DAAR Communications Plc Founder/Emeritus-Chairman High Chief Raymond Dokpesi has warned the Federal Government to brace up for more #ENDSARS protests.

He said as long impunity and injustices remain in the system, Nigerians, especially the youths, will continue to demand good governance.

Dokpesi spoke on Wednesday when he led the management of DAAR Communications to Vintage Press Ltd, publishers of The Nation over the recent attack on its facilities in Lagos headquarters.

He advised the Federal Government to release detained members of the #EndSARS movement.

He said their accounts should be unfrozen by the government.

He said #EndSARS was beginning of a long struggle to appraise and restructure the country.

“A lot of impunity has happened in a very recent time. Nigeria has never been as divided as it is today. People have lost faith and confidence in the ability of Nigeria to remain as one united country.

“So, the time is fast approaching but we pray that God will raise a crop of Nigerians, who still believe strongly in the unity, progress and development of this country.

“Those who can sacrifice because the people who are supposed to be our servants – public servants, civil servants – have become our public masters.

“Until we re-orientate the people that public service is service to our people, that we are in the office to contribute to the well-being and good of our country, then, the #EndSARS has just started. It has emboldened quite a lot of people. There is nothing to be hidden anymore,” he said.

He alleged the protests were peaceful until some forces in the government sponsored hoodlums to attack them.

He said: “The #EndSARS protest started in a quiet and proper manner. It was an effort of overzealous elements of the government that went to recruit hoodlums to overtake the legitimate protest organised by those that are graduates and well educated that led to the crisis.

“When the protest started, nobody saw any gun; nobody saw anything until an effort was made to quell it. In Abuja where I was, we saw trucks of people they brought in, uneducated to overpower the educated.

“Those people carried cutlasses and sticks and that was the beginning of it. If they had not brought in the hoodlums, it’s possible we would have had a peaceful protest.”

He warned that as a parent, he was ready come out to challenge the government to release the protesters

“They are going after protesters because their own children aren’t involved, so those of us that have our own children involved, can we ask that they be killed?

“Next time, it wouldn’t be the children protesting, we, the parents, will come out and say let our children be free and that’s what we are going to do and the conditions that prevail today now, should it goes to the first quarter of next year, it will be very disastrous and it will be bad for all of us. Let us put on our thinking cap and reverse the situation,” he said.

He described the attack on The Nation premises and facilities as unfortunate and most painful.

“Having gone through this path myself several times in the past, I know how demoralising and devastating it is…It is not such a pain that can just be pushed away or go off in a short time but our gratitude to God is that the fact that the areas that were touched are now gradually being refurbished.

‘’May God not let us experience this; may this organisation be able to prosper and provide that leadership it has begun to provide.’’

Dokpesi said the media should be the last place to be attacked by any group of persons.

“No matter how convincing their grievances were, The Nation didn’t deserve the type of attack that it was subjected to and like I have said, may God not let this happen again in the future,” he said.

The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice has awarded N20million in damages in favour of Abu Dennis Uluebeka believed to be the oldest death row inmate in Nigeria and another ex-inmate, Mary Bahago over rights violation.

The three-member panel of the court held the applicants were subjected to torture while in custody, which it said violated Article 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and sections 17(2) and 36(6) of the Nigerian Constitution.

The justices however ruled that the applicants failed to prove the relief that their medical needs were neglected by the Federal Government.

90-year-old Uluebeka spent 17 years in a custodial centre in Lagos after he was convicted for murder in 2003.

He was released in 2019 by the Amnesty Committee on Prerogative of Mercy of the Federal Government on grounds of ill-heath.

Uluebeka then sued at the ECOWAS court, demanding N50million reparation over the long years of imprisonment under what he termed cruel, degrading and inhuman condition among others.

On her part, 50-year-old Bahago spent 20 years in Custodial Centre in Suleja, Niger following her conviction for murder, which resulted from a fight.

The Amnesty Committee commuted her death sentence to life imprisonment.

