Headlines
Atiku Insists Server Results are not False, Says ‘I’m Nigerian by Birth’
The Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate in the February 23 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has denied the All Progressives Congress’ allegation that he is not eligible to contest because he was not born in Nigeria.
Atiku stated this in a response to the APC’s reply to the petition he and his party jointly filed before the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal.
He said he was born on November 25, 1946, in Jada, Adamawa State, therefore he was a Nigerian.
The APC had alleged in its response that as of November 25, 1946, when Atiku was born, Jada, was part of Northern Cameroon.
But Atiku insisted that he was a Nigerian citizen, adding that his parents were also Nigerians by birth.
He said while his father, Garba Atiku Abdulkadir, hailed from Wumo in the present-day Sokoto State, his mother, Aisha Kande, hailed from Dutse, now Jigawa State.
Atiku and the PDP said, “Contrary to the allegations contained in paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the 3rd respondent’s (APC’s) reply, the petitioners state that the 1st petitioner (Atiku) is a citizen of Nigeria by birth and thus qualified to vote and be voted for and returned in the election to the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, held on Saturday February 23, 2019 going by the relevant provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
“The 1st petitioner was born on November 25, 1946, in Jada, Adamawa State, by Nigerian parents and he is, therefore, a citizen of Nigeria by birth.
“The 1st petitioner’s father, Garba Atiku Abdulkadir, was a Nigerian by birth who hailed from Wumo in the present-day Sokoto State, while the mother, Aisha Kande, was also a Nigerian who hailed from Dutse in the present-day Jigawa State.
“The parents of the 1st Petitioner are both Fulani, a community/tribe indigenous to Nigeria.
“The birth of the 1st petitioner in Jada, in the present-day Adamawa State of Nigeria, was occasioned by the movement of his paternal grandfather called Atiku, who was an itinerant trader, from Wumo in the present-day Sokoto State to Jada in company with his friend, Ardo Usman.
“That in Jada, Atiku, the grandfather of the 1st petitioner, gave birth to Garba who in tum gave birth to the 1st petitioner and named him after his father, Atiku.
“The 1st petitioner’s mother, Aisha Kande, was the grand-daughter of Inuwa Dutse who came to Jada as an itinerant trader too from Dutse in the present-day Jigawa State.
All averments concerning Germany, British Cameroons, League of Nations and Plebiscite are false and misleading in relation to the 1st petitioner and therefore completely irrelevant more so that the 1st petitioner is a Nigerian by birth within the contemplation of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).
“The averments in the aforesaid paragraphs are indeed fabricated, contrived, made in bad faith and designed to embarrass the 1st petitioner.”
The Independent National Electoral Commission had on February 27, 2019, declared that the All Progressives Congress alongside its candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari, won the February 23 election with 15,191,847 votes to defeat his closest rival, Atiku, whom it said polled 11,262,978 votes.
But the petitioners stated that “from the data in the 1st respondent’s (INEC’s) server…the true, actual and correct results” from “state-to-state computation” showed that Atiku polled a total of 18,356,732 votes defeat Buhari whom they said scored 16,741,430 votes.
INEC had in its response to the petition distanced itself from the “server results.”
The commission, through its lead counsel, Yunus Usman (SAN), had said the results of the poll were never transmitted or collated electronically.
It added that it kept no such server where such electronically transmitted results could have been obtained.
In their reply to the APC’s reply, Atiku and the PDP insisted that they truly got authentic results of the February 23 election from the Independent National Electoral Commission’s server.
They said, “In reaction to paragraph 29 of the 3rd respondent’s reply, the petitioners aver that the data and scores in the 1st respondent’s server were as transmitted by the 1st respondent’s officials and those scores are valid, and legitimate.
“The conduct of elections and declarations of results by the 1st respondent is the subject of the present petition.
“Contrary to paragraphs 31 and 34 of the 3rd respondent’s reply, the petitioners contend that the figures and scores in paragraph 22 of the petition are neither false nor contrived or concocted by the petitioners.
