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BREAKING: Supreme Court Okays Live Broadcast Of Verdict On Atiku, Obi’s Appeals

Published

2 years ago

October 26, 2023

…As Ganduje, Abure, Wike, Ribadu, Gbajabiamila Storm Court

In an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court, on Thursday, gave permission for its judgement in the legal dispute trailing the presidential election that was held in the country on February 25, to be televised.

The apex court gave clearance for live coverage of the proceeding, barely 15 minutes before the time (9 a.m.) that was scheduled for the Justice Inyang Okoro-led seven-man panel to commence the delivery of the judgement.

Meanwhile, there is heavy security presence within the Supreme Court which is located within the Three-Arm-Zone in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja.

Heavily armed security operatives are stationed at every entry point to the court, with all the major access routes blocked with security vehicles.

From the main gate, both officials of the court and security agents, with long lists, verified everyone entering the premises, with those whose names were not found on the accreditation list, turned back.

Likewise, everyone entering inside the court hall were mandated to pass through a security van for scanning.

Among those already in court for the judgement, are the Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, Femi Gbajabiamila, Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Abdullahi Ganduje, his counterparts from the Labour Party, LP, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Julius Abure and Umar Damagun, respectively, as well as President Tinubu’s son, Seyi.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had on March 1, announced that Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, won the presidential contest, ahead of 17 other candidates that participated in the poll.

It declared that he garnered a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat his two major rivals, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who came second with a total of 6,984,520 votes, and Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party, who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.

However, dissatisfied with the outcome of the poll, both Obi and Atiku, alongside their political parties, initiated legal actions to invalidate it.

The duo, in separate appeals they lodged through their respective team of lawyers, challenge the return of Tinubu as the valid winner of the presidential poll.

A major plank upon which the litigants rested their cases included the claim that President Tinubu was at the time the election held, not qualified to contest.

They maintained that the election was characterized by manifest corrupt practices, substantial non-compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and INEC’s Manual/Guidelines for the conduct of the election.

The appellants further queried Tinubu’s eligibility to occupy the presidential seat, insisting that he was previously indicted and fined the sum of $460,000.00 by the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, in Case No: 93C 4483, for an offence involving dishonesty and drug trafficking.

According to them, such indictment, constituted a ground for disqualification under section 137 (1) (d) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

Besides, the petitioners stressed that Tinubu did not satisfy the provision of section 134 (2) (b) of the Constitution, as he failed to secure 25% votes in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

They maintained that Tinubu did not secure the majority of valid votes that were cast during the election to be declared the winner.

Specifically, they prayed the apex court to allow their appeals and set aside the September 6 judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, which not only dismissed their petitions as lacking in merit, but also affirmed President Tinubu’s victory.

Both Atiku and Obi are separately claiming that they won the election, even as they urged the court to either declare them as validly elected President or in the alternative, order a fresh or rerun poll.

A seven-man panel of the apex court led by Justice John Inyang Okoro, reserved judgement on the appeals, after all the parties adopted their respective briefs of argument last Monday.

Other members of the apex court panel that will determine the cases are; Justices Uwani Abba-Aji, Lawal Garba, Ibrahim Saulawa, Adamu Jauro, Abubakar Tijjani and Emmanuel Akomaye Agim.

Atiku had before the substantive appeals were okayed for judgement, prayed the apex court to admit a fresh evidence he obtained from the Chicago State University, CSU, in the United States of America, which he said would establish that President Tinubu tendered forged certificate to the INEC, in aid of his qualification to participate in the election.

Headline

Wildfire Engulfs Mountain Near Western Canada City

Published

13 hours ago

August 13, 2025

Editor

Nearly 20,000 residents of a community in western Canada were on standby on Wednesday as a wildfire engulfed a mountain overlooking the city of Port Alberni, the latest area threatened in the country’s second-worst fire season on record.

“I’ve lived in Port Alberni since 1956, and this is one of the biggest fires we’ve ever seen,” Russ Wetas, 69, told AFP as smoke from Mount Underwood filled the sky behind him.

The wildfire service in the west coast province of British Columbia has listed the Mount Underwood fire as “out of control,” meaning it is expected to spread further.

But it remained unclear if Port Alberni, roughly 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) north, will be evacuated.

On the opposite end of the vast country, in the easternmost province of Newfoundland and Labrador, parts of the capital, St. John’s, received evacuation orders on Tuesday, following several days of intensifying fire.

A wildfire was also burning on Wednesday on the outskirts of Halifax, a major city in the eastern province of Nova Scotia, with a population of nearly half a million.