The applications were filed on their behalf by a group, the Centre for Peace and Conflict Management in Africa (CPCMA).

They claimed Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had during the National Economic Summit in February 2018 pronounced the need for the execution of death row inmates in April 2018 as a means of decongesting the prisons.

The applicants stated that the Vice President’s position was re-echoed by the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami in April 2018.

The applicants claimed that the comments put them in constant fear for their lives, adding that they received several threats of secret execution from the security agencies.

Lawyer to the Federal Government of Nigeria, Unyime Ebuk, urged the regional court to strike out the case for lack of coherence in the applicants’ reliefs, adding that their claims could not be substantiated.

There was pandemonium along the Agege Motor road on Wednesday as commercial motorcyclists and policemen clashed.

Scores of protesting cyclists held other motorists to ransom as they pursued policemen attached to the Lagos State Taskforce who had gone to enforce the traffic law.

Wednesday’s episode was an extension of Tuesday’s clash between the party which started off at Second Rainbow along Oshodi-Apapa Expressway where a paramilitary officer was wounded.

According to sources, aggrieved cyclists whose bikes were carted away the previous day had sent out messages to their colleagues to be prepared for battle against the officials.

Armed with cutlasses and bottles, the riders who took over the BRT lanes on that stretch, outnumbered the policemen in a Taskforce patrol van and caused them to flee to safety.

They were seen advancing towards the policemen fiercely, a move that made other road users scamper to safety while the policemen ran away.

Trouble was said to have started at Iyana Ipaja axis where officials approached the motorcyclists to leave the expressway especially the BRT corridor.

The directive however met resistance from the cyclists who said they usually pay daily levies and should not be prohibited from working or restricted to certain routes.

A motorcyclist, Yusuf, said the seizure of motorcycle started from Iyana Ipaja, adding the riders resisted them and retrieved all the seized motorcycles.

“The officers started impounding motorcycles and arresting our members from Iyana-Ipaja so we resisted them and got back all the motorcycles.

“They started shooting at us and we chased them from Iyana-Ipaja to Ikeja-along where they eventually left us.

“The task force officials are fond of harassing us and we won’t take that anymore. If they seize our motorcycles, what do they expect us to be surviving on?

“The government needs to have mercy on us, they cannot just say they want to stop motorcycle from plying the roads without providing an alternative for us.”

As the officials fled, the rampaging riders were said to have vandalised properties within reach, including BRT buses and setting up bonfires.

A petty trader said: “We were going about our daily activities when the Taskforce officers parked their vehicles at one corner and started arresting Okada riders.

“The Okada riders mobilised themselves to resist the officers and they started shooting sporadically not minding who their bullets would hit.

“We had to leave our goods and ran for safety when we noticed that it was getting tensed up.”

Although police declined comments on the issue, The Nation gathered that about 26 of the cyclists were arrested.

It was learnt that security reinforcement was deployed to the scene which led to the arrest of the suspects.

Violence also broke out at the Surulere area of the state with sporadic gunshots heard by witnesses.

The miscreants were said to have clashed around Cassette Bus Stop in Aguda, forcing shop owners to hurriedly lockup.

It was gathered nearby streets were deserted as the armed hoodlums, suspected to be cultists, kept shooting.

Sources claimed the violence was preparatory of an attack on another cult group, adding that the shooters were more than 10.

A geologist, Ezeani Henry, on Wednesday told the independent investigative panel on the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad and other police units set up by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that the hell was beaten out of him, handcuffed and paraded as a criminal by operatives of SARS in Abuja about three years ago.

He said as he could not make it, he asked his partner, Stephen Iwuamadi, to go and attend to the customer.

According to him, “At about 5 pm, Mr Stephen called me to hand over the geophysics machine to me and said he was at Berger junction.

“When I got there, I didn’t see him and I parked. It was then two men forcefully jumped into my car and asked for my phone. I asked who they were and they said they were policemen,” Henry told the panel.

