By Prof. Fidelis I. Agwulonu (Rev. Fr)

The Weeping Poet, John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo’s 1970 post civil war poem, “The Casualties”, affirmed that “we are all casualties.”

In today’s Nigeria, people have characteristically become ‘OBIdients’. One could say, like Clark-Bekederemo, that “we are all ‘OBIdients’.” ‘OBIdients’ are voluntary followers of the political ideology of Mr Peter Gregory Obi, the former Governor (extraordinaire) of Anambra State, Nigeria.

He has refused to offer a dime ‘shishi’, in contrast to the auctioning of the votes as seen in the previously held national conventions of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC). Obi has become the 2023 Marcus Garvey of the (Federal Republic of ‘OBIdients’), hopefully leading them to a new Nigeria. They meant it when most of them sang: “Carry me dey go, Peter Obi carry me dey go for better Naija.”

The first cadets of this moral army were the netizens (citizens of the internet), the Generation Z, who were charmed by Peter Obi’s mantra: “Go and verify”. If eternal life had been preached the way Peter Obi is being preached, the ‘Kingdom’ would have come since June 2022. Senator Chimaroke Nnamani could not manage the frustration of a regular politician, and declared the Generation Z as intolerant, rude, condescending, intellectually averse and shallow. One respondent to Nnamani’s July 7, 2022 outburst was Rev Fr Ted Onumaegbu.

He said: “For a Nigerian elder politician who characteristically has always breathed down so hard on the young, who views the younger generation with deep-seated suspicion, and who doesn’t know the difference between the www. of an internet and the https:// as the protocol that brings the internet to billions of users, all of these young people with so much knowledge are “rude, intolerant, condescending…. Yes, Gen Zs are cute, knowledgeable, they think in hashtags, twitter and Instagram. Oh, one more thing: they are the quintessential ‘copy and paste’ generation.” One cannot agree any less than Onumaegbu’s analysis.

They became members of a moral army, not by conscription, option of employment, remuneration, nor status symbol, but united in the drive to reorder and take back a lost country, plundered by the political class, who believe and activate the Nicholo Machiavelli principle: ”Politics have no relation to morals.” This army is desirous of politics guarded by morals and virtue; they believe that prayer goes with action; the hashtag is #TakeBackNaija.

They were derided by the squander-mania political class as being social media noise-makers, who are following a party with no structure, but before one shouted Jack Robinson, the structure emerged. In two weeks, the Independent Electoral Commission recorded well over ten million new registrations for the Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC) as at June 27, instant; and the campaign for PVC is massively gaining momentum. It is speculated that age 18-34 make up 39.7% and age 35-49 make up 32.5% (72.2% of registered voters) and this is the bulk of the army. Samson Akintaro on June 27th reported emphatically that the youths accounted for 70% of completed voter registrations (www.nairametrics.com).

The Sri Lanka revolution of July 9th is ripe in Nigeria, but approached in a different manner; not invading the President’s palace and chasing him away, which will result in bloodshed as never seen before, in a polarised country like Nigeria. The Nigerian youths have rather started the long awaited bloodless revolution (the Nigerian BASTILLE DAY) by being ‘OBIdients’ (and lately, ‘YUSful, in relation to the Labour Party Vice- Presidential candidate Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed).

‘OBidients’ belong to PDP, APC, (or any other parties), they may not be partisan nor inclined to any religious or ethnic identity; they have risen above these dividing factors, and have identified themselves with one common goal: to bring back the glories and dreams of a Nigeria once thought of as an African promised land, flowing with milk and honey. ‘OBIdients’ are teenagers, young adults, adults, wrinkled, anyone who ‘hungers and thirsts for uprightness’, justice, equity and fairness in Nigeria. They shall, like the Great Master said, “Be Satisfied” (Matthew 5:6).

This land has been raped (or rather gang-raped) by greedy, visionless, avaricious, heartless managers, beginning from President Buhari who looked away and allowed the pillage, to the unfortunate members of the National Assembly who sold their ‘birthright’ and refused to checkmate the excesses of the government in power, with the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, promising to assent to whatever would be brought to his desk by President Buhari.

There is the tragedy of the judicial mafia, that lost the integrity of the hallowed wig and gavel, allowing the judicial system to almost belong to the whims and caprices of the ruling party, and a property of the executive arm of government, as widely speculated. It got so embarrassing that there had to be a palace coup, that saw to the resignation of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Tanko Mohammed, who is being investigated for financial misappropriation and a host of other allegations.

