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Who will be promoted & who will join Bode George ? Who is your favourite mallam ?


Former minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nasir El-Rufai, yesterday told a Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja, that it lacked the power to try him over allegations of abuse of office as minister. He said that the proper court to try him was the Abuja High Court.

Counsel to the former minister, Akin Olujimi, filed a preliminary objection saying that the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Matters Commission (ICPC) Act of 2000, which his client had been charged on, had been repealed and so the federal court lacked the jurisdiction to try the matter. “The prosecution acknowledges that the charges stand on nothing,” said Mr Olujimi. “The effect of a repealed law is that it is a nullity, and no charges founded on it can stand.”

In response to the preliminary objection, the prosecution said that the court could assume jurisdiction in the matter because it involved an agency of the federal government and a former minister in the federal cabinet. Trial Judge, Adamu Bello, adjourned ruling on the case to 13th October.

Mr. El-Rufai and two others were accused by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of illegally allocating land in the FCT to friends and relatives, some of whom included Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, the daughter of former president Olusegun Obasanjo. The other accused persons are Altine Jubrin, former director general of the Abuja Geographical Information System, and Ismail Iro, former general manager of the agency. All three men pleaded not guilty.


AC Ribadu & Oshiomole ticket : as Asiwaju Tinubu Drops Vice Presidential Ambition

If he had held Fash close to his breast who knows as Alamiyesegha is reaping the rewards of patient GodFatherhood


Bola Ahmed Tinubu is no longer interested in the vice presidential race and is, instead, strategising on how the Action Congress (AC) would team up with another party to claim the presidency as well as win all the South Western States, Sunday Independent can reveal.

It also emerged that AC may have concluded plan to field the former anti-graft czar, Nuhu Ribadu as its presidential candidate, with Edo Governor and former Labour leader, Adams Oshiomhole, as his running mate.

That appears to be a fantastic political masterstroke, designed to woo the disenchanted Northerners who appeared certain to lose the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s presidential ticket to President Goodluck Jonathan and draw the organised Labour and younger elements who see Ribadu and Oshiomhole as emerging leaders they could count on.


Tinubu, former Lagos Governor and AC foremost financier, has long been rumoured to be in alliance talk with Muhammadu Buhari to float a joint presidential ticket, a very risky arrangement that would have repeated the Social Democratic Party (SDP)’s Muslim-Muslim ticket in the 1993 presidential ballot.

Late Moshood Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe were Muslims, but the ticket won a landside across the country widely split along ethno-religious lines.

Tinubu’s rumoured VP ambition has seen him criss-cross the length and breadth of Nigeria in the last two years to build bridges as he consulted with top opposition leaders and political parties, including the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).

He is said to have resolved to sit back and map out strategies for the AC to regain all its lost states in the Yoruba-speaking South West geopolitical zone as a bargaining chip for the party in its merger talks with other political parties in the country.

This agenda is believed to enjoy the backing of the five former governors of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) with whom he had been involved in series of mobilisation for the new party to be consummated from the years of consultations.

He was also said to have revealed the new move to his political associates and groups in the South West and across Nigeria in the last one month, a decision believed to be behind the lull and change of strategy in the political consultations among the opposition parties.

Sources close to the godfather of Lagos politics said he backs the decision by AC to support a younger element from the North with a running mate from the oil-bearing South South geo political zone, a deft move to dwarf the influence of Jonathan whose support base political scientists say is weak.

Tinubu and AC favour the candidature of Ribadu and Oshiomhole, two fellows whose support bases they believe could jolt the PDP in the ballot, sources said.


The choice of Ribadu over some other young Northerners like former Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nasir El Rufai, is said to have been informed by the high profile and public sympathy over his performance in the anti-corruption crusade, regardless of his romance with former President Olusegun Obasanjo and allegations that the latter used him to hound adversaries.

The choice of Oshiomhole as a running mate, sources added, flow from his coming from the same region as Jonathan and his wide appeal among Nigerians who relished his presidency of workers’ movement, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).

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Story Highlights Saudi judge stands by decision, refuses to annul marriage of girl, 8 Girl's father arranged her marriage to a 47-year-old to settle debts, lawyer says Appeals court declined to certify original ruling, sent case back to judge Girl's mother says she will continue to seek daughter's divorce By Mohammed Jamjoom CNN (CNN) -- A Saudi mother is expected to appeal a judge's ruling after he once again refused to let her 8-year-old daughter divorce a 47-year-old man, a relative said. Sheikh Habib Al-Habib made the ruling Saturday in the Saudi city of Onaiza. Late last year, he rejected a petition to annul the marriage. The case, which has drawn criticism from local and international rights groups, came to light in December when Al-Habib declined to annul the marriage on a legal technicality. His dismissal of the mother's petition sparked outrage and made headlines around the world. The judge said the mother, who is separated from the girl's father, was not the legal guardian and therefore could not represent her daughter, the mother's lawyer, Abdullah al-Jutaili, said at the time. The girl's husband pledged not to consummate the marriage until the girl reaches puberty, according to al-Jutaili, who added that the girl's father arranged the marriage to settle his debts with the man, who is considered "a close friend." In March, an appeals court in the Saudi capital of Riyadh declined to certify the original ruling, in essence rejecting al-Habib's verdict, and sent the case back to al-Habib for reconsideration. Under the Saudi legal process, the appeals court ruling meant that the marriage was still in effect, but that a challenge to the marriage was still ongoing. The relative, who said the girl's mother will continue to pursue a divorce, told CNN the judge "stuck by his earlier verdict and insisted that the girl could petition the court for a divorce once she reached puberty." The appeals court in Riyadh will take up the case again and a hearing is scheduled for next month, according to the relative. Child marriages have made news in Saudi Arabia in the past year. In a statement issued shortly after the original verdict, the Society of Defending Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia said the judge's decision went against children's "basic rights." Marrying children makes them "lose their sense of security and safety," the group said. "Also, it destroys their feeling of being loved and nurtured. It causes them a lifetime of psychological problems and severe depression." Zuhair al-Harithi, a spokesman for the Saudi Human Rights Commission, a government-run group, told CNN that his organization was fighting child marriages. "Child marriages violate international agreements that have been signed by Saudi Arabia and should not be allowed," al-Harithi said. Child marriage is not unusual, said Christoph Wilcke, a Saudi Arabian researcher for the international group Human Rights Watch, after the initial verdict. "We've been hearing about these types of cases once every four or five months because the Saudi public is now able to express this kind of anger, especially so when girls are traded off to older men," Wilcke told CNN.
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