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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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US Lifts Restrictions On Visa Validity For Ghanaians, Leaves Nigeria’s Unchanged

Published

6 hours ago

September 27, 2025

Editor

The United States has restored the maximum validity periods for all categories of nonimmigrant visas for Ghanaian nationals following Ghana’s agreement to accept West African deportees, but similar restrictions for Nigerians remain in place.

The B1/B2 visitor visa is now valid for up to five years, with multiple entries allowed, while the F1 student visa’s maximum validity has been restored to four years, with multiple entries permitted.

“The U.S. Embassy is pleased to announce that the maximum validity periods for all categories of nonimmigrant visas for Ghanaians have been restored to their previous lengths. The maximum validity allowed for the B1/B2 visitor visa is again five years, multiple entry. The maximum validity for the F1 student visa is again four years, multiple entry,” the U.S. Embassy announced in a tweet on Saturday.”

Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Samuel Ablakwa, also announced in a tweet that the new policy now allows citizens to apply for five-year multiple-entry visas.

Ablakwa also stated that the reversal of the restriction comes with other enhanced consular privileges, adding that the development was the result of months of diplomatic engagement.

“The U.S. visa restriction imposed on Ghana has been reversed. Ghanaians can now be eligible for five-year multiple-entry visas and other enhanced consular privileges,” Ablakwa stated.

“This good news was directly communicated to me by U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Allison Hooker, at a bilateral meeting earlier today, in the margins of the UN General Assembly. I am really pleased that months of high-level diplomatic negotiations have led to a successful outcome.”

These changes reverse earlier restrictions imposed under the Trump administration, which had limited most visas to single-entry and a three-month validity period.

The restrictions affected several African countries, including Ghana and Nigeria, and were based on concerns over visa reciprocity and the acceptance of deported migrants.

In July, the U.S. Consulate in Nigeria announced updates to its reciprocal nonimmigrant visa policy, stating: “The United States Department of State has announced updates to its reciprocal non-immigrant visa policy, impacting several countries, including Nigeria. Effective immediately, most non-immigrant and non-diplomatic visas issued to citizens of Nigeria will be single-entry visas with a three-month validity period.

“Those U.S. non-immigrant visas issued prior to July 8, 2025, will retain their status and validity. We wish to underscore that, as is standard globally, visa reciprocity is a continuous process and is subject to review and change at any time, such as increasing or decreasing permitted entries and duration of validity. You can view the latest information on visa reciprocity schedules for all countries at travel.state.gov.”

Reports indicate that the U.S. pressured some African nations to accept deported migrants, including Venezuelan detainees from U.S. prisons.

Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar rejected these pressures, stating that Nigeria would not serve as a “dumping ground” for deportees.

“It would be difficult for countries like Nigeria to accept Venezuelan prisoners into Nigeria,” Tuggar said during a televised interview.

“We have enough problems of our own; we cannot accept Venezuelan deportees to Nigeria. We already have 230 million people.”

Meanwhile, Ghanaian President John Mahama confirmed that Ghana had begun accepting deported West African nationals after U.S. requests.

“We were approached by the U.S. to accept third-party nationals who were being removed from the U.S., and we agreed with them that West African nationals were acceptable,” Mahama said.

“All our fellow West African nationals don’t need visas to come to our country.”

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UK Nursery Worker Jailed For Abusing 21 Babies

Published

1 day ago

September 26, 2025

Editor

A judge on Friday jailed a nursery worker for eight years for a string of “gratuitous” and “sadistic” attacks on babies.

In one incident, Londoner Roksana Lecka, 22, kicked a little boy in the face several times.

Lecka, who blamed cannabis for her crimes, admitted seven counts of cruelty to a person under the age of 16 and was convicted after a trial of another 14 counts.

Sentencing her for attacks on 21 babies, Judge Sarah Plaschkes said she had committed “multiple acts of gratuitous violence” at two London nurseries where she worked.

“You pinched, slapped, punched, smacked and kicked them. You pulled their ears, hair and their toes. You toppled children headfirst into cots,” she said.

“Often the child would be quietly and happily minding its own business before you deliberately inflicted pain… Your criminal conduct can properly be characterised as sadistic,” she added.

Lecka’s cruelty was revealed in June 2024 after she was seen pinching a number of children.
Police were called in and found multiple incidents recorded on the nursery CCTV.

Victim impact statements submitted to London’s Kingston Crown Court from parents of Lecka’s victims told how they were left heartbroken and guilt-stricken by the attacks.

“These children were so innocent and vulnerable,” one mother told the court.

“They couldn’t speak, they couldn’t defend themselves and they couldn’t tell us as parents that something had happened to them,” she added.

“They were totally helpless and Roksana preyed upon them.”

The hearing was told that she had apologised to the parents in a letter to the court in which she said cannabis had turned her into a different person.

She had been addicted to the drug around the time of the offences, but had not told the nursery.
She was found not guilty of three further counts of child cruelty.

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Italy Fines Six Oil Firms $1bn Fine For Restricting Competition

Published

1 day ago

September 26, 2025

Editor

Italy’s antitrust regulator said Friday it has slapped Italian energy giant Eni and five other companies with fines totalling more than 936 million euros ($1.1 billion) for “restricting competition” in the sale of fuel.

The authority said in a statement that Eni, Esso, Ip, Q8, Saras and Tamoil “coordinated to set the value of the bio component factored into fuel prices”, which tripled between 2019 and 2023.

A probe following a whistleblower’s complaint revealed that “the companies implemented parallel price increases — largely coinciding — which were driven by direct or indirect information exchanges among them”, the authority said.

“The cartel began on 1 January 2020 and continued until 30 June 2023,” it added.

AFP