutional Court to rob the opposition of its victories, eventually leading to the dissolution of the court and a military coup.
Judicial immersion in political disputes is hazardous and judges called upon to do it have a clear choice to either resist importunations that compromise their authority or canoodle with the politicians at the risk of irremediable damage to judicial office. Nigeria’s Supreme Court appears to have made its choice and the consequences are unflattering.
At the beginning of 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari procured the termination of a Chief Justice of Nigeria in a manner that manifestly flouted the constitution. A public long inured to the machinations of a judiciary many of whose senior members appeared to treat their judicial oaths with levity, chose not to take notice.
This denouement was long in the making. On 18 January 2008, Nigeria’s Supreme Court installed Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi as Governor of Rivers State in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. Mr. Amaechi scored 6,527 out of 6,577 votes cast in the primaries organized by the then ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the governorship election on 14 April, 2007. The party hierarchy duly forwarded his name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as its candidate.
However, on 2 February 2007, the party withdrew Mr. Amaechi’s name and asked INEC, then chaired by an alchemist called Maurice Iwu, to substitute in his stead one Celestine Omehia who did not participate in the primaries. Mr. Amaechi sued to challenge the substitution but while the case was pending, the party dismissed him from the PDP; INEC then organized the elections, declaring Mr. Omehia the validly elected governor of Rivers State.
In a judgment of unprecedented audacity, the Supreme Court on 25 October, 2007, sacked Omehia, affirming Amaechi as the winner in which he did not campaign. In reasons issued on 18 January 2008, Adesola Oguntade, the Supreme Court Justice who delivered the lead judgment with which all six other justices on the panel concurred, said: “the sum total of the recent decisions of this court is that the court must move away from the era when adjudicatory power of the court was hindered by a constraining adherence to technicalities. This often results in the loser in a civil case taking home all the laurels while the supposed winner goes home in a worse situation than he approached the court.”
Olayiwola Aderemi, another Justice on the panel, added: “The judgments of this court must not be final only in name, but must be seen to be really final in the sense that they have legal bite that makes the judgments truly conclusive. All issues that will make its judgments reasonable and conclusive must be clearly addressed by the Supreme Court. This court has a standing and rigid invitation to do substantial justice to all matters brought before it. Justice to be dispensed by this court must not be allowed to be inhibited by any paraphernalia of technicalities.”
Whether the Supreme Court has any memory of having issued these is now questionable. On 13 January, 2020, the Court issued a decision by which it declared as winner, the man who came fourth in the 2019 election for Governor of Imo State. To arrive at that wonderment, the court relied solely on the evidence of a manifestly crooked deputy commissioner of police with a wizard’s calling in conjuring up votes from ghosts. Invited to review an evidently perverse outcome the following month, a majority of the court framed the question as a challenge to their existence, making avoidable fetish out of an outcome that brought the court to manifest disrepute.
One Justice, Chima Nweze, from Enugu State (not far from Imo State, the theatre of this judicial magic), dissented, warning with remarkable prescience that the judgment “will sooner or later haunt our electoral jurisprudence.” The judgment accomplished more, however; Imo State promptly descended into anarchy under the rule of a Governor voted for exclusively by Supreme Court Justices none of whom will ever live near Imo State.
The Supreme Court appears not to have taken any notice though. In Yobe North Senatorial Zone, in north-east Nigeria, Bashir Sheriff Machina emerged in May 2022 as the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to fly its flag in the contest to represent the constituency in the Senate in the 2023 general election in primaries monitored by INEC. That seat also happens to be occupied by the current Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, who has been in the National Assembly since 1999. In June 2022, Dr. Lawan sought and lost the ticket of the party for the presidency. INEC did not monitor any other APC primary for the Senate in Yobe North, so no other person could have emerged validly besides Machina.
Yet, on 6 February, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that Ahmed Lawan, who did not participate in the only valid primary, was the APC’s candidate for the Yobe North Senate seat. Conveniently disregarding its own decision 15 years earlier requiring the court “to do substantial justice to all matters brought before it”, a three-person majority hinged its decision on the jaw-dropping premise that the lower courts lacked jurisdiction to question bare-faced robbery perpetrated against the winner because an originating summons was the wrong form of action by which to commence the proceedings. Chima Nweze, who dissented when the case affected his people in south-east Nigeria wrote the lead judgment this time while Adamu Jauro, the Supreme Court Justice from Gombe which borders Yobe State in north-east Nigeria, dissented.
Machina sued by originating summons because a Practice Direction by the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court in July 2022 required that. If he failed to comply, the Court would have declined his case. The Supreme Court punished him for complying with the rules of court applicable when he sued. To achieve that, a five-person panel of the court effectively overruled long-established precedent which only a seven-person panel can.
The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, has said the February 10 deadline of the circulation of old naira notes stands, Odogwublog reports.
Emefiele made the disclosure while briefing the diplomatic community at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja on Tuesday.
“The situation is substantially calming down since the commencement of over-the-counter payments to complement ATM disbursements and the use of super-agents. There is, therefore, no need to consider any shift from the deadline of February 10,” he said.
The clarification is coming on the heels of confusion over the supreme court order which extended the deadline to February 15, pending the hearing by the court.
Nigerians were thrown into confusion as commercial banks refused to take the old notes at their branches on Monday.
Speaking further, Emefiele said, “Some of our leaders are buying the new notes and storing them for whatever purpose and I will not expand further on that.”
Emefiele said the apex bank acknowledges the suffering of Nigerians, noting that effective implementation of the policy could scrap 4% of the inflation numbers.
He further explained that the optimal volume of cash in circulation should be around N700billion.
He said: “Even if we say N1trillion should be in circulation, we cannot refloat N3.7trillion into circulation.”
