A non-governmental organisation, Face Of Waziri-Nigeria (FOWN), has alleged that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was making frantic effort to frustrate at least two of the Justices of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) to resign, so as to make mess of the judicial panel.<\/p>\n
The Director General of the group, Comrade Bukky Adeniyi, made the allegation in a statement issued in Lagos on Thursday, July 21, 2023.<\/p>\n
Adeniyi stated that given the existing legal proviso, which necessitated a replacement and retrieval in case any Judge resigns and consequently translates to buying time beyond the stipulated time by the Supreme Court, was a ploy to make the case statute barred and of no effect.<\/p>\n
FOWN noted that the alleged surreptitious move made by President Tinubu was to make the Justices resign and the target was at ensuring the time frame of 180 days elapsed before the case is concluded by the panel.<\/p>\n
The statement reads, \u201cthe Justice has not resigned at the moment but we have it on good authority that Mr. Tinubu and his team are seriously working hard to threaten and frustrate one or two of them to resign so that the panel will be bereft of jurisdiction at this stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will lead to replacement and retrieval de novo. In which case, it will be statute barred once outside the 180 days stipulated by the constitution and attendant of which ends the matter, because Supreme Court cannot extend time.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the moment Tinubu is pressuring the tribunal. He wants two judges to withdraw or resign from the panel,\u201d FOWN stated.<\/p>\n
The group also cited a former PDP Governor from the South-South turned \u201cAPC lackey having allegedly helped to rig elections in Tinubu\u2019s favour within the zone\u201d is now being used to hoodwink the Justices to give favourable decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cA particular Governor formerly with the PDP but now in APC sequel Tinubu\u2019s blessing from South-South is delegated to use document of money exchange between the government of that state and one or two of the justices in the past for judgement favour then, as a proof to harass and intimidate the justices to shift the judgement of the Tribunal in their favour.<\/p>\n
The group, however, raised some poser on the matter: \u201cHow do you explain if at all such money exchange occurred in the past, to now want to use such to blackmail the Justice?<\/p>\n
\u201cDid the Justice or Justices demand for money the governor gave then or was given as thank you? In whatever case, the Tribunal matter is different from whatever transaction they had together in the past,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In its resolve to ensure justice is served without undue interference, the group also explained how Tinubu has tried again to shroud in secrecy his Chicago State University saga having known that the truth, if revealed, will further worsen his plight.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe faulted the recent move by the counsel to the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, to subpoena the institution on the need to ascertain authenticity of documents relating to his attendance at Chicago State University.<\/p>\n
Recall that Atiku had in a petition dated July 11, 2023, by and through his attorneys, requested the court to \u201cissue subpoena commanding a corporate representative of Resident Chicago State University (Respondent) to appear for deposition upon oral examination of the topics set forth in Exhibit A attached hereto at the offices of Dechert LLP at 35 West Wacker Drive, Suite 3400, Chicago, Illinois 60601 on July 21, 2023 at 9.00am.\u201d<\/p>\n
The respondent is expected, amongst other things to, \u201ctestify and give evidences and in support thereof states as follows: \u201cThat non-party Bola Ahmed Tinubu is currently the President of Nigeria and is facing various court proceedings concerning his election and the authenticity of documents relating to his attendance at Chicago State University; \u201cThat Mr. Tinubu had previously asserted that he attended various educational institutions located in the Chicago area, including but not limited to Chicago State University;<\/p>\n
\u201cTo test the truth and veracity of Mr. Tinubu\u2019s assertions, Petitioner must depose a corporate representative of Respondent Chicago State University (Respondent) regarding educational record or lack thereof, from respondent;<\/p>\n
\u201cTo identify and determine if Mr. Tinubu attended above-mentioned institution, petitioner needs deposition testimony regarding the following information, as outlined in Exhibit A, including but not limited to admission information pertaining to Mr. Tinubu, proof of enrolment and attendance of Mr. Tinubu, and any degrees Mr. Tinubu attained from the Respondent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A non-governmental organisation, Face Of Waziri-Nigeria (FOWN), has alleged that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was making frantic effort to frustrate at least two of the Justices of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) to resign, so as to make mess of the judicial panel. The Director General of the group, Comrade Bukky Adeniyi, made the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-77247","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/journalist101.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/20230322_085322.jpg?fit=700%2C392&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4LVjE-k5V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77248,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77247\/revisions\/77248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalist101.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}