GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH !! PDP suspends Presidential Campaign to protest CJN’s suspension

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said it has suspended its campaign for 72 hours to protest the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen.

Less than twenty four hours ago, President Muhammadu Buhari controversially suspended Mr Onnoghen from office.

Many Nigerians including the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) and Senate President Bukola Saraki have described the president’s action as illegal.

In a statement, the national chairman of the PDP, Uche Secondus, said the party is suspending its campaign for 72 hours, in solidarity with Nigerians.

The campaign council, co-chaired by Secondus, also described Buhari’s action as a “dangerous and brazen assault on the constitution”

The PDP Presidential Campaign was scheduled to be in Benue State today, before the suspension.

In the same vein, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Donald Duke has also faulted the present administration for suspending Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen.

The former Cross Rivers state governor described the CJN’s suspension as undemocratic and not right for the polity.

He described the action as a “blatant and arrogant display of power.”

- PM NEWS

Sam Sodje opens up on fraud case, jail term, says family being witch-hunted

The Sodje brothers made headlines a few days ago when it became known that they were found guilty and jailed for fraud in 2017.

The brothers — Efe Sodje, 46, Stephen Sodje, 43, and Bright Sodje, 52 — were said to have siphoned off cash from their charity, Sodje Sports Foundation (SSF).

They were alleged to have pocketed money raised at black-tie dinners, auctions, and charity football matches.

The case was kept under wraps due to a clause preventing it from being publicised until the conclusion of a separate trial involving Sam, who was on Monday cleared of money laundering.

Speaking with TheCable, Sam, a former Super Eagles central defender, described the match fixing and fraud charges brought against him and his brothers as a witch-hunt.

Sam, 39, spoke about the allegations levelled against him and his brothers.

‘Highest witch hunt ever’

All these talks and crime they brought against my brothers are all lies. They are not really the ones they targeted but me – Sam Sodje. This is the highest witch hunt ever. It is all cooked up because the journalist that set me up on the match fixing/money laundering scandal was jailed for fake news. The one we called ‘fake sheikh’. Mazher Mahmoud is a well known journalist always setting up top people. He has been in this business for over 30 years. If it was true, why is it that it was the journalist that went to prison and not me?

On the part played by Bright Sodje

The £60,000 they claimed the Sodjes embezzled, Bright alone is worth 10 times more of that. He has a house in Tunisia, Morocco and Spain. Why will he go and do that kind of fraud? Bright is not like me. He is typical English. A proper English man and he is a magistrate. Can you imagine that? A magistrate. It is because they could not believe that Mahmoud will go to prison for lying and peddling fake news.

Two of our board of trustees/directors are Clive Betts (MP) and Ashley Carson. My brother Bright Sodje is the third person on the board. The three of them are the signatories to the foundation’s account. The three of them are the ones who sign cheques. I have never seen the cheques before. Efe has never seen the cheques too before.

If you say the foundation is a fraud, arrest everybody… but who are the first set of people to be arrested? Is it not the board of trustees/directors? And the accountant?

You know one funny thing? Betts and Carson left the foundation at the same time. When the investigators went to court, they included Bright because he is a Sodje but left both Betts and Carson out. Just think about that. You claimed to be investigating the foundation, why not bring in all the three people that do sign the cheques?

The question to ask is why is it that Betts and Carson that were part of board of directors was not included in the trial of the foundation’s fraud charges? Why just Bright alone? After all, three of them were the signatories to every cheque?

Why Sam was not convicted

They found me not guilty because I didn’t do anything. Where the judge became baffled was when he saw where they said I took £300 out of £80, 000 and also gave out £20,000 to charity in 2012. That made the judge to ask if I could give £20,000 of my personal money to charity, so, its only £300 money laundering he’ll go and get involved in?

I’ll tell you that it’s ‘operation bring the Sodjes down’ that’s going on in England. Let’s say the fraud issue is really correct, everyone is suppose to be in prison by now. It is lies.

The match fixing allegation didn’t go well as they expected that’s why they came up with the fraud thing with my brothers involved. I was also included in the fraud thing concerning the Sodje foundation. When I won that, they now brought money laundering charges against me again. It was not even my case but some other people.

The question my lawyer asked in court was ‘are you telling me that Sam took £80, 000, he gave £79,700 to the people involved and he took just £300 out of it? How stupid does that sound?’

