News
Wike triumphs again! Damagun remains PDP Chairman till 2025 – court
Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday, barred the National Executive Committee (NEC) and Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from removing Umar Damagum as the Acting National Chairman of the party, stating that no person other than Damagum should be recognised as PDP national chairman until the party’s national convention scheduled for December 2025.
Lifu, who made the order after listening to the arguments of Umar El-Gash Maina, a former member of the Senate from Yobe State, held that in line with Articles 42, 47, and 67 of PDP, it was only at the national convention of the party that national officers could be elected.
The ruling, which is coming against the background of the reported suspension of Damagun alongside Samuel Anyanwu, the National Secretary, by a group in the PDP National Working Committee (NWC), has opened a fresh chapter in the crisis engulfing the former ruling party, since after its National Convention in 2022.
The emergence of Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President as the presidential candidate for the 2023 election in the convention, had split the party down the middle, as Nyesom Wike, then Governor of Rivers State, who came second, had insisted that Iyorchia Ayu, must step down as the National Chairman, owing to the fact that he also came from the North like Atiku.
He had gone ahead to team up with four other dissenting governors, including Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu, Samuel Ortom of Benue, Seyi Makinde of Oyo and Okezie Ikpeazu to form the group of five, otherwise known as the G5 to fight the former VP which is believed to have led to his defeat at the February 25, 2023 presidential polls.
Damagun, believed to enjoy the support of Wike and his group, eventually took over from Ayu, after he was shown out of office following constitutional issues that was raised about his election, and has occupied the position ever since, though on acting capacity, a situation, now being challenged by some dissatisfied party members.
Lifu, who had held that PDP members were bound by the party’s constitution and must always act in line with it, took the decision after the Senator, who claimed to be chairman of PDP in Yobe State instituted the suit against PDP and eight others alleging that some of the party’s stakeholders had been holding clandestine meetings to forcefully remove Damagum from office in gross violation of the party’s constitution.
Maina, who said that a former Deputy Governor of Kogi State, Phillip Salawu, was being pushed forward as Damagun’s replacement, also regretted that the two letters of complaint he wrote to Anyanwu, about the clandestine meetings, were never acted upon.
Joshua Musa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), lawyer to Maina, had told the court to invoke articles 45, 47, and 67 of the PDP constitution to stop the move to replace Damagum as the Acting National Chairman and to declare that the national chairmanship of the PDP is rotated between the north and south regions and not through any other procedure not enshrined in the PDP’s Constitution.
Lifu, who agreed with the argument that Damagum could only be replaced at the national convention held that any attempt to truncate the four-year tenure of the northern region, which had not been completed, without the national convention will amount to an affront to the PDP constitution.
He dismissed the counter argument that Maina had no locus standi to bring the case and that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear it, stating that the Yobe PDP boss predicated his suit on the protection of the party’s Constitution from being violated and the northern region where he came from being short-changed.
He insisted that Maina, having displayed his PDP membership card before the court and having raised the fundamental issue of protection of PDP’s Constitution, had sufficient interest and justiciable cause to institute the case.
While declaring that PDP NEC and BoT are bound by the party’s Constitution and that Damagum as national chairman can only be replaced through the national convention of the party, he also held that Damagum having been appointed from the northern region where a former national chairman Iyorcha Ayu hailed from is entitled to serve out the remaining tenure of the national chairman.
Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Governor of Oyo State, on Thursday, finally threw his hats into the ring by declaring his intention to run for president in 2027, with a message – history beckons.
The governor, whose ambition has been a matter of speculations for months now and who had teamed up with forces angling to force President Bola Tinubu, out of power, told a teeming crowd in Ibadan on Thursday that time had come to reset Nigeria.
At a mega-rally to announce the alliance between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and the Allied Peoples’ Movement, (APM), Makinde, expressed worry over the dwindling fortunes of Nigerians, vowing to engage Nigerians to end the drift.
Hear him: “Without a multi-party system, there is no democracy. Where is our multi-party? Where do we go from here? We have been pushed to the wall.
“They calculated and self-opposition cannot unite but I am here to say that the opposition is the everyday Nigerian. This is the time for all us to ensure Nigeria works for us. This is the time to confront it fears. It is time to engage as citizens and not spectators.
“For the opposition political parties, this is the time to unite and work in unity and give our nation the much reset it needs. The time to reset Nigeria is now. Ibadan is the city of warriors. The first grand alliance is formed. The PDP and APM is formed. This handshake will allow us to field candidates from presidency to state Assembly. And so, I declare my candidacy for office of the president of Nigeria.”
Eyo Ekpe, a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), on Wednesday, gave a detailed account on how operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) manhandled him on Monday.
