PDP, Jegede drag Akeredolu to Supreme Court
Akeredolu and Jegede
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State said it will appeal against the Appeal Court judgment dismissing the petition against the declaration of Gov. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu as governor.
This is contained in a statement signed by the State Publicity Secretary, Kennedy Peretei, and made available to newsmen in Akure on Wednesday.
The party and its candidate in the Oct. 10, 2020 governorship election, Eyitayo Jegede, had approached the Court of Appeal to nullify Akeredolu’s election.
However, the appellate court said in a unanimous judgment on Wednesday that the petition by PDP and its candidate lacked merit.
In concluding her lead judgment, Hon. Justice Theresa Orji-Abadua said the appeal was partially dismissed and partially allowed.
“To the ordinary man in the street, the judgment was inconclusive and we must approach the Supreme Court to help the Appeal Court to conclude the judgment.
“The kernel of the Eyitayo Jegede/PDP petition was whether or not a gross violation of the 1999 Constitution (as Amended) should be allowed to stay.
“Whether or not Mai Mala Buni, as a sitting Governor of Yobe State can double as National Chairman of All Progressives Congress, to sign the nomination of Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) for the governorship election.
“While the Court of Appeal acknowledged that it was a violation of the Constitution, it still went ahead to dismiss the appeal.
“We are still studying the details of the judgement, by virtue of the fact that it was delivered via Zoom. But we have sufficient grounds to appeal the decision of the court.
“We are confident the Supreme Court, which is the highest court in the land, will do justice,” the statement added.
Lauretta Onochie: PDP fires warning to Lawan, Gaya
PDP National Publicity Secretary Kola Ologbondiyan: signed the report
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has charged Senate President Ahmed Lawan to respect Nigerians by immediately returning the nomination of President Muhammadu Buhari’s aide, Lauretta Onochie, proposed to the Senate as a National Commissioner in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to Mr. President.
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The PDP asserted that Senator Lawan will have nobody but himself to blame for the ridiculing of his tenure in office if he failed to return the nomination as demanded by Nigerians.
Consequently, the PDP also asked the Chairman of the Senate Committee on INEC, Senator Kabiru Gaya, to resist the attempt by Senator Lawan to drag him into public ignominy and odium by engaging him to do an incredulous, irresponsible, and dirty job of returning a confirmation of Onochie to the Committee of the Whole Senate.
The PDP charged Senator Gaya to immediately stand down all deliberations that concern Onochie before his committee.
The PDP in a statement released on Wednesday said:
“Senator Lawan must know that Nigerians are now holding him directly answerable for gross misconduct and impeachable act of perfidy for sending Onochie’s already rejected nomination to the Gaya’s Committee, in utter violation of the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and total derision for the sensibility of Nigerians.
“Our party reminds Senator Lawan that the reasons that forced his hands to stand down Onochie’s faulted nomination eight months ago have neither changed nor abated. The reasons are still sticking and they are not far-fetched.
“In case Lawan needs to be reminded, paragraph 14 of the 3rd schedule of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) forbids a person involved in partisan politics to hold office as a member of INEC.
“Relying on the above in demanding for a litmus of respect for the supremacy of the 1999 Constitution, the PDP holds that Onochie, as a card-carrying member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) from Ward 5 Onicha Olona, Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta state and who is also public campaigner for the APC and President Buhari, cannot, by any stroke of imagination, be appointed as an INEC official at any level and under any guise whatsoever.
“If anything, our party assures Senator Lawan that his desperation to appoint Onochie into INEC through the backdoor is an act of rebelliousness to the 1999 constitution as well as impudence to the sensibilities of Nigerians, which must never be allowed to stand.
“Therefore, the PDP directs our members and other democratically minded members of the National Assembly, across party lines, to activate and deploy all legislative instruments at their disposal against Onochie’s confirmation as a National Commissioner of INEC.
“The PDP also directs all our members and all lovers of democracy across the country to get ready to use all legitimate means including civic action against Senator Lawan and the APC leadership in the Senate if they do not rescind their attempt to confirm Onochie at all costs.
“The intent and purpose of the PDP are to preserve the sanctity and credibility of INEC and our party will never allow Senator Lawan and his APC to smuggle a fox into INEC sheep pen in their bid to corrupt and further desecrate the commission and derail our national effort towards the free, fair and credible electoral process in our country.