The security agencies became a nightmare, and the nemesis of the common Nigerians who turned a blind eye to the snake that crept into the neighbour’s roof; now the snake’s offspring has spread into every roof in the neighborhood. The cahoots of the Police, Army, Customs and others have allowed the infiltration of ‘repentant’ Boko Haram members into the system, as reported by Ibrahim Adeyemi on July 9, 2022 (www.premiumtimesng.com). Adamu Aliero, declared wanted by the Police as a bandit kingpin was just crowned Sarkin Fulani (leader of Fulani) by the Emir of Sabon Birnin Yatondo, Zamfara State, amidst heavy Police presence to protect the criminal.

Today, Shakespeare’s voice could be heard – Cawdor shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more. Little wonder Dr Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed declared that no government in Nigeria’s history promoted corruption like Buhari (Vanguard, July 18, 2022).

The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) always issued Communiqués (as some other groups), harping on the nose-dive mode of the aircraft piloted by the politicians. Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, and lately Nuru Khalid (the Chief Imam of Apo Mosque that was sacked on April 4, instant, for criticising the government), have been vocal, but always criticised in defence of those that pay the pipers. Interestingly, Kukah openly challenged Buhari’s media men to an open debate on the claimed good governance offered by this administration, and the government quarters have been silent since April 19, 2022. Nigerians need, as a matter of urgency, a detailed report on those displaced, maimed, kidnapped, and killed from the time Boko Haram became a political tool in Borno State, as widely speculated, and especially through April 2015 when President Buhari took over the administration of Nigeria, till date; all classes of citizens slaughtered in broad daylight should be made available. On July 16, another report of two Priests kidnapped in Kaduna State made the headlines, a recurrent shock, just days after Kaduna Diocesan Priests protested the killing of Fr Vitus Borogo.

The failure to bring back Leah Sharibu (and even the remaining Chibok Girls in captivity), the culpable complicity in the recent Kuje prison break, the invasion of the Kaduna International Airport by terrorists who have still been tagged as bandits, the multiple massacre of the Ondo Catholic Church worshippers in June 2022 with no arrests yet; the stoning to death of Deborah Samuel in a tertiary institution, and more. The daily kidnappings and killings of victims, not forgetting the Abuja-Kaduna railway attack victims, where the Federal Government has shown itself to be emasculated to safeguard the citizens, and arrest the culprits. President Buhari promised security during his campaigns, but like Nero, he has ‘fiddled while Rome burned’. Nigerians live more in fear today than before, especially after the release of over 800 inmates of Kuje prison by the terrorists, who freed all their jailed members. It happened few weeks after it became public knowledge that the condition for releasing Abuja train victims was to let go the jailed terrorists. Few hours after the jail break, some kidnapped victims were curiously released. Such coincidences are rare. No one is safe any longer; thus the new mantra: ‘OBIdience’ is better than sacrifice.

On July 14, 2022, the ASUU strike entered the sixth month, with no end in sight, as the Federal Government of Nigeria is not going to blink first. For the umpteenth time the Federal Government has failed to fulfill its promises and financial obligations to the Academic Staff Union of Universities, and stiffled the motivation needed by Nigerian students who were recovering from the previous lengthy ASUU strike of 2021. This Valentine’s gift (as the strike started on February 14, 2022) to Nigerian students, their parents and guardians, by ASUU and the Federal Government, has taken a curious turn, as the ruling party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) has fielded Bola Ahmad Tinubu (projecting a volatile situation of a Muslim-Muslim ticket), whose speech on July 13, 2022, at the political mega rally in Osun State, only added insult to injury, when he publicly said: ‘They will labour till DEATH’ (Vanguard Newspaper, July 13, 2022). This was taking it further from the earlier slogan against the ‘OBIdients’ and Labour Party, that they will labour in vain.

Mr Peter Gregory Obi has replied Tinubu in a refined way, characteristic of himself and which is the yardstick of ‘OBIdients’, thus: “There is dignity in labour…labour members will not labour till death.” There are heightened concerns that if the elections are rigged or auctioned, the President Mohammadu Buhari APC led government will hand over the batton of a continued ASUU strike to Tinubu, who already has poured his venom, his death manifesto on young Nigerian, and they are not taking it lightly. The Punch Newspaper reported a terrified serving Minister, Rauf Aregbesola, harassed by a Nigerian at a cafeteria in the USA (the video is circulating). Incidents as this may continue for those who blossomed with Marie Antoinette’s Louis XVI, while the people starved and died.

