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NADECO US mounts powerful global lobby against Tinubu *Wants Biden, others to withdraw support
The battle against the announcement of Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) a fortnight ago, has shifted to the international community, with the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), which is leading the onslaught, urging world leaders, to reject his emergence.
Incidentally, Tinubu, was one of the founders of the group, which came into existence after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, won by business mogul, Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola.
Regardless, the USA Chapter, of the group, which is mounting a campaign against his declaration as the next President to take over from President Muhammadu Buhari, on May 29, wants Tinubu, who ran on the platform of the All progressives Congress (APC) not to be recognised by the global community.
NADECO), USA Executive Director Lloyd Ukwu, at an international press conference on 2023 Nigerian Election Crisis, told reporters on Wednesday, that Tinubu’s election was fraudulent, adding that the pro-democracy group had consequently severed ties with him.
During the event at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, which he said was the first of its series of events planned over the next several weeks regarding the election in Nigeria, he argued that Tinubu’s recognition by the US President, Joe Biden, his administration and the global community, would be akin to endorsing fraudulent elections and undermining the democratic process in Nigeria.
Below are parts of his remarks: “NADECO alleges that the election results pronounced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (“INEC”), February 25-26, 2023, are fundamentally at odds with Nigerian election laws and constitute wholesale disenfranchisement of Nigerian voters caused by the pervasive rot of Nigeria’s increasingly kleptocratic political structure.
“NADECO demands that INEC draw back its curtains to let the full light of truth prove the transparency and veracity of the 2023 electoral processes. It is without question that nearly all of the electoral reforms implemented to safeguard the 2023 Nigerian elections have been savaged by INEC and scattered to the winds of tyranny. It is beyond debate that initial investigation into the 2023 Nigerian Presidential Elections inexorably discloses that Nigeria’s most recent election is the polar opposite of transparency, fairness and electoral integrity. This election was polluted by blatant bribery and widespread corruption – even INEC itself has admitted to its abject failures to comply with the requisite transparency laws mandating real-time electronic transmission of election results from the polling units to the public, instead opting to cloak the electronic results in darkness before emerging with a declared rather than proved “winner” who is presently incapable of being fully embraced by the World.
“The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC action clearly constitutes negligence per se and electoral fraud, as it violated the very statutory provisions and guidelines that are designed to protect against the type of fraud caused by its failure to transmit the results in real time. The people of Nigeria are supposed to be the ones the statute is designed to protect, instead, they have found themselves at the receiving end of the resulting gross injustice.
“NADECO maintains that the 2023 Nigerian Presidential Election is an attempt to disenfranchise the Nigerian people through the Four Horsemen of Democracy’s Doom – Bribery, Voter Intimidation, Insecurity, and Vote Rigging, all harnessed to skew the results of the 2023 Nigerian Presidential Election.
“NADECO calls upon the people and the Judiciary of Nigeria and the International Community to join hands in a concerted effort toward global condemnation and absolute rejection of the hasty, hollow, and illegitimate result declared by INEC as being contrary to the will of the people and the rule of law.
“NADECO hereby takes the following positions to lead a global call for action to redress INEC’s duplicity that endangers democracy in the Giant of Africa:
“NADECO is gravely concerned about the irregularities, voter intimidation, violence, the breach of the National Electoral Act, and most importantly the abrupt and hurried pronouncement of the dubious 2023 Presidential Election results. This, in our viewpoint, signals a wholesale disenfranchisement of voters in Africa’s largest nation.
“NADECO’s goals and singular mandate have always been to fight for the rule of law and democracy in Nigeria as Nigeria’s watchdog of democracy. NADECO hereby, as a first step, formally severs its relationship with Sen. Bola Ahmed Tinubu as a former founding member of NADECO (U.S.A.) for his participation in the worst electoral fraud in Nigeria’s recent history.
“NADECO and Tinubu fought Abacha as the military dictator who scuttled the will of the Nigerian people in 1993 June 12 elections. Ironically, exactly 30 years later, in 2023, NADECO is fighting the same species of dictatorship but only this time a much more dangerous civilian dictatorship – a kleptocracy- mostly perpetuated by one of those who fought Abacha then. NADECO will not look the other way simply because the fraud was perpetrated by one of its founding members.
“NADECO urges the Biden administration to withhold any recognition of the product of the flawed election prior to proof the electoral process reflects the will of the Nigerian People and was without substantive corruption and fraud. NADECO further entreats the U.S. Congress to introduce a Resolution calling on the U.S. administration not to recognize the product of the election. It is the product of a poisonous tree.
“NADECO calls on the international community to support the empaneling of a team of internationally acclaimed technical experts to examine and analyze the INEC servers, and BVAS, etc. to extract the original votes. NADECO implores the Nigerian People and the Judiciary of Nigeria, acting in concert with the International Community, to join together in a concerted effort toward global condemnation and absolute rejection of the hasty, hollow, and illegitimate result declared by INEC as being contrary to the will of the people and the rule of law.
“NADECO demands that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (lNEC), Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, MUST resign or be removed immediately. NADECO urgently requests that all Countries worldwide, especially the United States, place an immediate visa ban upon Prof. Mahmoud.
“NADECO solemnly exhorts the U.S. to not deviate from its democratic standards in Africa just because it fears competition with China and seeks to curry favor with illegitimate dictators who come to power through bribery, force, intimidation, and vote rigging. The U.S. should come out and condemn the apparent corruption of the electoral process, and impose an immediate visa ban on those suspected to have compromised the polls.
