Umar Sani
As a spokesman, I had the privilege of working with fine journalists who do not indulge in deliberate misrepresentation of facts. They pride themselves as reporters with conscience, who never involve themselves in the author of mischievous, frivolous, malicious and misleading stories merely because of brown envelopes. They pursue their stories with the fear of God, for truth and reason. They are guided by the dictates and professional ethics of journalism. My confidence overtime in the conduct of some of this new crop of journalists, especially in Kaduna, has never been shaken to the bone marrow than now.
It is with a deep sense of sadness that I write this piece to register my profound dissatisfaction with the reports being churned out from the National Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal in Kaduna. I have reviewed the two reports, the first that portrayed hopelessness of the case against Senator Lawal Adamu Usman and the second which seeks to insinuate that he used the results of one Halima Ibrahim Ndanusa to gain admission into a higher institution.
I must admit that at the first hearing of the court case I was unavoidably absent but was able to obtain the details of the court proceedings from the legal team of Senator LA Usman and some keen observers and non-partisan watchers of the legal process who were present in court. The second sitting which commenced at 9am Tuesday the 11th of July 2023 was graced with my presence from the beginning till the end.
The petitioner closed his case and the first respondent is to open his defence on Sunday the 16th July 2023.
What transpired at the hearing and cross examinations were entirely different from what was reported in some sections of the media. I was shocked to learn that one Halima Ibrahim Ndanusa claimed that the senator used her result to gain admission into the university. What a travesty of Justice! The facts of the case as pleaded was very clear and unambiguous. The Senator in his INEC form he filled only claimed to have attended Demonstration Primary School, Diamond Academy Secondary School, Zaria, where he obtained his National Examination council ( NECO) certificate, Amir Abdulkarim Tahfizul Qur’an, where he bagged his Senior Arabic Islamic Secondary School Certificate ( SAISSC), which was issued to him by the National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies ( NBAIS). The result was gazetted in 2015. He studied Bsc Public Administration Ahmadu Bello University ( ABU) Zaria . These were the documents submitted to INEC.
The Petitioners subpoenaed Adeyemo College and Amir Shehu College of Advanced Studies to come over with documents showing the Senator did not attend their school. That was why the senators lawyer, MA Mahmoud SAN, was touched. He wondered why he should object to the documents submitted by the subpoenaed witnesses when his client never mentioned or ever stated that he attended those schools. Why will you invite schools that have no bearing to the case was the concern of Mahmoud SAN. Their testimony was worthless as far as the case was concerned, since he was able to lead them in evidence for them to testify that their schools do not form part of the petition.
What transpired at the hearing and cross examinations were entirely different from what was reported in some sections of the media. I was shocked to learn that one Halima Ibrahim Ndanusa claimed that the senator used her result to gain admission into the university. What a travesty of Justice! The facts of the case as pleaded was very clear and unambiguous. The Senator in his INEC form he filled only claimed to have attended Demonstration Primary School, Diamond Academy Secondary School, Zaria, where he obtained his National Examination council ( NECO) certificate, Amir Abdulkarim Tahfizul Qur’an, where he bagged his Senior Arabic Islamic Secondary School Certificate ( SAISSC), which was issued to him by the National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies ( NBAIS). The result was gazetted in 2015. He studied Bsc Public Administration Ahmadu Bello University ( ABU) Zaria . These were the documents submitted to INEC
Those were some of the excerpts of the report I wrote about the case I witnessed real time .
“The Second witness, who is Provost of Amir Shehu College of Advanced Studies, Richard Ogunloye Ibrahim Phd, who is also a subpoenaed witness, testified that the Senator was not a student at Amir Shehu College of Advanced Studies. To further buttress his point, he quoted what he termed the Senator’s school number and claimed that it belonged to one Halima Ibrahim Ndanusa.
But under cross examination by the 1st respondent’s lawyer, Mahmoud Magaji SAN, he was made to understand that the Senator never claimed to have attended that institution.
Bar Mahmoud expressed shock and astonishment that a school his client never claimed to have attended is now a subject of litigation.
The counsel reiterated before the tribunal that his client attended Amir Abdulkarim Tafiqul Quran and asked the Provost whether the name of his school featured in the petition, a copy of which he was served and to which he answered in the negative.
The documents he brought were thereafter admitted in evidence and were marked as exhibits, and he was subsequently excused.
The third and final witness for the day, Mohammed Sani Abdullahi (Dattijo ), the petitioner, then took the witness box.
After being led in evidence by his lawyer, JJ Usman SAN, his cross examination by MA Mahmoud SAN was intense and robust.
While in the witness box and having been served with marked exhibits, the petitioner was asked where Adeyemo School featured in the documents submitted to INEC or respondent’s statement of claim. He responded in the negative . He was then asked whether he took the first respondent to court on the issue of PDP internal party nomination, which he answered in the affirmative but went further to add that it was dismissed for lack of locus standi.
It beats my imagination, therefore, as to how the fairy tale that circulated in some sections of the media was manufactured. Did they actually witness the proceedings or did an invisible hand write the story and got them to publish it? So much for yellow journalism, we can do better by being steadfast to the ethics of the profession. It serves nobody any good to sponsor propaganda and at the end the judgement proves otherwise
The judgement of the Supreme Court was availed to him to acknowledge; which he grudgingly did.
On his claim that the election result was marred with irregularities and overvoting and his tabulation of what he termed the real result, MA Mahmoud sought to know whether the tabulation was by INEC or himself, to which he claimed ownership.
He was asked furthermore as to which agency was responsible for the conduct of elections in Nigeria; to which he affirmed to be INEC.
When asked whether he relied on the polling agents from polling units, ward collation and local government collation agents to feed him with the outcome of the election results, he replied that he relied on INEC for the results.
Pressed further if he could be in different local government areas on the day of the election, he simply replied that he went home after casting his vote.
It beats my imagination, therefore, as to how the fairy tale that circulated in some sections of the media was manufactured. Did they actually witness the proceedings or did an invisible hand write the story and got them to publish it? So much for yellow journalism, we can do better by being steadfast to the ethics of the profession. It serves nobody any good to sponsor propaganda and at the end the judgement proves otherwise.
. Umar Sani, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, is ex-Special Adviser to former Vice President Namadi Sambo