Politics

Oyetola Inaugurates Panel, Aregbesola’s Men List Conditions For Talks

Published

1 month ago

May 2, 2023

Former governor of Osun State, Adegboyega Oyetola, on Monday, inaugurated an 11-man committee for the repositioning of the All Progressives Congress in the state, noting that decisive steps must be taken to reorganise the party.

Oyetola, while addressing party leaders and loyalists at the inaguration of the committee held at the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign Office, Osogbo, also said the party must not overlook excesses of those members that created challenges for it in the last governorship and general elections.

Among others, Oyetola charged the committee, led by a former Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, to review activities of the party in recent times, consider the aspect of party administration, make recommendations for an ethical reward system in Osun State and propose templates for resolving existing or future grievances among party members.

Oyetola added, “Before today’s event, I had held a series of meetings with all strata of the party, including the Igbimo Agba, the leadership of the party, critical stakeholders and the youth, to chart a new course for the APC in Osun. It was the outcomes of those meetings that informed the setting up of this committee.

“If the Osun electorate could identify with us despite the intimidation, harrassment, violence and killings perpetrated by the PDP, then, we must brace up to sustain the interest of the Osun people in our party.

“To do that, we must also not gloss over some of the challenges caused by the excesses of some members of the party, some leaders and elected officials. Hence, the inauguration of this committee.”

Reacting to the move to reposition APC in Osun, leader of the Osun APC members loyal to former governor Rauf Aregbesola, Mr Lowo Adebiyi, welcomed the move, but listed conditions that must be met before Aregbesola’s supporters would appear before the panel.

Adebiyi said, “It is a welcome development but we are not aware. It is a good thing, if they think it is now time to reposition the party, we are still in the APC, but we are not aware and not involved in the committee issue.”

Asked if Aregbesola’s men would appear before the committee, Adebiyi further said, “How do we appear before the committee? Is that a panel to probe us? If they feel like coming to us, we will let them know the way forward, but we will not appear before them, it is not possible.”
PUNCH

Politics

Court Admits Final Results In LP, Obi’s Petition

Published

10 hours ago

June 7, 2023

Editor

The Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, tendered in evidence on Wednesday the final results for the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.

The national document known as Form EC8D(a) was tendered by Paul Annanaba, SAN, on behalf of the party and Obi as part of the evidence in support of the petition protesting the outcome of the February 25 elections at the Presidential Election Petition Court.

The LP and its candidate, Peter Obi, are challenging the conduct of the presidential election in which Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress was declared the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The 1st to 4th respondents in the suit are; INEC, Tinubu, the vice-president, Kassim Shettima, and the APC.

The respondents, through their legal representatives on Wednesday, all agreed to the presentation of the national results for all the states and the FCT.

Following no objection from the respondents, the five-man panel of the PEPC headed by Justice Haruna Tsammani admitted the national document as evidence in the petition by Obi.

In the same development, the petitioners tendered, as evidence in support of their petition against Tinubu’s return, form EC8Cs from 13 states: Bayelsa, Benue, Cross-river, Ebonyi, Edo, Lagos, Niger, Ondo, Oyo, Rivers, Sokoto, Ekiti and Delta.

The form EC8C is used for collating election results at the local government level. The results recorded at ward levels are entered into this form. But the respondents, through their counsel, all objected to the admissibility of the form EC8Cs. They informed the court that they would explain the reasons behind their objections in their final written addresses.

However, the court admitted the forms in evidence and marked them as exhibits. Thereafter, it adjourned further hearings on the petition to Thursday, June 8, 2023.

Objection to PDP’s subpoenaed witness

Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party and its candidate in the last election, Atiku Abubakar, called its first subpoenaed witness at the Presidential Election Petition Court on Wednesday.

In a petition marked CA/PEPC/05/2023, Atiku and the PDP are challenging the outcome of the presidential election that produced Tinubu as president.

At the resumed hearing, counsel for the PDP, Chris Uche, SAN, informed the court that the petitioners are set to call their first subpoenaed witness, who is an ad hoc employee of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

However, counsel for the respondents in the case, INEC, Tinubu and the APC, objected to taking the testimony of the witness.

As soon as the witness entered the witness box, and barely before he could take his oath, counsel to INEC, A.B. Mahmoud, SAN, rose in objection to the hearing of the witness.

He informed the court that he was only served this morning with the statement of the witness and, as such, would have to study the statement to enable him to carry out a thorough cross-examination.

Similarly, Tinubu’s lawyer, Akin Olujimi SAN, and APC’s lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi SAN, shared the same view and opposed the move by the petitioners.

Responding, Uche argued that there was nothing strange in the statement of the witness to warrant an adjournment.

He pleaded with the court to allow at least one of the subpoenaed witnesses to make judicious use of their allotted time.

The chairman of the five-man panel of PEPC, Justice Tsammani, proposed to stand down the trial for 30 minutes to enable respondents to look at the documents and thereby cross-examine the first subpoenaed witness.