He told reporters that he was at sea on why he should fall victim to the assault against his person and eventually arrested given that was not right person directly involved in the information the agency sought.
Some operatives of the EFCC who invaded the hospital, had whisked Ekpe away after firing teargas to scare away the workers, patients and visitors to the hospital, following what appeared like a fracas the ensued over what it claimed was a routine duty in the facility.
Ekpe, Deputy Chairman of the hospital’s Medical Advisory Committee (MAC), described how an operative had first entered his office to make inquiries on why the hospital was yet to give a response to an EFCC inquiry over a medical report linked to a suspect facing trial.
He detailed how he briefed the operative that the said response was being prepared and even went ahead to show him the draft of a letter in that regard, which needed to go through the gamut of official endorsement before being released.
Hear him: “The head of that internal medicine department looked at the report and also discovered that the name of the doctor that signed the report is not a member of staff of that department.
“I had prepared prepared a response to the EFCC on Monday, May 11, 2026, based on the findings. When the EFCC operative visited my office the next morning to collect the document, I told him that the response was ready in draft. I even showed him the draft, but told him that the document still needed approval from the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital before it could be officially signed and released.
“He pretended to have accepted that. He left, but later later returned with another armed operative and informed me that I was under arrest. I asked him why. I was not the one that issued the medical report. My name is not on the medical report. The report was not issued from my unit.
“But he said I would get the answer when I get to their office. I then asked him to at least wait for my staff member who I sent on an errand before joining them. But they refused.
“They started pushing me. They dragged me out of the office. Then I began to cry while they were dragging me. They had warned me not to speak. They had taken my phone. My cry as they were dragging me, attracted the workers to the scene, who enquired what was going on, but because they ordered me not to speak, I couldn’t say anything. They had their guns.
The members of staff of the hospital initially blocked them from taking me away. They then made a call. After that I saw many masked and armed men came violently, broke the protector, threatening the people that were around and people ran away.
“They picked some staff that were still by me. they dragged me and other staff, five of us into their van downstairs. By that time they discovered that the gate of the hospital were locked. So, they drove towards the gate and packed and the commotion continued. We were inside the van.
“I was so emotionally and psychologically traumatised that I couldn’t even look out of the vehicle to see what was happening outside. But I know that teargas and live bullets were shot. That’s all I can say for now.”
Joyce Abdulmalik, of the Federal High Court, Abuja, heard on Wednesday, how Zenith Bank raised alarm over the huge transaction in one of its branches by Abubakar Malami, former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF-MoJ).
The bank said it immediately filed a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) in respect to the transactions, during its appearance in the ongoing trial of Malami, his wife, and son over allegation of massive looting of funds belonging to the Federal Government during his tenure.
Mashelia Bata, a compliance officer with the bank, who appeared as witness in the case, where Malami, et al, are facing a 16-count charge bordering on alleged money laundering to the tune of N8.7 billion, to which they pleaded not guilty, gave the testimony while being questioned on the bank’s roles in the matter.
Details of the testimony conveyed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), stated how the compliance officer who was cross-examined by Adebayo Adedeji, lawyer to the defendants admitted that the deposits in the account statements complied with the guidelines of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Arguments had stretched when Adedeji, opposed Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), lawyer to the EFCC, who had asked the witness to explain the meaning of a suspicious transaction report, stressing that there was no ambiguity in the term.
However, Okutepa, in response, maintained that section 215(3) of the Evidence Act did not preclude him from re-examining the witness while urging the court to allow the question for proper explanation.
After Abdulmalik, agreed and overruled Adedeji, the witness told the court that banks were required to alert the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) about fund deposits coming in a repetitive pattern, adding: “Any deposition of funds seen in a pattern or repetitive, you must escalate it to the NFIU.”
-
Columns4 weeks agoAbike Dabiri: Did Obi raise a monster or you’re drunk on Tinubu’s poisoned chalice?
-
News3 weeks agoJandor: Tinubu didn’t endorses Hamzat *I’ve briefed President on my ambition
-
Columns4 weeks agoBe the hero that saved Nigeria! Open letter to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar
-
News2 weeks agoBREAKING: Makinde, Turaki, lose! *S’Court affirms Wike’s PDP leadership
-
Columns4 weeks agoNow VDM has become Sowore’s nemesis, does Peter Obi need anther advocate?
-
Features2 weeks agoJim Nwobodo: The Sun shines, thrills, at ‘The Vanguard Awards’
-
News1 day agoTinubu to African leaders: Copy Nigeria, produce your way out of poverty
-
News3 weeks agoADC: Fight, scatter them! *Presidency goads Kogi lawmaker on Mark’s leadership