He added that he told them to go to the nearby Berger police station for them to be identified as policemen, which infuriated them and one of them brought out a handcuff and handcuffed him.

“I created a scene for people to intervene. People then told them to take me to the nearby police station for them to be identified. They then took me there and they were identified as policemen from SARS,” he stated.

According to him, the infuriated SARS operatives took him in their vehicle from the police station to their office at Abattoir, Garki, Abuja, adding that they threatened to kill him.

“As we reached the gate of their office, they started to beat me with a wooden stool and a rusted machete. I was asking them what was my offence but they didn’t tell me anything but kept threatening to kill me.

“We got to their office at about 6:30 pm and they took me into a room. From that time till 11 pm, they were beating me. They beat the hell out of me.”

He further said that at about 1 am, the following day, one officer, Bawa James, came and told him (Henry) that he saw a particular number they were tracking and asked if he knew one Chuks Anaekwe.

“I told them I knew Chuks as a contractor who I sometimes do subcontract with and that we stay in the same estate. They then asked me to take them to his house.

“I did at about 1:30 am and Chuks refused to open the door of his house. We then stayed inside their vehicle. Meanwhile, all this while they refused to allow me to call my wife or even lawyer.

“My wife kept calling but they did not let me pick. It was at about 7 am that they allowed me to call my wife and I told her what was happening. Between 6:30 am and 9 am, they paraded me in my estate as a criminal with handcuff in my hands.”

He added that Chuks’ lawyer later came to tell them that he would bring his client to their office and they later left the estate with him back to their office.

Henry said he told his wife to go and bring his automated teller machine (ATM) card in case the SARS operatives might ask for money.

According to him, on the way back to their office, the SARS operatives told him to pay the sum of N350,000 to bail himself, which he said he told them he did not have such amount.

“When I said that, one of them slapped me and I received another round of beating. When I saw how desperate they were, I asked my wife to go and withdraw N150,000 but she only withdrew N40,000 from my account and went to raise money and brought N120,000 to the SARS people.”

The petitioner informed it was after he paid the money that he was allowed to go home, adding that he went to the hospital to treat himself.

Counsel for the respondents, Godwin Ijioma, sought for an adjournment enable discuss with ASP Bawa James, list as the first respondent in the petition with a view to doing substantial justice in the matter.

Based on this, the chairman of the panel, Justice Suleiman Galadima (retd), then adjourned the petition till December 14 for continuation.

An elder sister to a man allegedly killed by an officer of the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) today narrated how her brother died in the hands of the Squad and the officer’s refusal to release the corpse for burial.

The sister, Mrs Doris Idedia, told the independent investigative panel on SARS and other police units set up by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), sitting in Abuja, that her brother, Felix Idehen, died on September 6, 2016, in the custody of SARS.

Narrating what led to the death of her younger brother, Idedia stated that on September 3, 2016, they were all together at their residence in Kaduna and she was cooking noodles for the deceased to eat when at about 5 pm he received a call from his wife’s younger sister, one Onyekachi Sunday.

“As he went to the junction with his car to pick his brother-in-law because he relocated from where he was staying before, he saw a Golf car chasing him. He thought it was kidnappers so he accelerated and veered off to another route.

“Yet the occupants of the Golf car were still chasing him. At a stage, my brother came out of his car and started running to avoid being caught.

“Throughout that day, a Saturday, we did not see him again. My mother said we should wait till Sunday to make a report at the police station,” she told the panel.

She added that on the following day, his brother’s wife received a call from an unknown number and she (Idedia) picked the call only for the caller to inform that her brother was in the hospital.

According to her, on getting to the hospital, they saw the deceased in bandages all over him with injuries, adding that her brother narrated what happened to them.

“My brother informed me that he was running, Inspector Kingsley started shouting thief, thief and mobilised people to catch and beat him to a pulp. As of that time, Kingsley was not there.

