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Tribunal Orders Yakubu, REC to Produce Documents Demanded by Atiku
The five-man Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja on Wednesday ordered the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, and the commission’s Resident Electoral Commissioner in Zamfara State to produce electoral documents requested by the Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
The tribunal, led by Justice Mohammed Garba, gave the order after receiving complaints by the petitioners that INEC officials had refused to comply with the court’s subpoenas served on them for the production of the documents.
He ordered INEC officials to produce the documents in court on Thursday.
But the tribunal at the end of the proceedings, following a request by the petitioners’ lawyer, Chris Uche (SAN), fixed Friday as the next hearing day.
The Wednesday’s hearing was the ninth of the 10 days given to the petitioners to present their case.
The proceedings were adjourned Wednesday after the petitioners called nine additional witnesses, making a total of 58 they had called in nine days.
The PDP and Atiku, who are the petitioners challenging the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress at the February 23, 2019 poll, spoke through their lawyer, Chief Chris Uche (SAN).
Before the petitioners started calling their witnesses on Wednesday, Uche informed the tribunal that INEC officials had refused to release the requested documents to the petitioners despite the fact that the fees for the certification of the documents had been paid to the commission.
“We have made concerted efforts and we stated in the letters we wrote to them that we had it on good authority that they were instructed not to release the documents,” Uche said.
Accusing both INEC chairman and the Zamfara State REC of disobedience to the summons of the court, he said that upon his clients’ applications, the court issued two subpoenas on July 9, 2019 which had been served on the two officials.
“One was upon the chairman of INEC for the production of some documents. The subpoena was issued on July 9, 2019. The documents were paid for. The subpoena was served on the same date of July 9, 2019. It was to produce documents, not to testify.
“On the same July 9, another subpoena was issued to the Resident Electoral Commissioner, INEC, in Zamfara State, Gusau, in which we applied for all the Forms EC8A (polling unit result sheets), and they refused to release them to us.
“They have not been produced and we have not seen them in court. Neither have the persons on whom the subpoenas were issued in court. We seek your lordships’ intervention,” he said.
Responding, Justice Mohammed Garba, who leads the panel, noted that the subpoenas were not served on INEC officials as claimed by the petitioners’ lawyer, but that one was served on the chairman on July 15 and the other was served on the REC, Zamfara State, on July 12.
In his reaction, INEC’s lawyer, Yunus Usman (SAN), said he and members of his legal team met with the commission’s chairman, up till 11.30pm on Tuesday but he never made mention of any subpoena.
As for the Zamfara REC, Usman said he received a text message from her indicating that the documents requested by the petitioners had been certified but the petitioners had refused to come up to make the needed payment.
Other respondents’ lawyers, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) for Buhari and Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) for the All Progressives Congress, said the petitioners ought to do more by liaising with INEC’s lead counsel and ought to have made the requests for the documents earlier than last week.
But responding, Uche said, “We have made so many efforts.
“We wrote a letter addressed to the chairman of INEC on April 15, 2019 and the letter was received the same date.
“An earlier one on the same subject matter was dated April 9, 2019 was received the same date.
“We also wrote an earlier one on the same subject-matter on March 12 and it was received the same date.”
In his comments before ruling, Justice Garba noted that the legal team representing INEC in the matter owed the court the duty to ensure that the court’s orders were obeyed by their clients.
“I have seen from the record of the court that the INEC chairman and the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Zamfara State, were duly served with subpoena issued on July 9, 2019, to produce documents named therein.
“The INEC chairman and the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Zamfara and the legal team representing them are under binding obligation to ensure that the orders contained in the subpoena are obeyed.”
The Punch
The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), on Thursday, published a list of 9, 532 alleged land title debtors in Abuja, giving them a two-week ultimatum to settle their outstanding bills.
The list, which includes prominent individuals and government agencies, was published on November 26, with defaulters expected to pay for their certificate of occupancy (C-of- O) within the stipulated timeframe.
Among those listed as defaulters is former Head of State, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB), who owes N152 million for a plot of land in Asokoro, a highbrow area in the nation’s capital. IBB, who ruled Nigeria from 1985 to 1993, is not the only high-profile individual on the list.
Other notable defaulters include Samuel Ortom, former governor of Benue, who owes N950,000 for a plot of land in Bazango, and Aminu Tambuwal, senator representing Sokoto south, who owes N18 million for a plot of land in Carraway Dallas.