“Indeed, the ad hoc staff and officials of the 1st respondent in obedience to the training/instruction by the 1st respondent (INEC) transmitted the scores they got from the polling units to the 1st respondent’s server.”
The Punch
Former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai on Thursday noted that if he were in the President Bola Tinubu-led government, his remarks about the administration would remain unchanged.
This was in his response to the President’s Special Adviser on Policy Communications, Daniel Bwala.
El-Rufai had described the state of governance and opposition in the country as a “national emergency” at a national conference in Abuja on strengthening democracy in Nigeria on Monday.
The former governor also lamented the lack of internal democracy and active party structures within the All Progressives Congress, saying, “I no longer recognise the APC. No party organ has met in two years—no caucus, no NEC, nothing. You don’t even know if it is a one-man show; it’s a zero-man show.’
In its response, the ruling APC knocked El-Rufai, as it accused him of treachery over how he had been dragging the Federal Government and the ruling party recently.
This prompted Bwala’s question to the APC chieftain via his X handle, saying, “My Senior brother if you were to be in the government and cabinet, would you have held and expressed the same position?
On Thursday, the former governor, via his X handle, asserted his stance, as he called out “latter-day converts” to the Tinubu administration for insisting he wanted to serve as a minister in the current government.
“Good morning, #BwalaDaniel, I was cabinet minister 22 years ago and was clear to Asiwaju that I was not interested in any position in his future government. The pathetic manner all of you latter-day converts to the Tinubu government make an issue of something that I never wanted in the first place is perhaps a reflection of the level of your moral flexibility.
“If I had remained in the Tinubu government, I will say or do the same on the tragedy within a party I was a founder, and the government that emerged from it – first in private sessions with those concerned, and then go public if no remedial actions are taken. Go and check my public service record from 1998.
“I am only responding to you because I still think you are a decent person who may need a job, and not in the class of Wendell Simlin and that Kaduna pretender that our voters retired in 2019 – these clowns are political mercenaries that receive humongous monthly stipends from the security vote to be the first to jump on X and other platforms to defend everything the Asiwaju government does or fails to do, no matter how indefensible it may be.
“Enjoy your special adviser position, my brother, but remember that allegiance to God and country comes first in the human scale of accountability, before any person or authority.”
In line with Prof Afe Babalola’s promise to forgive defamation charge against Lagos-based lawyer and author, Mr. Dele Farotimi, the Federal High Court sitting in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State, has struck out the criminal charge filed by the police against Farotimi.
Justice Babs Kuewumi struck out the charge following an application by the police prosecutor, Samson Osobu, to withdraw the case.
Osobu told the court that the prosecution had filed a notice of discontinuance.
He said: “The matter is slated for hearing today, but we have filed a notice of discontinuance dated January 29, 2025, and filed this morning”.
Predictably, Farotimi’s team of lawyers, led by Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika (SAN), raised no objection.
That paved the way for Justice Kuewumi to strike out the case, with the judge declaring: “This case is hereby struck out.”
Outside the courtroom, Olumide-Fusika told journalists that the case has been concluded in this particular court but declined to comment on related matters pending in other courts.
He also said that he advised Farotimi against granting press interviews on the matter.
Meanwhile, another criminal charge filed by the police against Farotimi is pending before the Magistrate Court also in Ado-Ekiti.
The case before Magistrate Abayomi Adeosun was adjourned to February 13, 2025, and it is expected that the police will also move to discontinue proceedings in that court and withdraw the charge.
There are also civil cases against Farotimi pending before the FCT High Court, Abuja, the Ogun State High Court, Oyo State High Court, and Rivers State High Court which were filed by lawyers in the Afe Babalola Chambers in those states.
Some of the courts had granted interim orders restraining Farotimi or any person acting through him from further printing, publication and sale of his book titled: “Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System”.
It is not yet clear whether those cases will also be discontinued.
Detained leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has dragged the Nigeria Police Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, to court for accusing the group of killings in Imo State and other parts of the South-East region.
In the libel suit filed before the FCT High Court in Abuja on Tuesday by his legal team led by his Special Counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, Kanu is demanding N20 billion in damages as well as a retraction of the accusations.
The IPOB leader also warned that any security agency or individual directly or indirectly peddling propaganda against IPOB will be sued to compel such an entity or individual to come to court and present their evidence.
Ejimakor who shared details of the suit on his X account on Tuesday night, stated that the detained IPOB leader accused Adejobi of defaming him by calling him and IPOB a terrorist and a terrorist group in a media publication by Vanguard Newspaper on January 25, 2025, titled, “Imo: Police neutralise six IPOB/ESN terrorists, recover arms”.
The lawyer said it was out of place for the police spokesman to label Kanu a terrorist or IPOB a terrorist group as, according to him, a competent high court had held in October 2022 that the Federal Government breached the Constitution in labeling IPOB a terrorist group and that the group was discriminatorily targeted because its membership is populated by the Igbo.
He said, “Earlier today, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s legal team issued a Writ of Summons against ACP OLUMUYIWA ADEJOBI, the Police Public Relations Officer in a Suit for defamation brought on behalf of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu,” Ejimakor wrote.
“The Suit was filed at the FCT high court for ACP Adejobi’s widely published defamatory utterances, claiming that those killed by police in Owerri three days ago are IPOB members.
“In issuing instructions to file this suit, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu made it very clear that any security agency and others engaging in media trial of his person (directly or indirectly) or peddling propaganda against IPOB will be sued to enable such an entity come to court to present their evidence.
“This is especially compelling as these false narratives can turn prejudicial against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and the IPOB which still have pertinent cases pending in court.
“To this end, media houses are hereby encouraged to verify the accuracy of these anti-IPOB, anti-Nnamdi Kanu, anti-Igbo defamatory statements issuing from security agencies that beat their chests and leave the uncanny impression that they are somehow benefiting from stoking insecurity and panic by way of needless propaganda.
“For avoidance of doubt, a competent high court had held in October 2022 that the Federal Government blatantly breached the Constitution in tagging IPOB a terrorist group and that the group was discriminatorily targeted because its membership is populated by the Igbo.
“Therefore, this tendency by security agencies to tag every criminal element encountered in Southeast as IPOB must stop forthwith. If it does not, we shall take prompt vigorous legal steps to protect the name of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and that of Ndigbo who are collectively defamed by this false and libelous narrative.
“To keep tagging every criminal encountered in Southeast as IPOB exhibits a false narrative that defames not only Nnamdi Kanu but the entire Igbo.
“The statements are false and constitute a grave libel on his person, as the words in their natural and ordinary meaning portray him as a leader of a violent and terrorist group.
“The said words in their natural and ordinary meaning were meant and were understood to mean that the Claimant is in fact a leader of a terrorist movement that is to be vicariously blamed for alleged acts of terrorism in Imo State.
“That the words were meant to call into question the Claimant’s honesty, personal integrity and reputation.
“That the Claimant states that these defamatory and libelous statements go far beyond fair comment and are malicious and are designed specifically to impugn his person and character and they were made in bad faith.
“Kanu, therefore, prayed the court for a declaration that Adejobi’s published statements or utterances are libelous and defamatory.
“He also sought an order of this Honourable Court directing the Defendant to retract the said publications through other publications through the same media by way of issuance of another press statement.
“An Order of this Honorable Court directing the Defendant to write and deliver to the Claimant, an unreserved letter of apology. The letter of apology shall be prominently and boldly published full-page in three (3) national dailies, namely: then SUN, Daily Trust and Vanguard.
“An Order of perpetual injunction restraining the Defendant from further and forever uttering the said defamatory and libelous words about or concerning the Claimant.
“An Order of this Honorable Court directing the Defendant to pay to the Claimant the sum of N20,000,000,000 being general and exemplary damages.
“An Order of this Honorable Court directing the Defendant to pay the cost of this Suit.”
Source: Ripples
