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Tinubu: Melaye Testifies In Court, Justifies Refusal To Sign Presidential Poll Result

Published

2 years ago

June 17, 2023

The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Kogi State, Senator Dino Melaye, on Friday, testified as a star witness in the petition seeking to nullify President Bola Tinubu’s election.

Melaye mounted the box as the 22nd witness in the case that the presidential candidate of the party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, filed against Tinubu before the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja.

Led in evidence by Atiku’s lead counsel, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, Melaye, who hitherto represented Kogi West in the Senate, told the court that he served as the National Collation Officer of the PDP for the presidential poll that held on February 25.

Melaye told the Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel of the court that he refused to sign the final result the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, used to declare Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, as winner of the presidential contest.

According to him, “the said result was wrongly computed and announced. That was why I refused to sign it because I don’t endorse fraud.”

While being cross-examined by INEC’s lawyer, Mr. Abubakar Mahmood, SAN, Melaye, told the court that though he voted in Kogi state on the election day, he immediately left for Abuja to perform the task that was assigned to him by his party.

He told the court that though the party had agents in all polling units across the federation, however, some of the agents also declined to sign copies of election results in their locations owing to widespread electoral malpractices they observed.

“My lords, it is not true that all the agents signed results of the election across the federation. Not all of them signed. I may not give you the specific details or actual number of our agents that did not sign the results in protest.”

He told the court that as lawmaker that was involved in the amendment of the Electoral Act, he knew that the law made it mandatory that results from polling units, should be electronically transmitted to INEC’s IReV portal.

Alleging that result of the presidential election was manipulated, the PW-22, told the court that evidence at the disposal of the Atiku and the PDP, established that results of the election in the IReV portal, was different from what was announced by the INEC.

“My lords, exhibits have shown that result on the IReV was at variance with what was announced.

“What was brought to Abuja by State Returning Officers was totally different from what transpired in the states,” he added.

Asked if his evidence before the court was based on what he was told by other agents of the party, Melaye, said: “As a National Collation Officer of my party, I was just like the INEC Chairman, who even though he was not all over the country, but he still announced results he received from all over the country.

“So, my statement on oath before this court was based on what I personally experienced and reports from our agents, as well as from our Situation Room.

“We received information from agents all over the country and some of them were live feed, with the aid of technology.”

Asked if he would be surprised to know that his statement on oath was the same thing, word for word, with a statement by another witness in the matter, Melaye, replied: “My lords, there is no way I could know what another person stated. I don’t have celestial powers. I cannot be surprised about what I don’t know.”

On the allegation that INEC deployed a device management system that quarantined and allocated votes in Tinubu’s favour, Melaye, said he got to know about the said device through a press statement the INEC issued before the election.

“Physically, I did not see the mechanism, but I saw a statement released by INEC, where it narrated that scenario.”

Asked if he never considered that such allegation could be based on speculation, the witness, said: “With the statement coming from INEC, I do not see it as speculation.”

Asked how he got information to back his allegation that results of the election were manipulated in Borno, Benue, Kano and Lagos state, Melaye, said: “My lords, I was in those states, technically, because there was live feed from our agents and I was viewing what was happening.”

While also being cross examined by President Tinubu’s lawyer, Melaye, Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN, the former lawmaker insisted that INEC’s failure to transmit results of the presidential election, was an infringement of the law.

However, he noted that ordinarily, delay in transmission of the results would not have posed a problem if they would not be manipulated along the process.

“Ideally, such delay is not supposed to change the results, but we can all see that this election was not an ideal situation.”

He told the court that the petitioners engaged a statistician that helped them to establish that the presidential election was rigged with “massive votes deducted” from Atiku.

Answering questions from APC’s lawyer, Mr. Afolabi Fashanu, SAN, Melaye, further maintained that “there were unlawful allocation of votes to the 2nd Defendant (Tinubu),” using a technology he said was imported from China.

Meanwhile, shortly after he was discharged from the witness box, counsel for the Petitioners, Chief Uche, SAN, tendered in evidence, certified copies of polling unit results from 13 Local Government Areas in Nasarawa state.

He told the court that though INEC was subpoenaed to produce the said results contained in Forms EC8A, from 26 states, it, however, only brought that of Nasarawa state.

More so, Uche, SAN, also certified copies of INEC’s Forms EC40G from Nasarawa state, which he said was the summary of polling units where elections did not hold, was disrupted or outrightly cancelled.

The Justice Tsammani-led panel adjourned further hearing in the matter till Monday.
VANGUARD

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FULL LIST: US To Review Green Cards From 19 ‘Countries Of Concern’ After Washington Shooting

Published

11 hours ago

November 29, 2025

Editor

The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it will review the immigration status of all permanent residents, or “Green Card” holders, from Afghanistan and 18 other countries following the attack on National Guard troops in Washington, D.C.

U.S. officials identified the suspect in Wednesday’s shooting as a 29-year-old Afghan national who previously worked alongside American forces in Afghanistan.

