The Labour Party’s (LP) Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi, has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of cloning electoral fraudsters as leaders and wasting the country’s time and resources.
Obi and LP warned in their final address to the Presidential Election Petitions Court on July 23, 2023, that if the court does not whip INEC into line to perform its electoral duties fairly, impartially, and independently, elections in Nigeria will remain a fraud.
Obi and LP accused INEC of abandoning its primary statutory responsibility as an electoral umpire and proudly putting on the toga of a candidate in the election.
They claimed INEC spent 5.5 pages of its address, tragically and embarrassingly, defending the ground on the non-qualification of the second respondent (Tinubu).
They stated;
In the case of PDP v. Alechenu (2019) LPELR-49199 (CA), this honourable court admonished the 1st Respondent (INEC), who appears to have misunderstood its public duty, thus: Often one finds cases where INEC plays games with election materials and would not allow the petitioner(s) access to documents used in the conduct of the election, even with court order(s) to produce same, as in this case, thus playing the cards of the declared winner, openly, to frustrate the petition.
Obi also stated that INEC used modern technology to conduct the 2023 General Election in accordance with the mandatory provisions of the Electoral Act of 2022, the INEC Regulations and Guidelines, and the INEC Manual.
By this, INEC represented and assured that it would use Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) for the accreditation of voters in the polling units and the upload/transmission of the results of the election in real-time on the day of the election to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
However, contrary to the requirement of the law and in manifest disregard of its own representations, the 1st respondent (INEC) abandoned and discarded the much expected upload/transmission of the result of the election in real time on the day of the election from the polling unit to the IReV.
Rather, and very strangely, blurred, unreadable and inaccessible documents/images were uploaded by the 1st respondent to the IReV purporting same to be the result of the election in various polling units. These blurred images and inaccessible documents were purported to be the result of the election in the polling units. The net result of the upload of the blurred images on the IReV, was that the result of the election could neither be authenticated nor verified, and thus, lacked credibility and transparency.
The 1st respondent’s contention that the ‘collation of the election result’ remained a manual process is patently false and seems to have disregarded the express provisions of the Electoral Act, Regulations and Manual for the election. Collation of election results at all the stages of the election process specifically provide for electronic transmission to the IReV which is part of the collation system under the Electoral Act.
The authority of the Federal High Court determination in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/1454/2022 relied upon by the 1st respondent in its final address and heavily harped upon in its argument is per incuriam and in manifest contradiction of the binding later decision of the Supreme Court in Appeal No: SC/CV/508/2023, OYETOLA v. INEC delivered on 9th May 2023, in (2023) LPELR-60392 (SC).
Despite the 1st respondent’s claim that the hardcopies of the forms EC8A were allegedly used for the manual collation of the election (which by that reasoning ought to be in the 1st respondent’s custody/possession), the 1 respondent nevertheless gave to the petitioners as certified copies of the electoral forms, including alleged forms EC8As, blurred/blank/extraneous copies.
The alleged hardcopies of the forms EC8A claimed to have been used for the manual collation were neither produced in court nor certified copies thereof tendered in court by the 1st respondent.
Lagos fuel attendant broke into manager's office steal N3.4m
One Waliu Olamilekan, a fuel attendant, has been arrested and he is standing trial for theft and damage.
The 39-year-old was arraigned before a Badagry Magistrates’ Court in Lagos for allegedly stealing N3,464,000 at BFO filling station in Badagry.
The defendant, whose residential address was not divulged, is standing trial on a three-count charge of unlawful entry, malicious damage and stealing, for which he pleaded not guilty.
The prosecutor, Inspector Ayodele Adeosun told the court that the defendant committed the offences on July 9, at about 11.30am at Pipeline, Araromi-Ale, Badagry Expressway, Lagos.
Adeosun said the defendant allegedly broke into the office of the manager of the station, Mrs Titilope Falola, the complainant and made away with the money.
“He damaged the burglary window valued at N45,000, the bulk room and the drawer of the Manager’s office.
“The defendant also stole the sum of N3, 464,000 million, property of BFO Filling Station.