“He said Kingsley accused him of stealing the car he (deceased) was using. My brother said he did not steal the car but bought it from Onyekachi, his in-law. Onyekachi also confirmed that he was the one who sold the vehicle to my brother.

“Kingsley was angry when he came and saw us and asked if he told us my brother was there. “My mother told him that it was someone who called her and told her that they saw her son in the hospital.

“Kingsley then said they wanted to take my brother to Abuja for treatment. My mother and the doctor treating him protested that they could not take him in such bad condition as he was but Kingsley insisted on taking my brother to Abuja.”

She further told the panel that her brother while being taken to Abuja was dumped face up in the police vehicle with no cloth to cover him, adding that it rained that day and the deceased was seriously drenched that day.

Idedia alleged that on reaching Abuja, the SARS operatives did not take her brother to the hospital as Inspector Kingsley promised, but took him to the SARS cell instead.

She said despite several calls her mother placed on the number Kingsley gave her, he refused to pick the calls only to call on September 6, 2016, the day Felix died, asking that they should come to Abuja.

“When I came to Abuja, he had already died by then. I didn’t see my brother. It was the nurse taking care of him at the cell who informed me that my brother really suffered a lot in the cell, that he didn’t eat anything and was not taken to any hospitals for treatment,” she said.

She further said that the nurse then pointed to a vehicle in which her brother was, adding that when Kingsley saw her, he asked that she should join the vehicle.

“Kingsley asked me to enter the vehicle, that my brother was being taken to the hospital. I called my brother by his name but he did not answer me.

“We took him to the police clinic but they refused to accept him, saying he was dead but Kingsley insisted that he was alive and said we were going to Asokoro General Hospital.

“When we got to Asokoro, they could not take my brother out of the vehicle. The doctor came to see him in the vehicle and said he was brought in dead. He pointed to the mortuary and said we should go and deposit the corpse there,” she said in tears.

The petitioner told the panel that after her brother’s death, the family asked Kingsley to release the corpse for burial but he refused.

“He refused to release the corpse to us, saying that if he released the corpse, we would go and make a case,” she stated.

She informed that she made several efforts, including visiting the Inspector-General of Police, Deputy Inspector-General of Police, writing a petition to the Senate President among others to ensure that her brother, who she said was the manager of IMAX Furniture in Kaduna, got justice.

“My brother suffered a lot. From that Saturday to that day he died, he did not eat anything. He was supposed to be in Canada; he had proceeded with his visa,” she said.

Asked what she wanted, Idedia declared that the family wanted compensation of N200 million.

Counsel for the respondents, Godwin Ijioma, told the panel that there was the need to get in touch with the first respondent, Inspector Kingsley, who he said he did not know his surname, with a view to knowing the true situation of things.

He, therefore, sought an adjournment.

Based on this, the panel adjourned the matter till December 15 for cross-examination of the petitioner.

Hollywood actor, George Clooney, gifted 14 of his closest friends a whooping sum of $1million each in 2013, it has been confirmed.

One of the 14 friends, Rande Gerber disclosed in MSNBC in 2017, that the high profile actor had visited a warehouse in downtown Los Angeles to pick up $14 million in cash to surprise them with.

Confirming the report for the first, in an interview with GQ on November 17, 2020, Clooney said: “I just thought basically if I get hit by a bus, they’re all in the will. So why the f**k am I waiting to get hit by a bus?

And I thought, what I do have are these guys who’ve all, over a period of 35 years, helped me in one way or another. I’ve slept on their couches when I was broke. They loaned me money when I was broke.

They helped me when I needed help over the years. And I’ve helped them over the years. And I thought, you know, without them I don’t have any of this.

I just held up a map and I just pointed to all the places I got to go in the world and all the things I’ve gotten to see because of them, and I said, ‘How do you repay people like that?’ And I said, ‘Oh, well: How about a million bucks?’”

pochoga.com.ng

The British parliament has set a date to debate numerous petitions seeking sanctions against the President Muhammadu Buhari led government over its handling of the #EndSARS protests.