By stroke of chance or design, while Tinubu cursed ‘OBIdients’ in Osun State, Mr Matthew Okpebholo in Edo State donated a magnificent building for Peter Obi’s campaign, declaring his happiness in what he was doing, being ‘OBIdient’, maybe, and resolved to employ Mr Peter Obi with the PVC in 2023 with other ‘OBIdients’. In Abuja, Mr Kelechi Abonuyo, Director General of New Nigerians Anchor Point (NNAP) published an article on the redemption mission of this group which has unified nationals from all parts of the country with the same objectives: the choice of a credible candidate for 2023 elections (NNAP is under the umbrella of ‘OBIdients’), and Peter Obi won NNAP’s national election anyway. In Enugu State, a teenager, Covenant Onyebuchi, donated her life savings, an undisclosed amount of money, to Mr Peter Obi, to enhance the electoral logistics that will fast-track his entry into Aso-Rock.

‘OBIdients’ and their motivations were perfectly captured by Channels TV news anchor, Seun Okinbaloye’s powerful speech on July 13, 2022, on the need to not gamble with 2023 elections, as it is a defining moment, when the rest of Africa is waiting for her sleeping giant to wake up and rise. He emphasized that “the nation is choking, it can no longer breathe, there is a shortage of air, we need to allow this nation to thrive…this nation Nigeria cannot be taken as a private enterprise anymore”.

There is equally a tweet ascribed to Umar Musa Matazu that says: “Whether you like Buhari or not, you must agree that he improved some industries and sectors in Nigeria: ‘The banditry industry got better; the Federal Ministry of Kidnapping had a big boost; National Agency of Suffering had expanded very well, and is touching everybody. Sai Baba’”, he ended. Last of all, a recent viral video of a dog eating roasted corn, with background voices in Yoruba and pidgin English on the hunger rate in Nigeria would convince a doubting Thomas that something is ‘rotten in the city of Denmark’.

This moral army is determined to take back Nigeria, and the slogan in today’s Nigeria has moved from “No PVC, no food”, to “No PVC, no ‘ze oza’ room”, a serious threat to the men who show laissez-faire attitude towards the PETER OBI movement championed by Youths, Women, the Labour Party, Nigeria Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress, Civil Society Organisations, the Nigerian Students Organisations, and even some Preachers at the pulpit.

Peter Obi is also ‘OBIdient’, because ‘OBIdients’ have declared that if he refuses to enter Aso Rock Abuja come 2023, they will carry him and force him on that Presidential seat. In 2023, ‘OBIdients’ believe that it is Peter Obi (with Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed as his running mate) against other party Presidential flag bearers. Obi knows the problems of Nigeria, which he pointed out by likening Nigeria to the ill-fated Titanic, saying that while the lower class was battling with the sinking ship, the upper class was busy partying, until the whole ship went under, before they could realise it. His knowledge of the solution gave rise to the spontaneous emergence of this moral army, stronger by the day. END.

Fr Prof. Fidelis I. Agwulonu (Ahiara Diocese) is the Vice Chancellor of UNIVERSITÉ NOTRE DAME DE TANGANYIKA, Congo (DRC); the Dean of Academics, and Head of Departments of UNITATIS UNIVERSITAS SALVATORIS, Virginia, USA.

fideagwulonu@gmail.com

By ADEWOLE ADEOLA OLUWASEUN

The first batch of the Oyo State Labour Intensive Public Workfare Beneficiaries (OYS-CARES LIPW) under the NIGERIA CARES operation selected from eighteen local government areas of the State have been deployed to their different communities to carry out public works activities.

The youths, who have started working since May 2022, will be paid a monthly stipend of ten thousand naira for four hours per day and twenty days per month works in the areas of grass cutting, filling of potholes, clearing of drainages, sweeping of dirty environment, collection and disposal of refuse as well as traffic control at major public institutions like community halls, hospitals, courts among others.

The Head of the Oyo State of LIPW, Mr Sangogade Olusumbo, while monitoring the activities of some beneficiaries within Ibadan metropolis on Wednesday morning, said the local government areas where the beneficiaries were deployed include Ibadan North East, Ibadan North West, Egbeda, Ibarapa Central, Ibarapa East, Ibarapa North, Ido, Irepo, Iwajowa, and Kajola local government areas.

Others, according to him, are Ogo-Oluwa, Olorunsogo, Oluyole, Oriire, Saki East and Surulere local government areas, where the local government Community Development Officer will keep up the daily monitoring of the beneficiaries at their respective duty posts.

Sangogade hinted that the Oyo State government bought into the idea to further empower the youths to contribute to the development of their communities while being paid a stipend to show appreciation for their efforts monthly.