The individual was granted asylum earlier this year, not permanent residency, according to AfghanEvac, an organisation that assists Afghans resettled in the United States after the Taliban takeover in 2021.

“I have directed a full-scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern,” said Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), on X.

The review follows a June executive order from President Trump classifying 19 countries as “of Identified Concern.”

The order banned entry for nearly all nationals from 12 countries, including Afghanistan. The full list of these countries is:

Afghanistan

Myanmar

Chad

Congo-Brazzaville

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Haiti

Iran

Libya

Somalia

Sudan

Yemen

A partial travel ban applies to seven additional countries, though some temporary work visas remain allowed: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Headline

Romanian Defence Minister Quits After Admitting Error In Academic Record

Published

11 hours ago

November 29, 2025

Editor

Romania’s defence minister resigned on Friday after saying he made a “mistake” on his CV about his university education, as controversy swirled over alleged lies on his resume.

Ionut Mosteanu – who has admitted to writing on his CV that he graduated from a university he never attended – said he did not want the row “to distract” the NATO member at a time when it and Europe are “under attack from Russia”.

Romania has repeatedly seen drone fragments fall on its soil since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and reported a number of drone incursions.

On Tuesday, a drone crashed in eastern Romania, which borders Ukraine.

Romania has also accused Moscow of “hybrid attacks”, including meddling in presidential elections last year that were subsequently annulled.

“Today, I resigned from my position as minister of national defence,” Mosteanu said in a Facebook post, adding he wanted the country to be focused on its “difficult mission”.

“Romania and Europe are under attack from Russia. Our national security must be defended at all costs,” he added.

Mosteanu had come under pressure after a media investigation published on Thursday revealed that he wrote in a CV that he graduated from a university which he did not actually attend.

That same day he apologised for what he called “a mistake”.

“In a CV I quickly put together in 2016 using a template I found online, there is a mistake that I admit embarrasses me. I didn’t pay much attention to these details at the time,” he said on Facebook.

Mosteanu was appointed defence minister in June of this year, when a new pro-European government was formed after months of political turmoil.

Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said in a press release that he would propose economy and tourism minister Radu Miruta take over the defence portfolio in the interim.

AFP

Headline

Russia Insists Ukraine Must Cede Land Or Face Continued Military Push

Published

2 days ago

November 27, 2025

Editor

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he would end his Ukraine offensive if Kyiv withdrew from territory Moscow claims at its own — otherwise his army would take it by force.

The Russian army has been slowly but steadily grinding through eastern Ukraine in costly battles against outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces.

Washington has meanwhile renewed its push to end the nearly four-year war, putting forward a surprise plan that it hopes to finalise through upcoming talks with Moscow and Kyiv.

“If Ukrainian forces leave the territories they hold, then we will stop combat operations,” Putin said during a visit to Kyrgyzstan. “If they don’t, then we will achieve it by military means.”

Russia controls around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory. The issue of occupied land, which Kyiv has said it will never cede, is among the biggest stumbling blocks in the peace process.

Another important issue in the talks are Western security guarantees for Ukraine, which Kyiv says are needed to prevent Moscow from invading again in the future.

Washington’s original plan — drafted without input from Ukraine’s European allies — would have seen Kyiv withdraw from its eastern Donetsk region and the United States de facto recognise the Donetsk, Crimea and Lugansk regions as Russian.

The US pared back the original plan over the weekend following criticism from Kyiv and Europe, but has not yet released the new version.

Putin, who has seen the new plan, said it could be a negotiation starter.

“Overall, we agree that it could form the basis for future agreements,” he said of the latest draft, which the US is thought to have shortened to about 20 points.

US negotiator Steve Witkoff was expected in Moscow next week to discuss the revised document, Putin said.

US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is meanwhile due to visit Kyiv later this week, Ukraine’s top presidential aide Andriy Yermak said.

– ‘Little can be done’ –

In his remarks Thursday, Putin repeated the claim that Russia had encircled the Ukrainian army in Pokrovsk and Myrnograd in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region — the most fiercely embattled area and a key target for Moscow’s forces.

“Krasnoarmeysk and Dimitrov are completely surrounded,” he said, using the Russian names for the cities.

Moscow was also advancing in Vovchansk and Siversk, as well as approaching the important logistic hub of Guliaipole, he added.

The Russian offensive “is practically impossible to hold back, so there is little that can be done about it”, Putin said.

Ukraine has denied Pokrovsk and Myrnograd are encircled, insisting its forces continue to hold the enemy along the front line.

Putin also questioned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s legitimacy and said signing any agreement with him would be legally “almost impossible” at the moment, a suggestion that has drawn groans from Kyiv and its allies.

According to data analysed by AFP from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian forces have conquered an average of 467 square kilometres (180 square miles) each month in 2025 — a step up from 2024.

Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the worst armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions to flee their homes.