Hundreds of thousands of Nigerians home and abroad had petitioned the United Kingdom to probe the violation of rights and killings of protesters demanding an end to police ruthlessness and killings last month.

The Nigerian President has yet to hold any military official or appointees to account for death of protesters at the Lekki Tollgate on Tuesday October 20 as his government continues to dispute several reports that soldiers opened fire on armless demonstrators.

The administration has also targeted hundreds of citizens who took part in the protests with arrest, travel restrictions and bank accounts freezing.

President Buhari also recently asked the international community to make adequate findings before commenting on the #EndSARS issues.

In a nationwide broadcast after the Lekki incident, Buhari said his government will not allow the continuous breakdown of law and order in the country.

“It has become necessary for me to address you having heard from many concerned Nigerians and having concluded a meeting with all the Security Chiefs,” he said.

“I must warn those who have hijacked and misdirected the initial, genuine and well – intended protest of some of our youths in parts of the country, against the excesses of some members of the now disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).

“On Monday 12th October, I acknowledged the genuine concerns and agitations of members of the public regarding the excessive use of force by some members of SARS… To our neighbours in particular, and members of the international community, many of whom have expressed concern about the ongoing development in Nigeria, we thank you and urge you all to seek to know all the facts available before taking a position or rushing to judgement and making hasty pronouncements.”

However, the British parliament has scheduled November 23 to debate petitions calling for sanctions against the Nigerian government.

It is nonetheless unclear whether the British lawmakers would recommend sanctions after debating the petitions, or if the government would implement them considering Nigeria’s long-standing ties with the UK.

The racist” is a mythical creature. Ever elusive. Nobody admits if they are one. Doesn’t seem to have a face. But my God, do we hear its voice. Especially in the realm of social media.

When press officers at Sainsbury’s were pierced by the double-edged sword of trending Twitter this week, for both good and bad reasons, it rang out once more. The issue? The supermarket giant’s new Christmas advert features a family… that just so happens to be black.

I say that plainly because that’s exactly how it should have been perceived. However, the opposite was the case. As comedian Funmbi Omotayo put it, soon after the advert began to air nationwide, “all hell broke loose”.

Examples of responses include: “You may as well rename yourself Blackbury’s”, “Where are the British people?”, “You’ve managed to completely alienate the few remaining White customers you still had”.

Apparently, for some, a black family is not worthy of a Christmas advert. So it begs the question, what exactly is a black family worthy of?

I see no outrage when black people are overwhelmingly overrepresented in the UK justice system. Are we only deemed worthy of being on Crimewatch? When black mothers were revealed to be statistically more likely to die in the UK from childbirth than any other group, where was the outrage then?

Perhaps we should only be seen scoring goals in international football matches, winning gold medals at the Olympics or being token rappers at posh dos. These examples, perhaps, are more palatable for people who can barely tolerate our presence in the UK. Black people, permitted to exist as long as they are considered to be performing familiar stereotypes: the inner-city criminal, the happy-go-lucky entertainer or generally, the sole black person in the office who should be a forgettable face that might be seen around, preferably not heard, and certainly has no power. It’s far too much for black people to be included in picture-perfect, filmic Christmas adverts as ordinary British families.

The supermarket’s decision to feature a family who just so happen to be black embraces the plurality of 21st-century Britishness. Being both black and British hasn’t suddenly become incompatible. Rather, the discomfort many feel at being confronted with that reality is part of an issue that has been bubbling under the surface for decades: the myth that no racism exists in the UK.

All year, the counter-narrative being pushed back on UK Black Lives Matter protests is that Britain is not racist like America, so what exactly do black people have to complain about?

One glance underneath the Sainsbury’s advert tweet and you’ll see this question is redundant. The real question is why is this level of racism still happening in 2020? Brexit, populism and the media are lazy suggestions that have been bandied around as so-called excuses. But the truth is, this is an issue of education.

