Leading Reporters

The Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa is currently dishing out threats to all stakeholders in his camp to either deliver or resign. In a meeting two days ago in his office, he told all the local government chairman to turn in signed and undated resignation letters to his office, with a threat that he’ll help them fill the date if PDP governorship candidates Sheriff Oborevwori fails come March 11 to clinch the governorship position.

Okowa was said to have told his aides, commissioners and the elected Local Government chairmen to resign during the meeting if they are not certain to deliver their polling units and wards.

A visibly angry Okowa was quoted to have ordered them to resort to anything they could do to deliver Delta State to PDP governorship candidate Sheriff Oborevwori.

Recall that in a trending video, Okowa was venting his anger on the Christian community in Nigeria, accusing it to be responsible for his abysmal loss as Atiku’s vice presidential candidate. Okowa accused Christians to have preferred Peter Obi of Labour Party to him.

In the said meeting, Okowa was said to have told his aides, commissioners and the Local Government chairmen that unless nothing drastic is done by his party men, Senator Omo Agege of APC will coast to victory. He told them to dip in their hands into their pockets and buy the Obidients over to their side.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it will on Monday approach the Appeal Court for an order to allow it to reconfigure its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the March 11 state elections.

A credible source in the commission hinted on Sunday to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the order was significant following an order restraining it from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until due inspection was conducted and Certified True Copies of them were issued.

The source, who requested not to be quoted, said that INEC would require sufficient time to reconfigure the BVAS needed to conduct the election that would take place in all 36 states of the federation, except the FCT.

“The commission’s Legal Department is actually preparing an application to be filed in court on Monday to seek an order for it to reconfigure its BVAS for Saturday’s Governorship and state House of Assembly election,” the source said.

The source explained that, considering the number of BVAS required to conduct the election across states, INEC needed to reconfigure the BVAS used for the March 25 elections and deploy them to polling units for the Saturday election.

The source added that the INEC technical team had to be deployed on time to commence the reconfiguration of the devices, which had to be done one by one.

The source said the order was important if the Saturday Governorship and state Houses of Assembly election must hold as scheduled, otherwise postponement of the election became inevitable.

NAN recalls that the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Friday granted leave to the presidential candidates of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Atiku Abubakar, to have access to all the sensitive materials used by INEC for the conduct of the Feb. 25 presidential election.

A panel of the appellate court led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh made the order after hearing two separate ex parte applications the two aggrieved presidential candidates filed alongside their political parties.

Specifically, the applicants urged the court to compel INEC to allow them to obtain documents it used for the presidential election to aid their petitions against the outcome of the presidential election.

“An order granting the applicants’ permission to do electronic scanning and make photocopies of voter registration and ballot papers used in the conduct of the election for the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria held on the Feb. 25.

“An order granting leave to the applicants to carry out Digital Forensic Inspection of BVAS machines used for the conduct of the Feb. 25 election for the Office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

The plaintiffs also sought an order restraining INEC “from tampering with the information embedded in the BVAS machines until due inspection was conducted and Certified True Copies of them issued”.

The court, in its consideration, ordered INEC to allow the applicants to inspect all the electoral materials used in the conduct of the presidential election.

The court permitted the appellants to do electronic scanning and/or make photocopies of voter registration and ballot papers used in the conduct of the presidential election.

“That leave is hereby granted to the applicants to carry out Digital Forensic Inspection of BVAS machines used for the conduct of the Feb. 25, 2023 Election for the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” the court ordered.

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa has allegedly threatened the Igbo business community in Delta State with eviction from their shops if they go ahead to vote for any other governorship candidate that is not PDP’s Sheriff Oborevwori

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa as well allegedly offered a vote-inducing bribe of $50,000 to the Igbo traders leaders who were summoned to meet him in Asaba yesterday, with a charge to them to go and mobilize their members and kismen to vote for PDP governorship candidate come March 11.

Governor Okowo has gone on the war path, vowing to destroy any element that hinders the emergence of Sheriff Oborevwori as his successor.

An ally of Okowa who would not want his name on prints hinted this platform that Okowa would not mind plunging the state just to have sheriff emerge, after his woeful political outing at the vice-presidency level

“Our principal is making an irredeemable mistakes in his desperation to get vote for Sheriff. Threatening a people like Igbos for vote is definitely going to nail him. He thinks he can induce them with money. With what we saw in Abuja and Lagos, Igbos have realized their political value and will not bark down again. They’ll eat your money and still mess you up. That’s what my principal hasn’t realized. He picks offence when we try to tell him that appeal will work better than threat.

Meanwhile, Delta indigenes have enumerated the reason for abandoning Okowa. Aside from foisting his partner-in-crime Sheriff Oborevwori on the people as his successor, the group under the auspices of Greater Delta Agenda has enumerated the collection and mismanagement N850 billion loans, the divesting of state funds into personal businesses, including floating a bank using proxy, non payment of pension, incessant increase of school fees in state tertiary institutions, and the menace of joblessness where countless graduate resort to Keke riding as a way of surviving the hardship occasioned by Okowa leadership.