This is already Canada’s second-worst wildfire season in terms of landmass burned, based on figures dating back to 1983.

So far, 7.4 million hectares (18.3 million acres) have been scorched, an area nearly as large as Panama, putting 2025 past the 7.1 million hectare mark from 1995.

But this year is not expected to pass 2023, when 17.3 million hectares burned, an extraordinary toll that focused global attention on the growing threat of wildfires boosted by human-induced climate change.

Smoke from this year’s wildfires has put tens of millions of people under air quality alerts in both Canada and the United States. The haze has even crossed the Atlantic, affecting people in western Europe.

More than 700 wildfires were burning across Canada on Wednesday, including 161 considered out of control, with nearly every province and territory impacted.

Mount Underwood is on Vancouver Island, making the blaze there part of a worrying trend of increased wildfire activity near the coast.

Experts have said that historically, coastal areas did not burn, but more serious wildfires near the ocean are being recorded, even if they remain less intense than blazes further inland.

“This is a fire that hasn’t been seen on Vancouver Island,” John Jack, a First Nations chief and regional official, told the public broadcaster CBC.

Ted Hagard, who works at Port Alberni’s paper mill, told AFP he had been watching the fire’s progression on social media but needed to see it for himself.

It’s “insane how huge it is,” the 46-year-old said, standing on the shores of a lake adjacent to Mount Underwood.

Canada is experiencing a rise in conditions that are conducive to fires, experts say, linking the trend to climate change, which has caused elevated temperatures, reduced snow, shorter and milder winters, and earlier summer weather.

Headline

Zelensky Rules Out Swapping Territory, Calls For ‘Fair Peace’

Published

19 hours ago

August 13, 2025

Editor

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Ukraine and its allies must work together to pressure Russia into ending its invasion, ahead of talks in Berlin with European leaders and US President Donald Trump.

“Pressure must be exerted on Russia for the sake of a fair peace. We must learn from the experience of Ukraine and our partners to prevent deception on the part of Russia,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

“There are currently no signs that the Russians are preparing to end the war,” he added.

Zelensky is due in Berlin on Wednesday for talks with European leaders and Trump ahead of the US president’s summit with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The Ukrainian leader said he and his team had held more than 30 conversations with world leaders and high-ranking officials ahead of the talks.

The flurry of diplomatic engagements have been overshadowed by rapid, but so far limited Russian push in the eastern Donetsk region, which the Kremlin claims is part of Russia.

A member of the Ukrainian delegation travelling with Zelensky to Berlin told AFP that the Russian gains around the mining hub of Dobropillia “did not influence” preparation for Wednesday’s talks.

Zelensky conceded one day earlier that Russian forces had advanced by up to 10 kilometres (six miles), but ruled out swapping territory with Moscow as part of any deal with Russia.

AFP

Headline

S’Africa Offers US New Trade Deal To Avoid 30% Tariff

Published

2 days ago

August 12, 2025

Editor

South Africa will offer a “generous” new trade deal to the United States to avoid 30 percent tariffs, ministers said Tuesday.

Washington on Friday slapped the huge tariff on some South African exports, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa, despite efforts by Pretoria to negotiate a better arrangement to avoid massive job losses.

The ministers did not release details of the new offer but said previously discussed measures to increase imports of US poultry, blueberries, and pork had been finalised.

“When the document is eventually made public, I think you would see it as a very broad, generous and ambitious offer to the United States on trade,” Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen said at a press briefing.

Officials have said the 30 per cent tariff could cost the economy around 30,000 jobs.

“Our goal is to demonstrate that South African exports do not pose a threat to US industries and that our trade relationship is, in fact, complementary,” Trade Minister Parks Tau said.

The United States is South Africa’s third-largest trading partner after the European Union and China.

However, South African exports account for only 0.25 per cent of total US imports and are “therefore not a threat to US production”, Tau said.

Steenhuisen said US diplomats raised issues related to South African domestic policies, which was a “surprise given the fact we thought we were in a trade negotiation”.

The two nations are at odds over a range of policies.

US President Donald Trump has criticised land and employment laws meant to redress racial inequalities that linger 30 years after the end of apartheid.

“Things like expropriation without compensation, things like some of the race laws in the country, are issues that they regard as barriers now to doing trade with South Africa,” he told AFP on the sidelines of the briefing.

“I think we’re seeing some form of a new era now where trade and tariffs are being used to deal with other issues, outside of what would generally be trade concerns,” Steenhuisen said.