Just recently, I was asked very innocently by a young lady “do you speak Nigerian?” I wasn’t offended because I knew it was down to a lack of understanding. She didn’t know that the British empire jumbled together ethnic tribes to invent a new contrived country on which the English language would be imposed, subjugating and quelling literally hundreds of other indigenous languages in the process. After all, I wasn’t taught it at school either and really, if you had no connection to the culture, why else would you look it up?

I firmly believe that if most of these anonymous Twitter users were more informed, they would know, as the late MP Jo Cox said, “we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us”. White, brown, black alike, we all bleed, laugh and cry. Because ultimately we’re living beings experiencing human existence on the same island we call the UK, sharing the same values that we call British culture. We should be proud of that, I certainly am. It’s lazy and reductionist to limit such varied experiences to just skin colour. As one Twitter user put it rhetorically, those criticising the advert are “worried about becoming a minority. Why is that a problem? Minorities are treated just as equally as the majority, right?”

Wrong.

Deep down, those who still hold outrageous, outdated and racist views know this. What they irrationally fear the most is some sort of dystopian, mythical, topsy-turvy world where Black supremacy exists in a way to oppress others just as White supremacy, in reality, has been for centuries.

But fear can easily be dispelled with education. It takes just one conversation with a black person, reading a book, or dare I say, Google, to realise that no right-thinking black person has any interest in black supremacy. Racial supremacy of any kind is a recipe for disaster. History and the present have taught and continue to teach us this.

Actress Chizzy Akudolu tweeted: “When I saw sanitary ads with all white women it didn’t stop me buying tampons.” I agree. And in all honesty, I really don’t pay attention to the type of people who feature in adverts. I didn’t take real notice of the black family in the Sainsbury’s advert either, until I saw the furore on Twitter.

In Steve McQueen’s recent miniseries, Small Axe, in the film Mangrove, a racist police officer is heard saying “the thing about the black man is… he’s got to know his place. If he oversteps, he’s got to be gently nudged back in.” The only “place” black people should find themselves is wherever their skills and talents can take them, irrespective of the colour of their skin. There shouldn’t be a default position of where black people are “‘supposed” to be just because their skin tone makes them a numbered minority. If that means they’re in the places where you typically only see white people and you have an issue with that, then you are part of the problem. Inclusion is not supremacy.

In Britain, the elusive racist, like Bigfoot or the dragon, may be a mythical creature. But the truth is, black people face their Bigfoots and their dragons on a daily basis. This latest controversy surrounding Sainsbury’s is yet another sighting.

The Independent

The Federal Government has accused Obianuju Catherine Udeh, better known as DJ Switch of being “a fraud and a front for divisive and destructive forces’’ that will be exposed in due course.

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, while speaking at a media briefing on Thursday, denied that the celebrity who has since sought asylum in Canada was in any danger, adding that the police and military never declared her wanted.

He said she was one of the peddlers of fake news and suggested that she may be acting out a script written by other people.

“Even when she claimed to have authentic evidence of mass killings, surprisingly, instead of presenting whatever evidence she may have to the judicial panel of inquiry into the protest, she chose to escape from the country under the pretext that her life was in danger.

“I ask: in danger from whom? The military has come out to say they never sought after her. “To the best of our knowledge, the police never declared her wanted. “Her conduct thus becomes suspect. Who is she fronting for? “What is her real motive? Who are her sponsors? If she has any evidence of killings, why is she not presenting it to the panel? “If she was so desperate for asylum in any country, does she have to resort to blatant falsehood to tarnish the image of the country just to achieve her aim?” he said.

DJ Switch had, through her Instagram Live, said the Nigerian military shot at unarmed #EndSARS protesters in Lekki on October 20, while the government has vehemently denied the allegations.

The most senior judge in Gombe State, Justice Beatrice L. Iliya, has been excluded from the nominees to fill the vacant position of the Chief Judge of the state for being a Christian.

It was gathered that Iliya’s name was removed from the list by Gombe State Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General, Zubairu Mohammed Umar, simply for being a Christian.

