Headlines
Akpata, Adesina, Ajibade Jostle for NBA Presidency As Ogunlana Challenges Disqualification
A former Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Ikeja branch, Mr Adesina Ogunlana, has vowed to challenge the verdict of the Lagos State High Court in Ikeja, which affirmed his disqualification from the NBA presidential race.
Nigerian lawyers, under the aegis of the NBA, are set to elect a new set of national leaders in an electronic poll scheduled for July 29 and 30, 2020.
In the NBA presidential race are two Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Mr Dele Adesina and Dr Babatunde Ajibade; as well as a former Chairman of the NBA Section on Business Law, Mr Olumide Akpata.
The Chief Tawo Tawo-led Electoral Committee of the NBA, on Wednesday, released a list of 29,635 lawyers who had been accredited to vote in the e-election, scheduled to commence at 11pm on Wednesday.
In its “Statement No.18” on Wednesday, the ECNBA said the 29,635 accredited voters excluded “1,604 names with duplicate phone numbers and/or email addresses.”
The electoral committee urged lawyers to conduct themselves “in the respectable manner for which the legal profession is known,” and advised all the candidates in the elections and their supporters to stop campaigning.
The ECNBA said voters could observe the election real time from the comfort of their locations by following a given link.
Meanwhile, at a press conference in Lagos on Tuesday, Ogunlana explained that he was disqualified by the electoral committee on the basis that he failed to supply a letter of good standing from his local branch.
He blamed the incumbent Chairman of the Ikeja NBA, Mr Dele Oloke, for not only refusing his application for a letter of good standing but also issuing a May 25, 2020 letter, accusing him of failing to refund N11.65m “withdrawn by you from the branch’s insurance account into your personal account.”
Ogunlana argued that Oloke had no right to bring up the N11.65m issue as he was already being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the matter was sub judice.
He maintained that he ought not to have been disqualified from the NBA election because letter of good standing was not one of the eligibility conditions set out in Section 8(3)(c) of the NBA constitution.
Ogunlana’s attempt to stop the NBA election hit the brick wall last Friday when Justice Adedayo Oyebanji dismissed his application for interlocutory injunction.
The judge said having admitted his failure to submit a letter of good standing to the electoral committee, Ogunlana had no legal right to be protected by the court.
However, Ogunlana said he was displeased with the court’s verdict and would be going on appeal.
He predicted that the NBA elections would be fraught with rigging and end in chaos.
Ogunlana said, “We of the Radical Agenda Movement in the Nigerian Bar Association foresee chaos in the election as the vexatious issue of rigging and manipulation of the electronic voting method adopted by the Nigerian Bar Association with the Constitution of the Nigerian Bar Association (2015 as amended) is rearing its ugly head again.
“Almost all the candidates in the national elections have expressed their doubt with the integrity of the electronic voting platform.
“We categorically demand that to rest this vexatious issue of electronic voting manipulation and rigging, the exercise should be decentralised with same to be conducted at branch levels before central collation at the national level. We also call for the abolition of rotational presidency on tribal arrangements as currently exists.”
The Punch
Abia State Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, on Sunday paid a solidarity visit to the Leader of the Indigenous Peoples Of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, at the Sokoto Correctional Centre, Sokoto State, where he was to begin serving his life sentence.
Governor Otti, according to a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Ferdinand Ekeoma, and published on social media, encouraged Kanu, during a meeting held behind closed doors, to remain strong, assuring that the engagements he started over two years ago, which the IPOB leader has been aware of, have been intensified in spite of what happened.
The Governor enjoined Kanu to remain calm, but strong, assuring that the issue will be resolved administratively and that he will regain his freedom.
Governor Otti expressed joy that the Sultan of Sokoto is on the same page with him on the need for Kanu’s freedom and de-escalation of tension, and informed Kanu that the Sultan of Sokoto had on a lighter note told him that Kanu is now his subject and he was going to turbane him, an information that got the IPOB Leader laughing loudly.
Responding, Mazi Kanu, who was beaming with smiles and in high spirits, thanked Governor Otti for the visit, and stated that he wasn’t surprised that the Governor quickly came visiting, because he had done the same thing in the past.
He told the Governor that he is very proud of his giant strides in Abia based on the feedbacks he gets from home about the state since he assumed office, a feat he said is replicating what Late Dee Sam Mbakwe did as Governor of Old Imo State, which has kept him permanently immortalised, and called on the Governor to continue to serve the people diligently.
The IPOB leader told Governor Otti that he is only interested in good governance and anything that could better the lot of the people, and prayed God to continue to be with the Governor and his team as they serve the people of the state.
Governor Otti was accompanied on the visit by the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Ikechukwu Uwanna, SAN, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Publicity, Ferdinand Ekeoma, and some top Sokoto State government officials, including Commissioners and advisers.
Also present during the visit was Kanu’s younger brother, Prince Emmanuel Kanu.
Cameroonian opposition figure, Anicet Ekan, on Monday, died in detention in Yaounde, the vice president of his party told AFP.
“Anicet Ekane died this morning in Yaounde, where he had been transferred after his arrest at the end of October in Douala,” Valentin Dongmo of the African Movement for the New Independence of Cameroon (Manidem) party said.
The exact circumstances of the 74-year-old’s death remain unclear.
The left-wing, nationalist politician was arrested in Douala on October 24, on the eve of the publication of presidential election results that returned 92-year-old Paula Biya to power for an eighth mandate.
Ekane was close to fellow opposition figure Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who contested Biya’s 43-year grip on power in the October 12 election.
“Anicet Ekane was arrested in Douala and then transferred to Yaounde, where he was held at the State Defence Secretariat (SED). It was there that his health began to deteriorate,” according to Dongmo.
“We repeatedly alerted the authorities, including the military court administration, requesting that Anicet Ekane be transferred to a hospital with the appropriate facilities for better care, but our requests did not receive a favourable response,” he said.
Manidem had denounced the “arbitrary” arrests aiming to “intimidate” Cameroonians.
Born in Douala in 1951, Ekane joined the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC) party in 1973 — which he then quit to create Manidem in 1995.
In February 1990, he and other members of the Yondo Black group were arrested. He was condemned in a military trial before being pardoned several months later.
Ekane led Manidem for several years and ran as its presidential candidate in 2004 and 2011.
His death has triggered a groundswell of reactions on social media.
AFP
Headlines
Pastor Bakare Advises Tinubu to Apologize to Traumatized Communities, Accept Responsibility for Failure
The Lead Pastor of the Citadel Global Community Church, Tunde Bakare, has urged President Bola Tinubu to publicly apologize to communities devastated by insecurity.
Bakare made the call on Sunday during his State of the Nation Address in Lagos, saying the gesture would mark a commitment to justice and national healing.
The cleric acknowledged that the president had taken initial steps to address the crisis but insisted that deeper action is required to restore confidence.
He said the government must first accept responsibility for decades of failure to protect citizens from terrorism, banditry and other violent crimes.
Bakare said the plan should include a Victims and Survivors Register, a national apology to affected communities after three months, and midterm compensation, stressing that accountability is crucial to restoring public trust and ending the cycle of violence.