INEC counsel, however, insisted that the witness cannot be taken on Wednesday because the witness “is said to be an Ad-hoc staff of the Commission,” and as such, he would have to go and look at INEC’s records to enable him to prepare properly.

Following the respondents’ assertions, Uche urged the court to adjourn till tomorrow, June 8, for the calling of the three subpoenaed witnesses.

Earlier, the PDP and Atiku called their 11th witness, the PDP chairman, Anambra, Ndubuisi Nwobu, to testify before the court.

The witness told the court during cross-examination by counsel for APC, Lateef Fagbemi SAN, that the results were disputed at the lower levels before they arrived at the state level.

He added that they collated the results because they didn’t have any other alternatives.

When asked if he put that in his witness statement on oath, he said it was not possible to write down everything that happened in the statement.

The court will also continue the hearing in the PDP and Atiku’s petition on Thursday, June 8, 2023.

Politics

Tribunal: INEC, Others Object To PDP’s Witness

Published

11 hours ago

June 7, 2023

Editor

The Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate in the last election, Atiku Abubakar, on Wednesday, called their first subpoenaed witness at the Presidential Election Petition Court.

In a petition marked CA/PEPC/05/2023, Atiku and the PDP are challenging the outcome of the presidential election which produced Tinubu as the president.

At the resumed hearing, counsel for the PDP, Chris Uche, SAN, informed the court that the petitioners are set to call its first subpoenaed witness who is an Adhoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

However, counsel to the respondents in the case namely; INEC, Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress objected to taking the testimony of the witness.

As soon as the witness entered the witness box and barely before he could take his oath, counsel to INEC, A.B. Mahmoud, SAN, rose in objection to the hearing of the witness.

He informed the court that he was only served this morning with the statement of the witness and as such would have to study the statement to enable him to carry out a thorough cross-examination.

Similarly, Tinubu’s lawyer, Akin Olujimi, SAN, and APC’s lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, shared the same view and opposed the move by the petitioners.

Responding, Uche argued that there was nothing strange in the statement of the witness to warrant an adjournment.

He pleaded with the court to take at least one of the subpoenaed witnesses to make judicious use of their allotted time.

Chairman of the five-man panel of PEPC, Justice Haruna Tsammani, proposed to stand down the trial for 30 minutes to enable respondents to look at the documents and thereby cross-examine the first subpoenaed witness.

INEC, however, insisted that the witness cannot be taken today because the witness “is said to be an Adhoc staff of the commission” and as such he would have to go and look at INEC’s records to enable him to prepare properly.

Following the respondents’ assertions, Uche urged the court to adjourn till tomorrow, June 8, for the calling of the three subpoenaed witnesses.

Earlier, the PDP and Atiku called their 11th witness, the Anambra PDP chairman, Ndubuisi Nwobu, to testify before the court.

According to The PUNCH, the witness told the court during cross-examination by counsel for APC, Lateef Fagbemi SAN that the results were disputed at the lower levels before they arrived at the state level.

He added that they collated the results because they didn’t have any other alternative.

When asked if he put that in his witness statement on oath, he said it was not possible to write down everything that happened in the statement.

Politics

Tribunal: How Peter Obi Rigged Out Atiku In Anambra – Witness

Published

11 hours ago

June 7, 2023

Editor

A witness of Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in the February 25th presidential elections, Ndubuisi Nwobu has revealed how his candidate was rigged out by Labour Party’s Presidential candidate, Peter Obi in Anambra state.

Nwobu told the presidential election tribunal, Wednesday that “magic happened to the votes of the PDP candidate at different collation centres.”

In the results announced by the Independent Electoral Commission, Peter Obi scored 584, 621 votes in Anambra; Atiku polled 9,036 votes in the state and Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress scored 5, 111 votes.

During proceedings, Nwobu who is Anambra PDP chairman and also the state collation agent of the party told the court that after the counting of votes, presiding officers refused to upload the results.

He also said he visited about 30 polling units out of the 4,720 polling units in the state on election day.

He said he was forced to sign the result sheet of the election at the state collation centre because he wouldn’t have been given a copy if he didn’t.

“I signed the result sheet when it was obvious that without signing, a copy would not be made available to me,” Nwobu said.

“Results were entered at polling units. But, every effort made to get the presiding officer to upload it on IREV proved abortive.”

When asked if result sheets were signed by agents of the PDP at polling units before there were taken to the collation centre, Nwobu said “yes”.

“They were taken to the collation centre at the ward level. That is where magic started happening,” he said.

“There were problems at the polling units with presiding officers.”

He said in some instances, he had to intervene to prevent voters and other party agents from attacking INEC officials.

“Even in certain instances, I had to intervene to ensure that some of the polling officers were not attacked by voters and other political party agents,” Nwobu said.

Nwobu is Atiku’s eleventh witness to testify before the five-member panel headed by Haruna Tsammani.
PUNCH