Our party also cautions Buhari Presidency to end its ignoble attempt to compromise the Senate and our electoral system in its bid to perpetuate its misrule beyond 2023.”
PDP: World Bank report exposes Buhari’s lies

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the report by World Bank that 7 million Nigerians have been pushed into poverty in the last year, has clinically belied the integrity posturing of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The opposition party said the world bank report came in the face of the recent claims by President Buhari that his administration has lifted over 10 million Nigerians out of poverty in the last two years.
The PDP asserted that the report by the World Bank has further vindicated its position that President Buhari runs an uncoordinated and clueless administration that thrives on lies, false performance claims, deceit, and perfidious propaganda.
The statement added that:
“Nigerans can now clearly see why the APC and President Buhari’s handlers are always in a frenzy to attack our party and other well-meaning Nigerians whenever we point to the poor handling of the economy and on the need for President Buhari to always be factual on pertinent issues of governance in our country.
“Unfortunately, it indeed appears that Mr. President enjoys living in denial while watching millions of Nigerians go down in abject poverty, excruciating hunger, and starvation as our country now ranks 98th out of 107 in Global Hunger Index under his watch.
“Otherwise why would Mr. President claim that his administration has lifted over 10.5 million Nigerians out of poverty while official figures even from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) show worsening poverty rate with 142.2% growth in food inflation and over 82.9 million Nigerians being unable to afford their daily meals due to the failure of the administration to take practical steps to grow and protect the food sector?
“Under President Buhari, Nigerians are now subjected to the worst form of poverty and hardship, with collapsed purchasing power, occasioned by a voodoo economy management that has wrecked our productive sectors and pummeled our naira from the about N167 to a US dollar in 2015 to the current over N500 per dollar.
“It is unfortunate that Mr. President will choose to always bandy fictitious figures and false performance claims, when he has, in a space of six years, destroyed our national productivity and reduced our country to a beggarly nation, a laughing stock and object of pity among the comity of nations.
“The PDP invites Nigerians to note President Buhari and APC’s similar false performance claims in other critical sectors, including power, transportation, road infrastructure, health, education, agriculture, security, aviation among others, where the Buhari administration has been bandying fictitious figures with no tangible project to point at.
“Our party counsels President Buhari, his handlers as well as their party, the APC, to note that Nigerians have seen through their deceitful clams.
“The PDP, once again, urges Mr. President to end his false performance claims and get more competent hands to manage the economy before every Nigerian is turned into a street beggar.”
Agbakoba submits 5 critical areas for amendment in 1999 constitution
Olisa Agbakoba: suggests five areas for amendment in 1999 constitution
Olisa Agbakoba, a senior advocate of Nigeria has sent a memorandum to the Senate Committee on the review of the 1999 constitution suggesting five critical areas to amend.
In the memo, shared with P.M. News, Agbakoba, who was the founding leader of the Civil Liberties Organisation, welcomed the constitutional amendment as it is designed to create a stronger constitutional framework. T
He then shared his thoughts on five areas out of the 17 being proposed by the National Assembly.
Legitimacy, Referendum and a New Constitution.
There is a strong perception that the Constitution is not legitimate because “we the people” was enacted by General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s Military Government. To legitimize the Constitution people have called for a referendum and a new constitution. If this is not possible, the legitimacy question may be resolved by amending the “We the people” military clause in the Constitution and reenacting it as “We the people,” as amended by the National Assembly. This may help the legitimacy issue and cool down calls for a referendum and a new constitution.
Ethnic Nationalities
Legitimacy can also be conferred on the Constitutional reform process by full involvement and incorporation of the leaders of our traditional and ethnic nationalities. The constitution reform process will gain very strong imprimatur and legitimacy by coopting these leaders. Prof. Ben Nwabueze has indicated that ethnic nationalities are the true representatives of Nigeria. To quote him, “Nigeria has no territory other than the traditional territories inhabited by its constituent nationalities from time immemorial – Yorubaland, Igboland, Hausa land, Tivland, Kanuri, Ijaw etc. It is the ethnic nationalities that ceded or granted sovereign powers of government over their territories to Britain which makes them (i.e. the ethnic nationalities) the original and primary stakeholders in the Nigerian state”. I believe that giving a prominent seat to the leaders of our traditional and ethnic nationalities will be a substitute for yet another wasteful national conference.