“This effort is another area where the State government, through the Federal government and the World Bank, has co-opted the youths who might have been idle at these communities and the beneficiaries will contribute towards maintaining a hygienic environment while ensuring traffic sanity, especially in the major metropolis.

“The office has a system of monitoring the beneficiaries so that they will do their expected rounds daily within the specified time as apart from the routine monitoring by our office from Ibadan, each local government Community Development Officer is also saddled with the responsibility of going round these beats to monitor beneficiaries doing their public works.”

He added that other local governments areas that were yet to benefit from the programme would soon get the same opportunity as soon as fund is available for selection of beneficiaries and their deployment.

All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has in an affirmative nomination picked foremost political wig and mobilizer, Hon. Isioma Theodora Ndah as House of Representatives candidate for the Aniocha/ Oshimili Federal Constituency ahead of the the 2023 General Election.

With this decision, Isioma Ndah will be digging it out with incumbent Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Ndudi Elumelu who is candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The affirmative decision for Hon. Isioma Theodora Ndah, was taken in Asaba by the party’s leadership, following the withdrawal of the APGA’s candidate, Mr Chinedu Frank Isamah.

Speaking to newsmen after the meeting, Hon Isioma Ndah said the party’s decision was in the right track.

She said the party’s decision was is one of equity, stressing that out of the two ethnic nationalities in the constituency, Oshimili had never been given the mantle to represent the constituency.

According to her, “I believe I have the political prowess to win the election. I have the intellectual capacity and sound mind. I am one of the younger generations that wants to see Nigeria work.”

The dinitaries that attended the Substitution Affirmation Primary Nomination of The Thedora Isioma Ndah for Aniocha/Oshimili federal constituency included the south-south APGA Chairman, Ogbueshi Tony Eboka, APGA State Chairman Elder Afamefune Enemonwu, State Organizing Secretary, Comrade Chidi Okonji, Hon Odikpo Nwayobuijeuwa Eleazar and some observers from the state Executive committee of the party.

The Aniocha Oshimili LGA Chairmen, Secretaries and other delegates were in attendance. A crowd of party faithfuls also witnessed the affirmation nomination.

As the Eid-l-Kabir celebration continues in consistent with age-long practice of royal homage, the Emir of Ilorin, HRH Alhaji (Dr.) Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, CFR received the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Interior, Dr. Shuaib Belgore in his palace shortly after Eid prayer.

The royal father thanked the visiting Permanent Secretary while he urged him to continue to make ancient city of Ilorin proud in the course of discharging his selfless service to the nation. He disclosed that the country has benefitted immensely from his experience and wealth of knowledge which the royal father said is evident in his administrative prowess.

He said further that Kwara State has felt his impact as the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Interior in the last two years of his appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Responding, Dr. Belgore prayed to the Almighty Allah to grant the Emir of Ilorin more years on the throne laden with prosperity, development and growth of the people of his domain and its environs. He promised the Emir of Ilorin that he would to abide by the oath of office in service to humanity as he assured of his continued contribution to the upliftment of Ilorin and Kwara State in general.

Dr. Belgore was accompanied by the Comptroller General, Federal Fire Service (FFS), Mr. Abdulganiyu Jaji, who is also a son of the soil. Federal Fire Service is one of the paramilitary outfits under the supervision of the Ministry of Interior. He was recently appointed to the position of Comptroller General, Federal Fire Service.

Mr. Jaji said he would bring his expertise to bare to transform Federal Fire Service for optimal performance reminiscent of modern day Fire Service outfit anywhere in the world.

Abdulraheem Saad
Protocol Officer to the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Interior

By Jesutega Onokpasa.

According to Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, Mr. Sheriff Oborevwori, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, gubernatorial flagbearer for Delta State, is not entitled to his party’s mandate, which he won by a landslide, because he submitted “dubious or forged documents”.I never heard anything more astonishing from a judge. What in the world is the meaning of “dubious or forged”? How does a judge even frame a judgement that way?

Is it that the court was not sure whether the documents were either “dubious” or “forged”, or, is it just that it was convinced they must be “dubious” or “forged” but not sure, exactly, which? When did courts start reasoning in this rather “dubious” fashion and judges handing down such utterly perplexing judgements? What, in the world, is going on with our judiciary, for God’s sake?