The National Vice Chairman (North-West) of the All Progressives Congress APC, Mallam Salihu Lukman, on Friday called for the resignation of the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele and the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami for misleading the president, Major General Muhammadu Buhari to flout the Supreme Court order on the new naira redesign policy.

The development comes hours after the apex court invalidated the CBN policy on the grounds that it was implemented without due consultation, adding that it was also not in line with constitutional provisions.

Consequently, the Supreme Court ruled that the old N200, N500 and N1,000 naira notes should co-exists with the new ones until December 31.

Reacting to the news, Lukman lamented that the sudden implementation of the cash swap policy and tight deadline had brought untold hardship to Nigerians.

The Kaduna politician, therefore, noted that the right thing for public office holders like Emefiele and Malami to do after such public office abuse was to accept their limitations and resign honourably.

In a statement titled “Cashless Policy: Supreme Court Invalidates Actions of the Federal Government”, Lukman expressed delight in the ruling of the Court declaring the FG’s cashless policy as unconstitutional and an utter violation of the fundamental rights.

He said, “It is also unfortunate that President Muhammadu Buhari could be misled into such acts of illegality and abuse of executive powers as pronounced by the Supreme Court. We, and indeed all Nigerians, are grateful to the Supreme Court Justices led by Justice Akomaye for this landmark judicial intervention.

“Given the injurious nature of the consequences of the cashless policy of the Federal Government as was implemented thus far, and the damage of the Supreme Court ruling to the profile of President Buhari, Godwin Emefiele and Abubakar Malami must take personal responsibility for this act of illegality by the Federal Government. In advanced democracies, public officers who commit such acts of illegality voluntarily resign from their appointments.

“Therefore, if indeed, the cashless policy of the Federal Government was supposedly designed to conform with extant legal provisions of the Nigerian Federation, now that it turned out in the direct opposite, both the CBN Governor, Mr. Emefiele and the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Malami should accept the limitations of both their knowledge of the law and commitment to democracy by resigning from their respective offices forthwith. Rule of law is fundamental to democracy and individuals who flagrantly violate the laws or promote acts that breach the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria must not be tolerated.”
The APC vice chair also saluted the resilience of Governors Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna), Yahaya Bello (Kogi) and Bello Matawalle (Zamfara) for challenging the Federal Government on behalf of the masses.

He noted that they have shown true heroics through their action alleviating the sufferings of the people.

“On behalf of our party leaders and members from North-West, we salute our three Governors, Mallam Nasir Ahmed El-Rufai, Alh. Yahaya Bello and Alh. Bello Matawalle, respectively of Kaduna, Kogi and Zamfara states for their courage and initiative to challenge the action of the Federal Government in the Supreme Court. It is a patriotic duty to challenge the policy of government, which unfortunately plunge Nigerians into hardship and unimaginable shock, notwithstanding partisan affiliations.

“By doing so, our leaders in APC led by Mallam Nasir, Alh. Yahaya Bello and Alh. Matawalle has once again demonstrated superior commitment to democracy. We call on Nigerians to take note of the fact that the crusade against the Federal Government cashless policy was led by APC, not minding the attempt to sensationally politicise it to the benefit of opposition political parties and their candidates in this election season.

“It is gratifying that Nigerians resisted the antics of subversive politicians who wanted to use such crude methods, including inflicting untold hardship and pains on Nigerians to provoke citizens into voting against the APC during the February 25 Presidential and National Assembly elections. We commend and salute Nigerians for their faith in our party, APC and determination to support our party and our candidates during the 2023 elections. We are indeed confident that Nigerians across all the 36 states of the Federation will reaffirm this confidence during the Governorship and States’ Houses of Assembly election on Saturday, March 11,” he stated.

The candidate of Labour Party, LP, Mr Peter Obi, on Friday, secured leave of the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja to have access to all the sensitive materials the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, deployed for the conduct of the presidential election held on February 25.

The appellate court, which will sit as the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, equally ordered the electoral body to also grant the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar access to the election materials.

A panel of the appellate court led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh made the orders after it heard two separate ex parte applications the two aggrieved presidential candidates filed alongside their political parties.

Cited as respondents in the matter were INEC, the acclaimed winner of the presidential election, Bola Tinubu, as well as his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC.

Both applications were predicated on Section146 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022, Paragraph 47 (1, 2 &3) of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act of 2022, as well as under the inherent jurisdiction of the Court as referenced by Section 6 (6) A & B of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

While Obi, in his application that was moved by his team of lawyers led by Mr Alex Ejesieme(SAN), sought six principal reliefs, Atiku’s lawyer, Mr Adedamola Faloku, sought seven prayers from the tribunal.

Specifically, the applicants urged the court to compel INEC to allow them to obtain documents in its custody that were used for the presidential election.

They maintained that the requested documents would aid their petition against the outcome of the presidential contest that was declared in favour of the candidate of the APC, Tinubu.

It will be recalled that INEC had declared Tinubu of the APC as the winner of the presidential poll, ahead of 17 other candidates that contested the election.

According to INEC, Tinubu scored a total of 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku who polled a total of 6,984,520 votes and Obi of the LP, who came third with a total of 6,101,533 votes.

Both PDP and LP had since rejected the outcome of the election and vowed to challenge it in court.