The Sodjes hobnob with the MPs and most of our meetings were held in the parliament. For a black man to be doing that, we’ve gone too far and they don’t like that. You see me and my family, we don’t care about what they are saying in the media. You see, assuming we are not British, they would have told us to go back home. But because they can’t do that, they are left with tarnishing the Sodje name.

‘All Nigerians are fraudsters’

I know how this country works. The only thing they can do is scandalise the Sodje family name. They can’t do us anything. In court, they were telling me to my face that all Nigerians are fraudsters. Majority of the people here in prison for rape are all whites. How can you take a professional footballer to court for £300? As at 2013, I was worth £1.2 million. How can I go and do money laundering for people I don’t even know for £300? Does that make sense? My mobile phone bill then alone was £550. How come they came up with that publication when I won my case on Monday that my brothers were jailed?

Are the Sodje brothers in jail?

How can they be in jail when we just returned from Nigeria? We all just came back from Nigeria from burying our mother. My brothers never went to prison for one day. When the jail terms were read out in court, they appealed it and that’s what’s going on right now. They never were in prison.

On Akpo Sodje being on the run

Akpo is on social media, he phones them everyday. And he has a very good job in Delta state. His address is on his social media pages. How can someone on the run do that?

‘We are fighting the system’

And guess who we are fighting again? It’s the British media. And all these is because of the journalist that is jailed for giving fake news in the case. Just because I won the case on Monday and they were ordered to pay my expenses for the duration of the court case, the next thing, the media went crazy.

There’s so much to this case that the world out there doesn’t know. Can you imagine how many copies of papers Sun UK sold that morning that the scandal broke with my pictures on their front page? I’ll tell you, they sold 1.7 million copies just within two hours.

Look at what they did to Sam Allardyce? They always set up people while claiming to investigate a none existing allegation. They could not even bring any indicting document to support their case against me in court. I have never even bet in my life before. How can a judge say every Nigerian is a fraudster? He has no right to say that.

The bone of contention against the Sodjes is that we are fighting the system back. As the case was going on, I went ahead to buy a 350 Benz SUV hero and that got them infuriated the more. Saying I was not suppose to buy the car as the case was ongoing in court. That my account should be frozen.

- THECABLE

Why I no longer wear pants – Actress Nazo

Delectable Nollywood actress and producer, Nazo Ekezie, has declared that she is part of the few Nigerians who no longer wear panties.

Speaking in an interview with Saturday Sun, the fast-rising movie star also said she is desperately in need of a man who would love her for who she is, not minding her fame.

Her words on pant stealers: “I might sound cliché but I don’t wear pants anymore. I’m not going to joke with my destiny, and if I’m taking my clothes off anywhere, my underwear is going straight into my bag.”

On her relationship, she revealed: “I’m single and available. I would love someone who sees me as Nazo and not as an actress all the time.

“Right now, I seriously want to be in a relationship. I want to be with a person that actually knows me, a person who loves me and willing to relate with me as Nazo and not as an actress. That one is so important. I’m not looking out to marry a (Aliko) Dangote but my man needs to be comfortable. He has to be able to provide for me,” she explained.

- DAILY POST

OGUN : Car loses control, crushes 4 students to death

A Toyota Avensis car on Friday lost control, after experiencing a tyre burst, tumbled and crushed four students of the Government Technical College and one other person to death in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

The Spokesperson of Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps (TRACE) in Ogun State, Mr Babatunde Akinbiyi, confirmed the incident to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday.

Akinbiyi said that the car lost control due to tyre burst, sumersaulted and hit the students where they were seated in front of a house.
“The vehicle lost control due to tyre burst and speeding , sumarsaulted and went to meet people sitting down outside a house instantly killing five of them and injuring two others.
” The accident occurred around 10:40pm. Four female college students and a little girl died on the spot.

“We Learnt they were students of Government Technical College, Abeokuta.
“They came for a Muslim programme called Tarjuud which was to start by 12am but were still outside around 10:30 pm, waiting for 12am to enter a mosque where the programme will take place before the incident happened.
“Alcoholic drinks were found in the car and unfortunately the driver of the car could not be located, ” he said.

Akinbiyi added that corpses of the deceased had been deposited at the morgue of the Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Abeokuta while the injured were taken to same hospital.