“The Police recovered the stolen money from where he hid it.
“The offences contravene Sections 307, 339 and 287 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015,’’ he said.
The Magistrate, Mr T.A Popoola, granted the defendant bail in the sum of N1,000,000 with two sureties in like sum.
Popoola said one of the sureties should produce evidence of a statement of account worth N1m and three years of tax address verification.
She adjourned the case until August 21, for mention.
Lagos Admits 103 #EndSARS Victims For Mass Burial
Lagos to bury 103 #EndSARS Victims with
In a shocking development, the Lagos State Government has come forward to admit that 103 victims of the #ENDSARS protest will be laid to rest in a mass burial.
The revelation, which was exposed in a leaked memo, comes three years after both the state and federal governments vehemently denied loss of lives during the October 20, 2022 #ENDSARS protests, which were sparked by nationwide outrage against police brutality.
The #ENDSARS protests in Lagos, like in many other parts of Nigeria, saw thousands of youths take to the streets to demand an end to police brutality and the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a controversial police unit notorious for human rights abuses.
The largely peaceful protests took a tragic turn on October 20, 2022, when a violent crackdown by security forces resulted in the loss of several lives and injuries to many others.
Following outrage over the development, Dr. Olusegun Ogboye, Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Ministry of Health, issued a statement claiming that the dead bodies prepared for mass burial were not from the Lekki tollgate.
For years, the Lagos State Government, as well as the federal government, had consistently denied that many people were killed in the protests, despite heart-wrenching accounts from some witnesses and victims’ families.
The refusal to acknowledge the lives lost during the demonstrations sparked anger and frustration among Nigerians, further straining the relationship between the citizens and the authorities.
The full statement reads:
RE: MASS BURIAL OF ENDSARS VICTIMS (MISCHIEF MAKERS AT WORK)
The attention of the Lagos State Government has been drawn to some social media publications about a purported mass burial plan for casualties of the 2020 #EndSARS incident. Peddlers of the news are deliberately misinterpreting and sensationalizing a letter from the Lagos State Government Public Procurement Agency titled: Letter of No Objection – Mass Burial for the 103, the Year 2020 ENDSARS victims, to misinform the public, stir public sentiment and cause public disaffection against the Lagos State Government.
While the Lagos State Government would not have dignified the mischievous elements peddling such news with a response, we consider it appropriate to set the records straight and draw the attention of well-meaning citizens to the antics of some unscrupulous elements who are hell bent on disrupting the peace and tranquility of Lagos with distorted news and half-truth about the PPA letter.
It is public knowledge that the year 2020 #EndSARS crisis that snowballed into violence in many parts of Lagos recorded casualties in different areas of the State and NOT from the Lekki Toll Gate as being inferred in the mischievous publications.
For the records, the Lagos State Environmental Health Unit (SEHMU) picked up bodies in the aftermath of #EndSARS violence and community clashes at Fagba, Ketu, Ikorodu, Orile, Ajegunle, Abule-Egba, Ikeja, Ojota, Ekoro, Ogba, Isolo and Ajah areas of Lagos State, including a jailbreak at Ikoyi Prison. The 103 casualties mentioned in the document were from these incidents and NOT from Lekki Toll-gate as being alleged. For the avoidance of doubt, no body was retrieved from the Lekki Toll Gate incident.
In the aftermath of the #EndSARS violence, the office of the Chief Coroner invited members of the public Throughout public adverts and announcement who had lost loved ones or whose relatives had been declared missing between 19th and 27th October 2020 from various clashes as mentioned above, to contact the department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) to help with identification of these casualties deposited in State-owned morgues. Relatives were to undergo DNA tests for identification purposes. It is important to state categorically that nobody responded to claim any of the bodies.
However, after almost three years, the bodies remain unclaimed, adding to the congestion of the morgues. This spurred the need to decongest the morgues – a procedure that follows very careful medical and legal guidelines in the event that a relative may still turn up to claim a lost relative years after the incident.
Decongestion of our public morgues is a periodic and regular exercise approved by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to free up space in mortuaries that have a large number of unclaimed bodies.
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