The court was not sure whether they are dubious or forged, or, either, or both, and, yet you go ahead to deliver judgement against the very party in whose benefit such doubt must be exercised? Isn’t it the law that where in doubt, judgement shall be given in favour of whom will suffer otherwise? Indeed, this, as far as I’m concerned, is not just a case of a most putrid and nauseating miscarriage of justice; it is also a most shameful profusion of stark judicial incompetence!

Did His Lordship find as a material fact that Mr. Oborevwori had forged his credentials? In which case, he would have found, in accordance with the strictest rules pertaining to criminal trial, no less, that Oborevwori is, beyond reasonable doubt, a forger of documents, therefore, a criminal! Otherwise, His Lordship would have descended into the fray and was merely pouting the plaintiff while masquerading his incredulous submission as a proper court judgment.

It is truly shameful when some of our jurists seem to pretend we are some first world jurisdiction where people have been formally educated, and been literate and numerate for centuries, if not millennia. We happen to be stuck in a country at the very bottom of all imaginable indices of development, in case those of us who happen to be privileged have forgotten.

Huge numbers, if not most, of our countrymen and women do not have formally educated parents who might had guided them in their formative years. We have nearly 20 million out of school children right now, and, in case anyone has forgotten, the time is 2022! Little children often have to be the ones to give out their names and even spell it to someone taking down their records.

Even where parents, guardians or other categories of adults might be present, they may not be well educated enough and are unable to do a better job. Mistakes will be made, discrepancies will arise, and, this is quite apart from the fact that people might have multiple names at birth and choose to incorporate them into their documentation (or discard them) as they go through life, and not for questionable purposes but, in fact, for reasons that the law permits them to! Even in climes where schools have existed for multiple centuries, if not thousands of years, people still present with discrepancies in their documentation and the courts do not declare them dubious persons or forgers of documents, for God’s sake!

What are we even really supposed to make of this utter madness over documentation, anyway? Perhaps, we should audit the credentials of every judicial officer in the country and I would bet there would be many with similar issues with their documentation! Does that mean they forged documents or are liable to being declared to be dubious? What nonsense!

If you say the documents I have presented are questionable, the burden of proof is upon you. Ours is an adversarial process and it is up to you to prove the documents in contention do not belong to me because they were not issued to me by the appropriate issuing authority; or, where otherwise, that they belong to a determinate other person; or, that I simply forged them, myself, being not entitled to the degree purported, therein.

It is unless the court has completely decomposed into an ignoramus or a most unruly kangaroo that it would, instead, come to the utterly nonsensical conclusion that simply because there are differences in name or colour, or, maybe because the documents are faded, defaced, torn or, howsoever, damaged that they are, therefore, dubious or forged! The germane question is whether or not the documents in issue, belong to the individual in question, and, the process is unwaveringly adversarial, never inquisitorial! If you say my degrees are not mine, well, you prove they belong to another or were not issued to me – certainly not that there are differences in my names, therein.

Her Lordship, the Honourable Justice Mary Ukaego Peter-Odili, whom I adore and have nothing but the greatest respect and administration for, once wrote this most untenable judgement that I consider one of the very worst to come out of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. According to Her Lordship and her most learned colleagues, because Senator Degi-Eremienyo, the deputy governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, for the Bayelsa polls, at the time, had “forged” documents, David Lyon, his principal and the party’s gubernatorial candidate must lose the mandate the citizens of Bayelsa had freely given him!

Their lordships had somehow managed to completely forget that they had absolutely no power under the law to deliver any verdict repugnant to natural justice, equity and good conscience, and, just went ahead to steal someone’s mandate and brazenly hand it over to the candidate the people had soundly rejected. Assuming, without conceding that Senator Eremienyo was a forger, how could that possibly invalidate Mr. Lyon’s mandate unless their lordships had completely forgotten the law they had studied in school and practiced for decades and simply sought refuge in legalism, the hiding place for lazy jurists? What Daniels come to judgement!

This is quite apart from the fact that during the entire litigation of the case, not once was it found by any of the courts that Mr. Eremienyo was not the bearer of the various names on his documents, was not by birth or otherwise, lawfully entitled to bear those names, was not the owner of the documents he had presented, had stolen someone else’s documents, had been disclaimed by the issuing authorities of those documents, or, indeed, actually forged any documents according to the strict requirements of the criminal law! This is most certainly not how to practice law and most assuredly not how to determine cases in court.

Most Nigerians don’t have a birth certificate. Most of our people were born at home, for God’s sake! And, that includes many lawyers and judges, including many Justices of the Supreme Court, for that matter!

People are born and their father gives them one name, their mother gives them another, one grandfather shows up and adds yet another name, then a grandmother, after that, then an aunt, an uncle and so on. What right has any court to say those are not your names?