Sources revealed that the Attorney-General refused to nominate Iliya for the position because the past Chief Justice was a Christian.

“Umar deliberately refused to nominate Iliya for the position because of her religion.

“He has the backing of the state government as they believed the CJ should come to the other religion.

“They deliberately refused to nominate her because they know that if her name is there, as the most senior and most qualified, the National Judicial Council will pick her over others,” the source said.

In a petition to the National Judicial Council obtained by Newsmen, Iliya questioned the rationale behind the removal of her name despite being the most senior judge and having served as an Acting Chief Judge in the state.

She highlighted the faulty process, procedure and criteria used by the Judicial Service Commission in the assessment and selection of the shortlisted candidates.

She explained that the head of the JSC nominated himself and another junior colleague while excluding her name from the nominees without any reason.

The petition reads partly, “The HAG proceeded to preside over the meeting and to present his memorandum in which he proposed to the JSC that Hon Justice Mu’azu Abdulkadir Pindiga, Ag. CJ/ Chairman JSC and Hon. Justice Joseph A. Awak should be shortlisted as preferred and reserve candidates respectively for the purpose of appointment as Chief Judge of Gombe State.

“The HAG’s proposal in the memorandum, although he acknowledged my seniority over the shortlisted judges; my unblemished record; and my being eminently qualified for appointment as CJ; nevertheless, went further to justify my exclusion from the proposed shortlist by explaining that: “in view of comparative satisfactory performance and exemplary leadership qualities exhibited by Hon. Justice Mu’azu Abdulkadir Pindiga as Acting Chief Judge vis-à-vis Hon. Justice Beatrice L. Iliya, I deviate from the non-binding convention to propose to the Gombe State Judicial Commission to present to the National Judicial Council the name of Hon. Justice Mu’azu Abdulkadir Pindiga was the preferred candidate for the office of Chief Judge of Gombe State and Hon. Justice Joseph A. Awak as the two are most eminently qualified and suitable to be appointed as Chief Judge of Gombe State.”

In defending the nominations, the Gombe Attorney General said, “Shortlisting of Hon. Justice Mu’azu A. Pindiga and Hon. Justice Joseph A. Awak as preferred and alternative candidates was influenced by the records of performance of Hon. Justice Mu’azu A. Pindiga as Ag. Chief Judge which was more impressive than that of Justice Beatrice.”

Faulting the nominations, Iliya said the record of performance of the two judges as acting chief judges that influenced the Attorney-General’s view was not presented to the JSC at the meeting.

“The JSC therefore took its decision based solely on the personal, unverified opinion of the HAG and not on any objective evidence, acceptable or known, recognised criterion guiding the selection, shortlisting of candidates for appointment to the office of CJ,” she added.

She argued that the office of the Attorney-General has no oversight powers over the judiciary or judicial officers generally adding that the attorney general “was not in a position to assess and competently grade the performance of judicial officers, more so that he had not yet assumed his office as HAG when I was appointed and acted as Chief Judge from 1st September, 2019 – 4th December, 2019. He only became HAG on 9th December, 2019.”

She also noted that the state’s Attorney-General did not place before the JSC any material or evidence to support his opinion, nor did the JSC wait to receive the mandatory reports and comments of former head of court’s, NBA Chairman, DSS report, certificate of medicate fitness and CVs of the shortlisted candidates as require by the NJC rules.

She prayed that NJC not only reject the advice of the Gombe State JSC, the shortlisted names and set aside the whole exercise and process that led to the said advice but also direct that a fresh, transparent and objective exercise, consistent with the NJC and settled practice and procedure be carried out by JSC to determine suitable candidates for the appointment of Chief Judge of Gombe State.

“The NJC on the strength of the material before it should direct that the objective and transparent process of appointing a CJ for Gombe State, commenced by the erstwhile CJ of Gombe State Hon. Justice H. Y. Heman be completed,” she added.

SR.