Today's Headlines: Why Petitions By Atiku, Obi Should Be Dismissed-Tinubu; Obi Accuses FG Of Giving

Why Petitions By Atiku, Obi Should Be Dismissed – Tinubu

Photo Credit: The Nation

President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima are asking the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) to disregard claims by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP) and their presidential candidates, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, that a candidate must score 25 per cent of votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to be declared president. Describing both petitions as strange and hollow, Tinubu and Shettima argued that neither of the two sets of petitions provided relevant evidence to support the claims of the plaintiffs that the election was not held in compliance with relevant laws or that the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the APC were not qualified to contest the election.

The defendants said the suits could not even be considered as petitions within the context of the nation’s electoral laws as they were strangely not “complaining about election rigging, ballot box snatching, ballot box stuffing, violence, thuggery, vote buying, voters’ intimidation, disenfranchisement, interference by the military or the police, and such other electoral vices.”

“The crux of their grouse, in their petitions, is that this time around, while the presidential election was peacefully conducted all over the country (as corroborated by their primary witnesses; that is, the Presiding Officers (POs) and the results accurately recorded in the various Form EC8As, some unidentified results were not uploaded electronically to the INEC Election Result Viewing (IREV) portal,” Tinubu and Shettima said.

Continuing, they said: “The other remote contention of the petitioners is that the 2nd respondent (Tinubu) did not score 25 per cent or one-quarter of the votes recorded in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja (FCT); while the petitioners have also tersely alluded to the respondent’s non-qualification, without providing any fact of same in the body of their petitions.”

Obi Accuses FG Of Giving National Awards To Looters

Photo Credit: Punch papers

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi, on Saturday, accused the Federal Government of giving national awards to individuals who “stole the country dry” while failing to recognise the roles played by teachers in moulding the “leaders of the tomorrow.”

Obi, who advocated for an increased budgetary allocation for education, spoke during the graduation ceremony of Pace Setters Academy in Abuja. 

Tinubu To African Leaders: Stand Firm Against Military Coups

Photo Credit: The Nation

President Bola Tinubu, on Saturday, charged the United Nations (UN) to further firm up its position against unconstitutional power takeovers and military coup d’etat, lamenting the prevalence of the unconstitutionality in West Africa.

President Tinubu, who made the call in Nairobi, Kenya, also called on African leaders to respect democracy, the rule of law, ensure political stability and disincentivize coup d’etat on the continent.

In his statement at a high-level event organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), on the margins of the Fifth Mid-Year African Union (AU) Coordination Meeting, the President urged African military institutions and states to recognize and respect the need for democratic renewal.

The Nigerian leader, who is also the Chairperson of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government, said coups d’état should be discouraged in the continent, especially in the face of challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, insecurity, and climate change.

Subsidy Removal: Gov Uzodinma Increases Minimum Wage To N40,000

Photo Credit: Daily Post Nigeria

Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State has increased the minimum wage of workers in the state to N40,000.

Uzodinma increased the minimum wage to cushion the pains caused by the removal of fuel subsidies.

The governor disclosed this during a meeting with critical stakeholders on Saturday in Owerri, the state capital.

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