My late father, B. E. Onokpasa, was named “School” by his elder sister, Jekpeme Onokpasa. Everyone, back home, called him “School”. That is the name by which he was known by his cousin, Chief Thompson Okpoko, SAN! My surname might as well be “School-Onokpasa” or indeed, simply “School”! My father, on his part, never, for once, called himself, “School”.

I happen to have been born in a hospital and have a birth certificate under the hand of Dr. Frederick Esiri, the first indigenous medical doctor in Warri. How many people have that? How many lawyers have that? How many judges have that? Therefore they don’t have names, or, are not entitled to the names given to them at birth?

My school certificate bears “Michael Onokpasa”. Every single one of my degrees bears “Jesutega Onokpasa”. My birth certificate bears “Michael Jesutega Onokpasa”. Everyone back home calls me “Michael” or “Mike”. Almost everyone else I know, knows me as “Jesutega” or “Barrister Onokpasa”. Everyone I know abroad, knows me as “Jesutega Onokpasa”.

I rather like bearing my native name but the real question is “are my credentials actually mine or not?” And, if you say they are not, you would have to prove they belong to some other clearcut person or that they were never issued to me, in the first place. You certainly cannot come to court, cast unsubstantiated aspersion on them simply because of one “difference” or the other, and run away with a most dubious judgement as if the court were some total buffoon!

I remember running into David Lyon at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja, congratulating him on his victory, only to learn a few days later that his mandate had been misappropriated by the Supreme Court, of all institutions! I hope Mr. Lyon is a man of faith. God willing, he will still be Governor of Bayelsa.

I don’t know whether or not Sheriff Oborevwori will be the next Governor of Delta but that is entirely beside the point. He won his mandate as his party’s flagbearer and defeated Mr. David Edevbie hands down! The courts should let the will of the people prevail and let him slug it out with the candidates of other parties. Our courts simply cannot continue to be the backdoor through which pathological thieves regularly steal mandates not handed them by the electorate.

It is quite unfortunate that history of law is not part of the syllabus of legal studies in our jurisdiction. While the Judiciary is often listed as the third arm of government, it is actually the oldest and original arm of government. Governmental functions, properly so-called, were first exercised at the level of dispute resolution backed with the sanction of the community in cases of default.

“Jura novit curia” we say in our profession, and, democracy only truly exists when the courts know the law and, indeed, do justice. Just as governance first emerged with the advent of judges, so also does the state not truly fail unless, and until, the courts completely collapse. Indeed, civilization, itself, is non-existent unless there are courts, or at any rate, judicial structures, even if there are no discernable executive or legislative counterparts. Even if everyone else has lost their heads, certainly not the judicial arm!

This is already a country in freefall, for God’s sake! The judiciary must remain the last man standing for God forbid it should capitulate and be rendered unto the filth, as well.

I may not be a fan of Mr. Oborevwori or aligned with his ambition but I cannot see how his documents are dubious. I am sorry but I think it is the court judgment itself that is pitiably dubious and most pathetically without foundation. We cannot have a judiciary that losers of elections can opportunistically approach to invalidate the mandates of their opponents upon utter frivolities. Neither, can we have courts in which the people feel judgements may be bought and sold.

We may continue to play the ostrich as a profession but the people we serve are fast losing all regard for our us and what we stand for. Faith in our courts is, in fact, fast ebbing away. The judicial branch is held by all of us who have been called to the bar in trust for the children of God to whom justice must be done no matter what. It cannot be the bench that we so love, admire, honour, look up to, and, celebrate that will keep spewing one embarrassing judgement after another, making lawyers cringe with shame. This just has to stop.

©
Onokpasa, a lawyer, writes from Warri.
+2347037212475.

The Movement for Stronger Delta MSD, has read, watched, and followed with anger and trepidation, the frenetic, devious, diabolical desperation, which has consumed a particular clique of Delta State Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, from the moment the name of Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori was introduced into the gubernatorial race.

This particular clique, quite noticeably in a thinly veiled, undeniably unholy alliance with the main opposition party in the State, had actually commenced their opprobrious campaign with a dedicated manipulative salvo of Governor Okowa bashing, which was anchored on deliberately provocative misinformation tailored toward invoking ethnic political tensions and conflicts, over the destination of the next Governorship candidate of the PDP.

