Africa
By POEM
AFTER all the boasts of effortlessly defending all grounds of HE Peter Obi’s petition with certainty, Festus Keyamo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, failed to do the simplest of the tasks of advising his paymaster, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu not to employ the crude tactic of deliberately avoiding being served same petition through normal route. Tinubu wasted four out of the 180 days of mandatory Tribunal period by blocking all access of serving him via known addresses, thereby attracting the Tribunal’s verdict of substituted service.
Whoever had time to go through the so-called petition the minister of state delivered to the Department of State Services, DSS, to arrest both HE Peter Obi and Senator Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed, would have seen how hollow and shallow in thought the All Progressives Congress, APC presidential spokesperson could be. But as watery as his attempt could appear, no Senior Advocate of Nigeria should be regarded as a fool. Therefore, the underlying intentions deserve to be uncovered.
Noticeably, the Delta State-born lawyer and his gang of liars are scared stiff. And they should be. The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS has made sure election petitions in Nigeria are no longer business as usual, where judges depended on any technical jargons to dismiss any petition, however water-tight.
Borrowing a leaf from the last Presidential Election Petition Tribunal between HE Atiku Abubakar and President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019, evidence of rigging was based on manual collation, where only eyewitness accounts of Polling Unit Agents merited entry as all other witnesses, including all levels of collation agents, were dumped in the dustbin of HEARSAY.
Based on deliberate delays by the Buhari government to eat into trial time, where the first appointed Tribunal chairman, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa had to recuse herself after series of back-and-forth debates, there were far less witnesses the Tribunal could permit within restricted trial time to make any significant impact for the petitioners to prove their case of electoral fraud. Moreso, where the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC denied under oath that they ever used any server during all processes of collation.
These two scenarios advertently nailed greater part of Atiku’s petition such that the legal team held onto the certificate issue only for survival. In the end even the cast-iron certificate issue was bizarrely punctuated by the Justice Mohammed Lawal Garba-led panel by ruling that there was no difference between the names, Mohamed and Muhammadu in certificate matters. And this happened in a country where the names, Evan and Evans were considered wide apart enough to merit an impeachment for a Senate President.
Four years later the players in the whole process have learned. Coincidentally, both Atiku and Obi, whose joint ticket was muddled up by INEC and perfected by the Judiciary, are the principal petitioners challenging Tinubu’s declaration even though on different platforms this time around. Significantly, most of the legal luminaries that passed through that ordeal as petitioners’ counsels are wearing same garbs this time around. And of all, the conservative but hawk-like Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, SAN is leading Obi’s counsel. He evidently has an unfinished business against virtually the same manner of opposition Buhari and the APC assembled four years ago.
And anyone who has appreciable level of understanding of legal matters, particularly when it is tribunal matters, would have seen from the petition Dr. Uzoukwu supervised for Obi and the Labour Party, that Tinubu will sweat right through the anus but definitely won’t find an escape route.
First, the 2022 Electoral Act signed into law has blocked any attempt of another INEC lie of having no server.
Second, the BVAS and IReV have every evidence necessary that you don’t need a retinue of polling unit agents to prove fraud.
Third, INEC fragrantly disregarded both the Constitution and the Electoral Act by not only indulging in manual collation but also going ahead to declare one president-elect without satisfying all the requirements.
Fourth, Tinubu’s drug case, is well-documented in a shore where case files do not develop wings of flight. And more, the United States system does not treat any manner of subpoena with levity.
Only a Judiciary out to destroy democracy will treat the petitions against Tinubu with the mindset of business as usual. And Keyamo knows. That is why he is walking the streets naked, trying to divert attention with juvenile gusto and extremely infantile insinuations and suggestions based on his treacherous imagination and hallucination. Being a SAN, a minister and also under the payroll of an acclaimed drug baron, as intoxicating as these cleavages could be to the average mind, are still not enough to arrogate to one’s self the self-made license to constitute public nuisance. Keyamo may not know this one but he will certainly be made wiser when another crazier mad man meets him on the streets.
The OBIdient Movement will not back down to any means or level of intimidation. They will remain law-abiding till the very end but will not succumb to the rape of justice. Somebody should educate Keyamo on this one.
****POEM is PO Express Media
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Tags: Dr. Livy Uzoukwu Justice Mohammed Lawal Garba Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed
