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Ohanaeze, in a statement, signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Alex Ogbonnia, however, slammed Governor Bello, saying that he had demonstrated a remarkable obsession with ambition shortly after providence paved way for him to be sworn in as a governor in 2015 at an impressionable age of 40.

The apex Igbo body pointed out that “there is no doubt that Bello has a date with destiny going by a smooth political ascendancy that life has presented to him.”

It expressed fears that the youthful governor “is embarking on a political adventure that lacks both conscience and principle.”

“The meeting was held at the National University Commission Conference Centre, Abuja in 1998. Dr.Chuba Okadigbo spoke on behalf of the South while Alh. Abubakar Rimi spoke for the North. The likes of Dr. Alex Ekwueme, Chief Solomon Lar, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, etc were at the meeting.

“The Nigerian statesmen examined the merits and demerits of zoning and rotation of power between the composite zones in Nigeria. In the end, it was resolved that the presidency be conceded to the South and that it would rotate between the South and the North in the interest of equity, unity and corporate existence of Nigeria.”

It added, “the foregoing was the basis for the emergence of presidential candidates of the mainstream political parties from the South West in1999. Since then, the patriotic and peace-loving Nigerians have adhered to the rotation principle such that at the end of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s second tenure, President Musa Yar’Adua was elected; Goodluck Jonathan and then President Muhammadu Buhari.”

The court stated this as it delivered judgment on the certificate scandal involving a former Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.

Adeosun was embroiled in the forgery of the National Youth Service Corps certificate, which resulted in her resignation in 2018.

Justice Taiwo Taiwo, in his ruling on the originating summon with suit number: FHC/ABJ/CS/303/21 brought by Wole Olanipekun, SAN, on her behalf, held that the NYSC certificate, based on the constitution, is not a mandatory requirement for holding a political office in the country.

“I am of the view that denying the plaintiff of the reliefs sought is not going to be doing justice to the matter,” he said.

The judge, therefore, granted all the four reliefs sought by the former minister.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that while Adeosun was the plaintiff in the suit, the Attorney-General of the Federation was the sole defendant.

NAN/Punch

The Senate has passed the supplementary budget submitted to both chambers of the National Assembly two weeks ago by the  President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).

Buhari had proposed N895.842,465,917bn, but the Senate Committee on Appropriation, in its report presented by the Chairman, Barau Jibrin, increased the budget size to N982,729,695,343.

The breakdown showed that N123,332,174,164 is for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure, while the sum of N859, 397,521,179 is for contribution to the development fund for capital expenditure for the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2021.

Buhari had explained that the proposed amount would be used to fund the COVID-19 vaccine programme and health-related expenditures for treatment of additional 50,000 patients under the Nigeria Comprehensive AIDS Programme in states.

He had also said that part of the money would be used to procure additional equipment captured in this year’s capital expenditure on Defence and Security to tackle prevalent security challenges across the country.

Punch

The ECOWAS Court stated this in a virtual court sitting held via zoom on Tuesday.

On the cause list for the day, were two applications against the Federal Government over the Twitter ban.

One was the application brought by the Registered Trustees of the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project against the Federal Government marked ECW/CCJ/APP/23/21.

The ECOWAS Court stated that the parties of the other two cases, which were marked as ECW/CCJ/APP/24/21 and ECW/CCJ/APP/26/21, and sought to be consolidated were not in court.

Consequently, the court noted that it cannot make a consolidation order in their absence and without hearing from them.

The court also mentioned that the applicants in all the four applications were different but the respondents were the same.

I. C. Uzoma, a lawyer, also sought to apply to the court to intervene as an amicus curiae in the suit brought by SERAP and sought the permission of the court to move his motion since the parties in the suit he was interested in, were in court.

Punch