Fortunately, and as it always has been, with everything that Governor Ifeanyi Okowa has placed in the hands of God, the most popular and capable aspirant, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori emerged as the PDP Guber Candidate, the destination was Delta Central as had been canvassed by many, who rightly advocated for equity in the conventional power rotation arrangement which existed in the PDP and the entire primaries to the glory of God, had ended in praise for the party and for the majority of Deltans.

But this particular clique in the PDP, which struts around in PDP ranks, with egocentric aloofness and a misplaced, delusional, and self-preserving entitlement mentality, will not rest on its dark, determined motivation of haranguing of Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori out of contention.

They actually started with the initial bogus efforts which, simply put, were hellish conjectures from the spiral imaginations of mischief-makers, who neither have the fear of God nor regard for a man of probity in their misguided foray for ephemeral political power, couched in a phony investigation of ‘two’ of the Delta PDP guber aspirants, which they claimed was sponsored by the Deputy Senate President and head of Delta political opposition, Ovie Omo-Agege.

Omo-Agege vehemently denied sponsoring such investigation, but the unhidden intention of the report, which discovered the now contentious ‘discrepancies’ in his documents, was to disqualify Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori either at the Screening Committee stage or by the Party’s Appeals panel and when all these failed, they resorted to wild and dangerous allegations that the Chairman of the Screening Committee, Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State had been bribed.

The Primary was subsequently conducted in a free, fair, transparent, level playing process and Sheriff Oborevwori coasted home to a landslide victory. The jubilations across the State that greeted his triumph were ample testimony of his popularity with Deltans.

Yet, this clique, in their puerile endeavour and unscrupulous irresponsibility, both to the PDP and to Deltans, proceeded to the Federal High Court, where they bombarded the Court with an avalanche of about eleven cases, all against Sheriff and having lost almost all of them on the grounds of lack of locus, they finally got some hope on Thursday, July 7, 2022, when Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court, upheld their case and disqualified Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, as the PDP Guber Candidate, going into the 2023 elections.

The grounds for the disqualification were cited as discrepancies in the documents he submitted to the PDP in 2014 and 2022, when he contested the Delta State House of Assembly and the Governorship elections respectively.

However, this legal achievement by the garrulous clique, now seems like a pyrrhic victory, as the Court reportedly declined to name anyone, including David Edevbie, as a replacement for Oborevwori on the grounds that INEC has not published any name yet, as the Governorship Candidate of Delta PDP. The Court also refused to call for a fresh Guber Primary.

As to be expected, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, as a true leader, has urged his loyalists to remain calm and peaceful even as he has appealed the Federal High Court ruling, on nine grounds, through his legal team, led by Joe Agi, SAN and that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is where we are as at this moment.

The movement for Stronger Delta MSD, feels strongly that it is quite germane at this point, to state a number of irrefutable observations for the purposes of putting this matter in its proper perspective.

1. Olorogun David Edebvie, has said his decision to seek legal redress was to prevent the opposition from capitalising on a “blindingly obvious situation” to win the 2023 Delta governorship election. He further claimed that most Deltans were bewildered by the outcome of the PDP governorship shadow polls, describing the polls as “wanton disregard of the interests of our party and mood of our nation”.

2. In his words: “Undeniably, most Deltans received the outcome of the PDP Gubernatorial Primary with bewilderment and exasperation. To many, it appeared to be a wanton disregard of the interests of our Party and the mood of our nation.

“Propelled by the inevitable pall of gloom that hung over Delta State and faced with the real possibility that opposition parties would capitalise on the blindingly obvious situation, I was left with no alternative but to challenge the outcome in the law courts, albeit reluctantly.” He praised the judiciary for the courage to overturn the “travesty” in favour of the will of the majority of the people”.

3. It is obvious from Edevbie’s statement above, that the major reason adduced for challenging the Delta PDP Guber Primary, is completely different from the rambling gobbledegook sophistry, he has presented in the public space. First of all, Edevbie did not challenge the process of the Primary, which has been adjudged to be free, fair, and transparent. Rather, he challenged the so-called ‘discrepancies’, in the documents, presented to PDP, by Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori, which has absolutely nothing to do with the conduct of this particular Primary.

4. Secondly, his claim that: “Undeniably, most Deltans received the outcome of the PDP Gubernatorial Primary with bewilderment and exasperation”, is completely imaginary, hallucinatory, and could only have manifested in his own delusional camp, which was quite contrary to the widespread jubilation and celebration that broke out across the State, when Sheriff Oborevwori was declared the winner of the PDP Primary.

5. Thirdly, his heroic, ego-massaging homily, that: “Propelled by the inevitable pall of gloom that hung over Delta State and faced with the real possibility that opposition parties would capitalise on the blindingly obvious situation, I was left with no alternative but to challenge the outcome in the law courts, albeit reluctantly,” is another woeful and deceitfully arrogant and self-serving claim, for the simple reason that there was no reluctance in his decision, since his agenda against Sheriff had been pursued with frenzied zeal, from the onset and indeed the allegorical pall and gloom had only hovered with menacing propensity like a dark, poisonous cloud over his own brood in their sulking corner of Delta State, after the Primary.

6. Fourth, his assertion that he was “faced with the real possibility that opposition parties would capitalise on the blindingly obvious situation”, is actually an unequivocal admission of his covert agenda of working hand in gloves with the opposition against the PDP, with the singular, selfish and myopic mindset to throw away the baby with the bathwater, if he doesn’t win the primaries or if he doesn’t become Governor of Delta State by hook or by crook.

7. Indeed, if David Edevbie is half as smart and clever as his image laundering publicists want us to believe, then he would have known, before going to Court, that his entire case is predicated on Section 29 (5&6) of the amended Electoral Law, 2022, which deals with “Submission of list of candidates and their affidavits by political parties.”

8. To make the matter clearer, Section 29(5) states: “Any aspirant who participated in the primaries of his political party who has reasonable grounds to believe that any information given by his political party’s candidate in the affidavit or any document submitted by that candidate in relation to his constitutional requirements to contest the election is false, may file a suit at the Federal High Court against that candidate seeking a declaration that the information contained in the affidavit is false.

9. Section 29(6) states: “Where the Court determines that any of the information contained in the affidavit is false only as it relates to constitutional requirements of eligibility, the Court shall issue an order disqualifying the candidate and the
sponsoring political party and then declare the candidate with the second-highest number of valid votes and who satisfies the constitutional requirement as the winner of the election.

10. In order words, the import of Section 29(6) suggests that it can only be invoked for the substantive election and not the primaries. Therefore, if the PDP wins the Delta 2023 Governorship election and David Edevbie, who took part in the Delta PDP Guber Primaries (as stipulated by the Electoral Act) proceeds to challenge in court, the eligibility of the party’s candidate to contest and win, then not only will the candidate be disqualified but the Court shall issue an order also disqualifying the sponsoring political party and then declare the candidate with the second-highest number of valid votes and who satisfies the constitutional requirement as the winner of the election, which in that case, will be the opposition.

11. Of course Section 29(8) provides the icing when it further states that: “A political party which presents to the Commission the name of a
candidate who does not meet the qualification stipulated in this section, commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of =N=10,000,000/= (Ten Million naira only). This is double jeopardy.

12. So, the question now is, why will David Edevbie, knowing the huge implications of this section of the Electoral Act to the PDP, still proceed with his action to go to court. Or did he read the Electoral Act upside down? Otherwise, is his legal action, knowing what the Electoral Act says, not tantamount to seeking to disqualify his own political party from the election, thus paving the way for the opposition to claim an undeserved and unmerited victory at the polls? Is his action not a deliberate anti-PDP strategy, especially against the backdrop that the PDP is also joined as a defendant in the case and the party will be the greatest loser if this plot succeeds?

13. Sadly, overtaken by their hate-filled agenda as characteristically resonant with unrepentant crusaders, they threw caution to the wind, and went berserk in their fervent hysterical efforts to disparage Sheriff Oborevwori, without studying the full import of what their ill-conceived plot would unleash, if allowed to run its course. Or perhaps is their action even a subtle, covert, well-scripted, and orchestrated subterfuge, designed to destabilize PDP in Delta State ahead of the 2023 general elections?

Like we stated earlier, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori has already appealed the ruling of the Federal High Court disqualifying him as the Delta PDP Guber Candidate for the 2023 election, on nine grounds of appeal which comprehensively covers all the bases, including the consideration of Section 29(5) and also the fact, as Justice Taiwo Taiwo rightly noted that INEC is yet to publish anyone as the Delta PDP Guber Candidate for the 2023 election; a point which actually makes his ruling to disqualify Sheriff Oborevwori, quite surprising and confusing at the same time.

The Movement for Stronger Delta, MSD is however, quite confident in our unshakable faith in the judiciary and unwavering in our conviction, that in the end, justice will be done both in the spirit and the letter of the law, as we approach July 17, which is the present deadline for all political parties to submit the names of their Governorship Candidates to INEC.

That as we have always maintained, is the SIMPLE Agenda.

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MOVEMENT FOR STRONGER DELTA, (MSD)