Supremacy of the Constitution:
Our Constitution has always been weak. The Constitution must be supreme and inviolable, otherwise our democracy will never be strong. Prof Ben Nwabueze has suggested that a Declaration of Invalidity in respect of constitutional infractions, should be included as a new sub-section 1 (4) of the Constitution which deals with the Supremacy of the Constitution. The new section 1(4) will provide a drastic consequence for constitutional infractions.
Independent Institutions Consolidating Democracy
Our Democracy will always be fragile without strong and independent institutions. South Africa enacted chapter 10 of its constitution titled: Institutions consolidating democracy, to guarantee the independence of critical institutions. In our case, the closest we have to chapter 10 of the South African constitution, is Section 153, but it falls short of the South African model. We need to amend Section 153 of our constitution to provide for independent institutions such as the EFCC, Police, Accountant General, INEC, Judiciary etc. The strategy is that these institutions will be completely independent of Executive control.
Restructuring and Devolution of Powers.
Calls for restructuring have in my personal view become a catch-all phrase that has introduced more confusion than solution. I believe the simple way to go is by regional autonomy. Regional autonomy refers to the governance and administration of a federating unit in the interest of the local people, according to their aspirations. Nigeria is made up of multi-ethnic nations managed by a central authority. This model has proved unsuccessful. Europe understood that diversity is best managed by regional autonomy. Switzerland has four ethnic groups. Each of them shares the Presidency through four cantons that make up their federating units. According to Prof. George Obiozor, even though Quebec is the only fully French-speaking province, yet Canada is bilingual for the sake of Quebec. On the other hand, Yugoslavia mismanaged its diversity and the result was the emergence of six distinct countries. The same fate befell Czechoslovakia, now the nations of Czechs and Slovaks. The same is true of the centralised Russian Federation that splintered into more than 15 nations.
Ethnic Nationalism, the basis for successful nation-states, finds full expression in the reunion of Communist East and Capitalist West Germany. This is a perfect case of similar ethnicities easily living together. On the other hand, different ethnicities must live in balanced diversity. Regional autonomy resolves our diversity challenge.
Devolution of powers is a related concept to regional autonomy. Devolution means transfer of powers from one level of government to another and vice versa. There is no question that a transfer of power is needed in our country from the Federal to the States. The Federal Government is overburdened with legislative powers and must shed some to the Federating units. I suggest three new legislative lists as follows -the Federal list, State list and Shared list. Nigeria operates on the principle of cooperative federalism. The shared list will accommodate cooperation between federal and state government.
I have enclosed patterns of distribution of powers within Federations based on a study of 28 Federal Constitutions a rough guide on my suggested legislative lists are simply a rough guide.
Patterns in the Distribution of Some Powers within Federations
(Based on a Study of 20 Federal Constitutions)
– Currency: always federal
– Defence: always federal, sometimes – shared
– Treaty ratification: almost always federal, sometimes – shared
– External trade: usually federal, occasionally – shared
– Interstate trade: usually federal, occasionally – shared
– Intrastate trade: usually States, sometimes – shared
– Major physical infrastructure: usually federal, sometimes – shared
– Primary/Secondary education: usually states, rarely federal
– Post-secondary education and research: no clear pattern, usually States
– Income security and Labour matters: mix of federal and shared
– Pensions: shared and federal
– Health care: usually States, sometimes shared
– Mineral resources: no clear pattern but in Nigeria states suggested
– Agriculture: no clear pattern but States recommended, Federal for policy only
– Environment: usually shared States
– Municipal affairs usually States, occasionally shared
– Court system”: usually shared, occasionally federal, rarely States
– Criminal law: no clear pattern but generally state
– Police: usually shared, rarely federal
– Customs/excise taxes: almost always federal.
