Tag: President asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu

The PUNCH reports that the joint petition by the Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar recently came to a premature end.

The petition ended prematurely on Tuesday, over the presentation of unsorted documents before the Presidential Elections Petition Court.

The parties are challenging the outcome of the February 25 election wherein Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress emerged as the elected president as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Respondents in the suit are INEC, the president, Tinubu, and his party, the All Progressives Congress.

During the resumed hearing in the matter, the lead counsel for the PDP, Chris Uche SAN, tendered the certified true copies of the INEC voters register for FCT in 14 batches.

The court admitted them as evidence and reserved ruling on the objections by the respondents.

According to the court, the documents were not properly sorted.

In his defence, counsel for the PDP, Chris Uche SAN told the PEPC that it was difficult to get electoral materials including Form EC8As from INEC on time.

He asked the court to admit the documents in evidence pending the proper numbering by lawyers to parties and the court registry after the close of the day’s proceedings.

He added that INEC should have properly arranged the documents before bringing them to court in line with a subpoena issued to the electoral umpire.

But INEC’s lawyer, Kemi Pinero, disagreed with Uche’s position.

He said, after an election, it was incumbent on the parties to arrange the electoral documents given to them by the commission.

More so, he said that the documents sought to be tendered by the PDP were brought by INEC’s officials from across the country.

He also stated that despite producing the documents,  the PDP had not paid for its certification.

In response to the back and forth, Justice Haruna Tsammani – led panel told Uche that it was the duty of his legal team to create a schedule of the documents after INEC had produced them through a subpoena.

After deliberations, the petitioners told the court that the legal team have agreed to take the documents back for arrangement and tendering by tomorrow, Wednesday.

After confirming the agreement of the respondents, the court adjourned the matter to June 21 for the continuation of the hearing.

The petitioners have less than a week to round up their petition against Tinubu.

The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) has rejected a move by President Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC to stop the petition of the Allied People’s Movement (APM)  to challenge his qualification for the February 25, 2023 polls.

Tinubu, through his lead counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN, had sought to use a Supreme Court judgment delivered on May 26, 2023, to terminate the APM’S petition, but the request was turned down.

The grouse of Tinubu was that the Apex Court had resolved the sole issue raised in the petition of the APM in the judgment in a suit filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

He sought to move the Court to invoke the spirit and letters of the Supreme Court judgment to halt the hearing into the APM’s petition.

The Presiding Justice of the Court, Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, however, disagreed with Tinubu and held that the party cannot be shut out in the face of fair hearing.

Justice Tsammani asked Tinubu to keep his objections against the hearing of the petition to the final address stage of the court’s proceedings.

Similar objections raised by APC through its counsel, Charles Edosomwen SAN, against the petition on the same ground were turned down by PEPC for the same reason.

Earlier, the APM, through its lawyer, Mr Gideon Ijiagbonya, had informed the Court of receipt of the Supreme Court judgment being sought to be used to terminate its petition.

The lawyer said that upon perusal of the judgment by the Supreme Court, he and his legal team concluded that there is life in the petition and applied for its hearing.

He, however, sought adjournment till June 26 to enable him to obtain a vital document from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to establish his case.

Justice Tsammani, in a brief ruling, rejected a week-long adjournment and fixed Wednesday, June 21, for the hearing of the petition.

President Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has stated that he wants to see recipients of students loan by September/October 2023/2024 Academic Session.

This was confirmed by the Federal Ministry of Education at a press conference on Wednesday, June 14.

Andrew David Adejo, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, noted that government can no longer foot the bill of universities.

He said;

“Whether we like it or not, the government can no longer foot the bill for universities. That is why we are doing private public partnership. The universities already have autonomy, they autonomy they are yet to have is financial autonomy, it is when the get it that they can answer that question and the government is working towards that.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has directed that he wants to see recipients of the loans by September/ October of 2023/2024 academic session and that as such, an inter-ministerial committee will be inaugurated on Tuesday to fine tune the process for students to get the loan within six weeks.

“Without meaning to say what the committee set up would do, we don’t want to make something that only public school students would benefit from, for now private schools are paying tuition so you have to give somebody who is going to private school an opportunity for get and pay tuition.

“What you have been seeing is the bill that was presented and went through final reading at the House of Representatives and before Mr. President signs a bill, he looks at it and sends it to relevant ministries and then decides if it is okay and if there are modifications that are necessary. Let us wait to see the Act and you will get the Act when it is transmitted to the ministry of justice to produce into a gazette.”

Adejo further revealed that asides from tuition, there are other fees the loan could cover. He said;

“You can’t give someone loan and say pay tuition without sustaining his school, No, you have to get accommodation, even if tuition fee in public universities are free you still pay for your accommodation and federal government would not give you loan that will not make sure you get in school, stay in school and graduate.”

On why same loan failed in the past, the permanent secretary said;

“We want the current act to learn from the mistake of the past where there are more defaulters than people that paid the bill, the past is like it is a government money come and take and go, free money but that is not going to be the case with this.”