The FCTA has threatened to revoke the land titles of defaulters who fail to settle their bills within the stipulated timeframe. The administration has urged defaulters to settle their bills by e-payment to the “FCT department of land administration” account.
In addition to individual defaulters, some federal agencies, including the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), the navy, and police, were also named as defaulters.
The Lagos governor’s lodge in Asokoro, the Kaduna state government, and ‘State House Abuja’ were also listed as land title debtors.
This development is not the first time the FCTA has taken steps to recover outstanding debts from landowners. In June this year, the administration set up a committee to recover over N29 billion owed by property owners.
The committee has since identified 430 individuals and organisations as defaulters, with plans to prosecute them.
The FCTA has also partnered with anti-graft agencies, including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), to check the activities of land grabbers in the territory.
The Senate has granted approval to the ₦1.77 trillion ($2.2b) loan request of President Bola Tinubu after a voice vote in favor of the request.
The Senate presided by Deputy Senate President, Barau Jibrin, approved the loan after the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts chaired by Senator Wammako Magatarkada (APC, Sokoto North) presented the report of the committee.
The request which was submitted by the President on Tuesday is part of a fresh external borrowing plan to partially finance the N9.7 trillion budget deficit for the 2024 fiscal year.
Tinubu had on Tuesday written to the National Assembly, seeking approval of a fresh N1.767 trillion, the equivalent of $2.209 billion as a new external borrowing plan in the 2024 Appropriation Act.
The fresh loan is expected to stretch the amount spent on debt servicing by the Federal Government. The Central Bank of Nigeria recently said that it cost the Federal Government $3.58 billion to service foreign debt in the first nine months of 2024.
The CBN report on international payment statistics showed that the amount represents a 39.77 per cent increase from the $2.56bn spent during the same period in 2023.
According to the report, while the highest monthly debt servicing payment in 2024 occurred in May, amounting to $854.37m, the highest monthly expenditure in 2023 was $641.70m, recorded in July.
The trend in foreign debt servicing by the CBN highlights the rising cost of debt obligations by Nigeria.
Further breakdown of international debt figures showed that in January 2024, debt servicing costs surged by 398.89 per cent, rising to $560.52m from $112.35m in January 2023. February, however, saw a slight decline of 1.84 per cent, with payments reducing from $288.54m in 2023 to $283.22m in 2024.
March recorded a 31.04 per cent drop in payments, falling to $276.17m from $400.47m in the same period last year. April saw a significant rise of 131.77 per cent, with $215.20m paid in 2024 compared to $92.85m in 2023.
The highest debt servicing payment occurred in May 2024, when $854.37m was spent, reflecting a 286.52 per cent increase compared to $221.05m in May 2023. June, on the other hand, saw a 6.51 per cent decline, with $50.82m paid in 2024, down from $54.36m in 2023.
July 2024 recorded a 15.48 per cent reduction, with payments dropping to $542.50m from $641.70m in July 2023. In August, there was another decline of 9.69 per cent, as $279.95m was paid compared to $309.96m in 2023. However, September 2024 saw a 17.49 per cent increase, with payments rising to $515.81m from $439.06m in the same month last year.
Given rising exchange rates, the data raises concerns about the growing pressure of Nigeria’s foreign debt obligations.
Channels TV
Self acclaimed leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Simon Ekpa, has been arrested by law enforcement in Finland.
The BBC reports that Ekpa was subsequently sent to prison by the district court of Päijät-Häme for “spreading terrorist propaganda on social media”.
Ekpa was said to have committed the crime in 2021 in Lahti municipality.
The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) also arrested four other men over alleged terrorist offences.
A citizen of Finland and Nigeria, Ekpa has described himself as leader of the separatist IPOB group since Nnamdi Kanu’s incarceration.
Finnish police say Ekpa’s activities and social media rhetoric may have fanned the flames of violence in the south-east of Nigeria.
“He carries out these activities from his social media channels, for example,” said Otto Hiltunen, detective chief inspector of the NBI.
In February 2023, Ekpa was arrested by police at his residence in Lahti but was released after hours of questioning.
Using his social media channels, Ekpa had directed Igbos not to participate in Nigeria’s 2023 general election.
In September 2021, the Biafra agitator and secessionist denounced Nigeria and vowed to return the medal he won for the country at the 2003 African Junior Athletics Championships.