“NADECO demands that President Buhari and INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu should be held jointly and severally liable and accountable by the Nigerian Courts and the International Community for what is currently happening across Nigeria in the days following the 2023 elections, and for what could happen in the next few weeks should INEC’s noxious banquet be forced down Nigerian’s throats.”
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BREAKING: All clear for Tinubu! S’Court dismisses PDP’s double nomination suit *Says, PDP a busy-body
For being a meddlesome interloper and a busy-body in bringing a case that was none of its business, the Supreme Court, on Friday slammed a N2million fine on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), over its suit demanding that the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the February 25 presidential election be vitiated.
The main opposition party, had claimed that Kashim Shettima, being a candidate in a Senatorial election in Borno and as well as the running mate to Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate in the election, amounted to double Nomination, which is forbidden by the law.
Based on that, the prayed the apex court to declare the ticket null and void and the votes recorded for it in the election, through which they were declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), wasted, a prayer, which if it had succeeded, would pave the way for Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the party in the election to take over from Tinubu as the 16th President on Monday, when he is due to be inaugurated.
But the court, while dismissing the prayers, which originated from the Federal High Court Abuja, and travelled through the Court of Appeal, before it, agreeing with the positions of the lower courts which dismissed them on the ground of lacking in locus standi to institute the case.
But, Justice Adamu Jauro who read the Judgement, not only held that the PDP acted as meddlesome Interloper and a busy body as it is an internal affair of the APC, ordered the main opposition party to pay N2milllion, for its troubles, after establishing that its arguments tended to misleading the court, which was “sad”.
The court, which said it was aware of the case of Uche Nwosu, former governorship candidate in Imo State, the court, held that it did not applay in the instant case, as it agreed that Shettima withdrew his senate nomination on 6th July 2022 and was subsequently replaced and therefore, was no longer a candidate for the Senate before he picked up the running mate ticket, thus, making the allegation of multiple nomination untenable.
On the other hand, the court, held that Nwosu in his case, got nominated by two political parties for different positions, and having not being on all fours, PDP suit, was bound to fail right from the trial court, to the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court.
Accusing the PDP of attempts to use the social media to set a trap for the apex court to blackmail it, which he said was “painful, unfortunate and uncalled for,” the court said a political party had no right to challenge the action of another party, or the decision of INEC, in respect of another party, adding that for a person to have locus standi to challenge the nomination process of a political party, the person must be a neutral person and an aspirant to that position, and a member of the party.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo is worried that the level of love Nigerians abroad share among themselves is not replicated at home, adding that a situation where they are quick to become friends outside and enemies at home, must be stop. The former President, who acknowledged how Nigerians in the diaspora were making the country proud in their different areas of endeavour, told participants at an evening reception held at New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, that Nigerians in the diaspora must conduct themselves as good citizens wherever they domiciled.
Obasanjo, whose views were captured in a statement by, Kehinde Akinyemi, his spokesman, expressed satisfaction over the unity exhibited among Nigerians in the United States of America, urging them to reciprocate such togetherness when they are back home.
The former President, said to have spoken on behalf of a delegation of eminent traditional leaders and academics that included the Olowu of Owu Kingdom, Oba Saka Matemilola, was quoted as saying: “Nigerian nationals are often very united when they are abroad, but something else when they return to the country, therefore, I want to urge all to be good citizens, not only where you are, but when also you come home to Nigeria.”
The exchange of handshakes between veteran actors Pete Edochie and Kanayo O. Kanayo with Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyey Ogunwusi Enitan, has spurred a flurry of reactions on social media, The Nation, is reporting.
The paper, which reviewed the viral video shared on Thursday, where Edochie and Kanayo approached Ooni’s table at Elizabeth Jack Rich’s 40th birthday party on Tuesday and exchanged Igbo “cultural” handshakes with the monarch, acknowledged the different meanings being read into it.
Social media users on Twitter took to the comment section of the video with some knocking the actors for disrespecting the tradition by exchanging handshakes with the monarch, while others praised Ooni for showing respect to the Igbo culture.
Man of Letters said: “Igbakeji Oorisa?! It’s acceptable that he received the cross-culture respect handshake with Pete Edochie because the man Pete carry, but what’s his excuse for doing it with Kanayo O Kanayo??”
Kelvin Odanz said. “Is this ceremony holding in the Ooni palace? I mean, if an Igbo man (from a culture that doesn’t bow to another man) meets the Ooni in the UK for instance, is it disrespectful if he chooses to greet the respected Oba in a way he was brought up to respect dignitaries?”
Another user Onyemauchi tweeted: “This man supposed be King for him community”
Another tweep tracesorba wrote: “Igbos don’t bow down to any man, An evolved or wise man is their our own Chi.”
BREAKING: All clear for Tinubu! S’Court dismisses PDP’s double nomination suit *Says, PDP a busy-body
Nigerians must allow the love they share abroad resonate at home – Obasanjo
Uproar, social media exchange of fire, over Ooni’s handshake with Pete Edochie, KOK
In the military, INEC boss and his team would be executed – Bode George *Why put Tinubu’s boy in charge of IT?
I’ve paid a price for joining Obi to rescue Nigeria – Datti-Ahmed *Weeps on TV
BREAKING: Sorry, you can’t contest 2023 election, Atiku tells Tinubu