- DAILY POST

Onnoghen: Falana finally reacts to Buhari’s suspension of CJN, blasts Osinbajo, Fashola, Malami

A frontline legal luminary, Femi Falana, has reacted to the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Walter Onnoghen, by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The senior lawyer picked holes in the exparte order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, relied upon by Buhari to suspend Justice Onnoghen.

DAILY POST reported yesterday that President Buhari suspended Justice Onnoghen as the CJN and swore in Justice Tanko Muhammad on acting capacity.

Falana, while pointing out discrepancies in the controversial order, called on the Bar and the Bench to challenge the illegal suspension and the fascism gradually creeping on the nation.

He also lambasted lawyers serving in Buhari’s cabinet, particularly the three senior advocates, although he did not mention their names.

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing and the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami are all learned silks.

In a statement he personally signed on Saturday, Falana, said, “I have had cause to call on the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami SAN to withdraw the charge of false declaration of assets filed against the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen at the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

“The call was without prejudice to the merit of the serious allegations levelled against the Chief Justice. In line with decided judicial authorities, I had wanted the National Judicial Council to investigate the allegations.

“Unfortunately, the 88th statutory meeting of the National Judicial Council scheduled to hold on January 15, 2019, which could have deliberated on the matter and take an informed position was postponed indefinitely on the directive of the embattled Chief Justice.

“As the battle shifted to the courts, both the Judiciary and the Executive were shopping for court orders from the Federal High Court, the National Industrial Court, the Code of Conduct Tribunal and the Court of Appeal. In the process, settled principles of law were sacrificed for the exigency of the moment. Thus, at the 15th annual Gani Fawehinmi lecture which held in Lagos on January 15 2019, I was compelled to warn against the dangerous trend.

“Regrettably, the warning fell on deaf ears. Curiously, in an act of brazen impunity, the Executive procured an ex parte order from the Code of Conduct Tribunal for the immediate suspension of the Chief Justice from office. In his purported compliance with the ex parte order, President Mohammadu Buhari has announced the suspension of Justice Onnoghen as the Chief Justice and appointed Justice Tanko Mohammad as the Acting Chief Justice.

“It is unfortunate that the Bar and the Bench have played into the hands of the sponsors of incipient fascism in the country

“For reasons best known to them, the stakeholders in the legal profession stood by and allowed the Office of the Chief Justice to be completely desecrated. It is intriguing that the 12 lawyers including three Senior Advocates of Nigeria in the federal cabinet did not deem it fit to dissuade President Buhari from carrying out the illegal suspension of the Chief Justice on the basis of an ex parte order issued by the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

” In particular, they ought to have reminded the President of the compulsory retirement of Justice Stanley Nnaji and Justice Wilson Egbo-Egbo for issuing illegal ex parte orders for the removal of Dr Chris Ngige as Governor of Anambra State. It is sad to recall that it was the federal government superintended by former President Olusegun Obasanjo that instigated the illegal removal of the governor at the material time.

“However, notwithstanding the inauguration of Justice Tanko Mohammad as the Acting Chief Justice, the legal profession should not hesitate to review the entire Onnoghen saga in the interest of the nation’s judiciary. In Elelu-Habeeb (2012) 1 WRN the Supreme Court held that by virtue of section 292 of the Constitution the heads of the judicial arms of the state and federal governments in the country cannot be removed without a prior investigation conducted by the NJC.

” Consequently, the apex court set aside the purported removal of the appellant as the Chief judge of Kwara State upon an address forwarded to the house of assembly by former Governor Bukola Saraki. Therefore, the National Judicial Council should convene and constitute a committee to investigate the allegations levelled against the Chief Justice and make appropriate recommendation to the relevant authorities.

“Meanwhile, the legal team of the Chief Justice should proceed to challenge his suspension from office either at the Code of Conduct Tribunal or the Court of Appeal. Despite the gravity of the allegations levelled against the Chief Justice the illegality of the suspension should not be allowed to stand.

“The ex parte order is a suspect document as the motion ex parte on which it was predicated was allegedly filed on January 9, 2019, while the substantive charge against the Chief Justice was filed at the registry of the Code of Conduct Tribunal on January 11, 2019. Furthermore, the counsel who argued the motion is not indicated in the ex parte order.

“However, in view of President Buhari’s belated fidelity in the rule of law, the federal government should comply with all valid and subsisting orders of competent municipal and regional courts made against the federal government.”

- DAILY POST

‘My Lord, Where do I keep your bribe?’

Professor Niyi Osundare, 71, Nigeria’s multiple award-winning poet and 2014 winner of the Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA) for academic excellence, composed this poem two years ago to reflect the anomic times in the country’s judiciary, where sometimes judges take bribes to pervert justice

It was first published on 27 October 2016. As it is germane to our present reality, we republish it again.

My Lord

Please tell me where to keep your bribe?

Do I drop it in your venerable chambers

Or carry the heavy booty to your immaculate mansion

Shall I bury it in the capacious water tank

In your well laundered backyard

Or will it breathe better in the septic tank

Since money can deodorize the smelliest crime

Shall I haul it up the attic

Between the ceiling and your lofty roof

Or shall I conjure the walls to open up

And swallow this sudden bounty from your honest labour

Shall I give a billion to each of your paramours

The black, the light, the Fanta-yellow

They will surely know how to keep the loot

In places too remote for the sniffing dog

Or shall I use the particulars

Of your anonymous maidservants and manservants

With their names on overflowing bank accounts

While they famish like ownerless dogs

Shall I haul it all to your village

In the valley behind seven mountains

Where potholes swallow up the hugest jeep

And Penury leaves a scar on every house

My Lord

It will take the fastest machine

Many, many days to count this booty; and lucky bank bosses

May help themselves to a fraction of the loot

My Lord

Tell me where to keep your bribe?

My Lord

Tell me where to keep your bribe?

The “last hope of the common man”

Has become the last bastion of the criminally rich

A terrible plague bestrides the land

Besieged by rapacious judges and venal lawyers

Behind the antiquated wig

And the slavish glove

The penguin gown and the obfuscating jargon

Is a rot and riot whose stench is choking the land

Behind the rituals and roted rigmaroles

Old antics connive with new tricks

Behind the prim-and-proper costumes of masquerades

Corruption stands, naked, in its insolent impunity

For sale to the highest bidder

Interlocutory and perpetual injunctions

Opulent criminals shop for pliant judges

Protect the criminal, enshrine the crime

And Election Petition Tribunals

Ah, bless those goldmines and bottomless booties!

Scoundrel vote-riggers romp to electoral victory

All hail our buyable Bench and conniving Bar

A million dollars in Their Lordship’s bedroom

A million euros in the parlor closet

Countless naira beneath the kitchen sink

Our courts are fast running out of Ghana-must-go’s*

The “Temple of Justice”

Is broken in every brick

The roof is roundly perforated

By termites of graft

My Lord

Tell me where to keep your bribe?

Judges doze in the courtroom

Having spent all night, counting money and various “gifts”

And the Chief Justice looks on with tired eyes

As Corruption usurps his gavel.

Crime pays in this country

Corruption has its handsome rewards

Just one judgement sold to the richest bidder

Will catapult Judge & Lawyer to the Billionaires’ Club

The Law, they say, is an ass

Sometimes fast, sometimes slow

But the Law in Nigeria is a vulture

Fat on the cash-and-carry carrion of murdered Conscience

Won gb’ebi f’alare

Won gb’are f’elebi**

They kill our trust in the common good

These Monsters of Mammon in their garish gowns

Unhappy the land

Where jobbers are judges

Where Impunity walks the streets

Like a large, invincible Demon

Come Sunday, they troop to the church

Friday, they mouth their mantra in pious mosques

But they pervert Justice all week long

And dig us deeper into the hellish hole

Nigeria is a huge corpse

With milling maggots on its wretched hulk

They prey every day, they prey every night

For the endless decomposition of our common soul

My Most Honourable Lord

Just tell me where to keep your bribe.

* Large, extremely tough bags used for carrying heavy cash in Nigeria

** They declare the innocent guilty

They pronounce the guilty innocent

*The poem was first published by Sahara reporters

- PM NEWS

Acting CJN swears in General Election Tribunal members

The Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed, on Saturday sworn-in 250 members of the general election tribunals.

At the swearing-in ceremony which took place in Abuja on Saturday, the acting CJN urged the members of the election tribunals to discharge their duties with integrity, as well as the fear of God.

The development comes barely 24 hours after President Muhammadu Buhari suspended Justice Walter Onnoghen as the Chief Justice of Nigeria and swore-in Mohammed as acting CJN.

According to the president, the suspension was based on the request of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, pending the completion of Onnoghen’s trial.

Onnoghen is being tried over allegations of failing to declare his assets, Channels Tv reports.

- PM NEWS