– Corporate and personal taxes: usually, shared, sometimes federal
– Arms, ammunition and explosives – Federal
– Aviation, including airports, safety of aircraft and carriage of passengers and goods by air – Shared
– Awards of national titles of honor, decorations and other dignities – Federal
– Bankruptcy and insolvency – Shared
– Banks, banking, bills of exchange and promissory notes – Federal
– Borrowing of moneys within or outside a country – Shared
– Census – Federal
– Citizenship, naturalisation and aliens – Federal
– Commercial and industrial monopolies, combines and trust -federal
– Control and Capital issues – shared
– Copyright – Federal
– Creation of States – shared
– Currency, coinage and legal tender- Federal
– Customs and excise duties – Federal
– Deportation of persons – Federal
– Designation of securities in which trust funds may be invested – shared
– Diplomatic, consular and trade representations – Federal
– Elections- shared
– Evidence – shared
– Exchange control – Federal
– Export duties – Federal
– External affairs – Federal
– Extradition – Federal
– Fingerprints, identification and criminal records – shared
– Fishing and fisheries including fishing and fisheries in rivers, lakes, waterways, ponds and other inland waters – shared
– Immigration and emigration – Federal
– Incorporation, regulation and winding up of bodies corporate, including co-operative societies, local government councils and bodies corporate – shared
– Insurance- shared
– Maritime shipping and navigation, including-
(a) shipping and navigation on tidal waters;
(b) shipping and navigation on the River Niger and its affluents and other inland waterways or inter-State waterway- shared
– Meteorology – Federal
– Military (Army, Navy and Air Force) – Federal
– Mines and minerals, including oil fields, oil mining, geological surveys and natural gas – usually shared, sometimes Federal
– National parks – shared
– Nuclear energy – shared
– Passports and visas – Federal
– Patents, trademarks, trade or business names, industrial designs and merchandise marks – shared
– Posts, telegraphs and telephones – shared
Prisons – States
– Public holidays – shared
– Railways – shared
– Regulation of political parties – shared
– Taxation, of incomes, profits and capital gains, etc – shared
* Supreme and Constitutional courts are almost always established in the constitution and are thus not a head of power. In some federations, municipal, or local governments are also constitutionally established.
Gov. Diri says Nigeria, ripe enough for change
Governor Douye Diri
Gov. Douye Diri of Bayelsa has said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will in 2023 bring about the desired change Nigerians are yearning for.
Diri also advocated the strengthening of the party at all levels in order to wrest power from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at the center in the 2023 general elections.
In a statement on Thursday by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Daniel Alabrah, the governor noted that the PDP was the only reliable alternative party that could provide purposeful leadership at this point in time.
Diri, who decried the worsening insecurity in the country, said it behooved on the PDP to rescue the nation.
His words: “Nigeria is ripe enough for change. We have experienced the change that the APC brought and now it is time to change the change.
“PDP is the only veritable and reliable alternative party for now. So, you and I have been given the mandate to rescue this nation. We have the best times to bounce back to the national scene.
“Our appeal is that the APC should allow the people to determine who becomes their president in 2023. We don’t want Nigeria to go down,” he said.
Diri also cautioned that the party and country’s interests should be placed above personal considerations in the choice of a presidential candidate, noting that political power should be utilised to positively impact lives as it was ephemeral.
On the proposed use of electronic registration of party members, he urged the zonal leadership to prevail on the national leadership to kick-start the process.
While commending the zonal leadership for its role in getting Edo back into the PDP fold, Diri said South-South would remain a stronghold of the party.
While highlighting some of key projects being undertaken by his administration, particularly in the area of road infrastructure in the last one year, he assured the people that they would be ready for inauguration next February.
The projects include the construction of the Yenagoa-Oporoma and Sagbama-Ekeremor senatorial roads.
The construction of a media complex to accommodate the state-owned radio, television and newspaper outfits, establishment of technical colleges and the renovation of schools, among others.
In his remarks, the PDP National Vice Chairman, South-South, Chief Dan Orbih, commended the Diri administration for enhancing the state’s security architecture with the provision of operational vehicles.
Orbih, who expressed concern over the security situation in the country, urged the governor to collaborate with his colleagues in the zone to put in place a security network to protect lives and property.
He also applauded the development strides of the governor in the area of infrastructure development, noting that the achievements of the PDP governors would boost the party’s campaign strategies.
Orbih, however, condemned in strong terms the recent nomination by President Muhammadu Buhari of a known APC member as a commissioner in the Independent National Electoral Commission, describing the development as a threat to the country’s democracy.


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