10th February, 2011
Recent sponsored publications by Iyiola Omisore, the Senator representing Ife East Senatorial District in the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, have generated lots of furore quite undeservedly. It is worrisome to observe that the general populace is being short-changed again through an orchestrated plan by some crooks whose means of existence has definitely been nothing but crookedness. The most worrisome aspect of it is that the top echelon of the judiciary is involved in this macabre dance deliberately suffocating itself to please the god of filthy lucre.
In The Guardian and Thisday newspapers of January 11th and 13th, 2011, Omisore, in most reckless publications of all times, cast indescribable aspersions on Justice Ayo Salami and the five Justices of the Court of Appeal, who sat on the election petition appeal of Aregbesola v. Oyinlola, calling the respected jurists all sorts of gutter names and accused them of selling the judgment to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Action Congress of Nigeria for the sum of N5 billion. Following this unfortunate publications, the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. J. B. Daodu, did a further damage to the judiciary by declaring that 85% of the Justices of the Court of Appeal are corrupt and that Omisore’s allegations are true. Although J. B. Daodu later denied the story which was reported in several newspapers, the National Mirror newspapers has stood by its report awaiting J. B. Daodu’s next line of action.
As promised by Omisore that the last had not been heard of the Osun gubernatorial appeal decision, the National Judicial Council has announced its decision to elevate Justice Ayo Salami to the Supreme Court of Nigeria. It is on record, and this has not been impeached, that one of the most incorruptible judges Nigeria has ever produced and may ever produce, is Justice Isa Ayo Salami. Never in his career has anybody alleged corruption or corrupt motive to his judgments or administrative decisions until the ill-begotten paid advert of Omisore. Rather than the judiciary checking the wagging tongue of Omisore, the National Judicial Council, presided over by Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, has decided to tear the Court of Appeal into shreds simply because its darling non-performing but usurper government of Oyinlola was removed by the court and the life ambition of Omisore, its political representative in the Senate, to be governor of Osun State has been truncated by the decision of the court of Appeal.
For God’s sake, Omisore is not a party to the election petition but is just a miserable loser who actually financed the most miserable decision of Ali Garba’s re-trial election petition panel that awarded Oyinlola victory in a manner inconsistent with all principles of law governing election petitions! The same Omisore laid down the shameful record of contesting an election while in prison and standing trial for murder without campaigning and rose to occupy a seat in the Senate of a shameless country like Nigeria. It is only in Nigeria where people like Katsina-Alu preside over the judicial future of others that such unenviable feat can be performed by an individual like Omisore.
Fellow Nigerians, Iyiola Omisore’s allegations of corruption and perversion of justice against Justices Isa Ayo Salami, Clara Bata Ogunbiyi, C. C. Nweze, Paul Galinje, Adamu Jauro and Lawal Garba were based on five cases, namely: Lasun v. Awoyemi, Omoworare v. Omisore, Aregbesola v. Oyinlola and Fayemi v. Oni. He alleged that in the four cases mentioned, the PDP was unfairly treated. One wonders what better treatment this character is looking for in these cases as two of the cases were actually decided in favour of PDP while two went against PDP.
In Lasun v. Awoyemi, an election petition in which the Appellant, an Action Congress candidate, challenged the election of the PDP candidate, Justice Clara Bata Ogunbiyi did not declare the AC candidate the winner of the election contrary to the prayer of the AC candidate but rather ordered a retrial of the case by another tribunal. All through the re-trial period and till this moment, the PDP honourable, Leo Awoyemi, is still occupying the Osogbo/Orolu/Irepodun Federal Constituency. The re-trial tribunal of Ali Garba threw out the petition of AC despite the volume of evidence that showed clearly that the PDP candidate did not win the election. We are still waiting for the decision of the Akure Division of the Court of Appeal which heard the AC appeal in December, 2009 but has not delivered its decision till this moment.
In Omoworare v. Omisore, despite the avalanche of evidence that showed that the same Iyiola Omisore rigged his way into the Senate, the Naron tribunal denied AC justice and on appeal, Justice Clara Bata Ogunbiyi, who presided over the appeal, did not declare AC the winner of the election but ordered a re-run which AC boycotted due to pendency of two cases at the Federal High Court, Lagos, in which AC was contesting the validity of the re-run election if it were to be conducted without a valid voters’ register in December, 2009 as INEC, under Iwu, had planned to do and if it were to be conducted by INEC whose composition was grossly below the constitutional quorum. With AC boycotting the re-run election, Omisore had an easy ride back into the Senate through an election conducted in utter contempt of court as judgment on whether INEC had the capacity to conduct the re-run election when it was lacking in constitutional quorum was not yet delivered by Justice A. M. Liman of the Federal High Court, Lagos.
In both cases above, Justice Clara Bata Ogunbiyi was a member of the Court of Appeal Division sitting in Ibadan where the cases were to be automatically decided as all appeals from Osogbo must go to Ibadan at that time before the recent creation of the Akure Division. The posting of Clara Bata Ogunbiyi to the Ibadan Division was done under Justice Abdullahi, the former President of the Court of Appeal and long before Ayo Salami became the President of the Court of Appeal. One wonders where the fault of Salami arose from in the posting of Clara Bata Ogunbiyi. Yet Omisore complained against the decisions of Ogunbiyi that clearly favoured him and his party.
In Fayemi v. Oni, a decision which followed Oshiomhole v. INEC and Agagu v. Mimiko, it was clear that Fayemi won the election by preponderance of evidence. It would take a jaundiced tribunal of the most deplorable to award the decision to Oni.
As a prelude to the decision in Aregbesola v. Oyinlola, it must be appreciated that, probably aside from Awolowo, the most cheated but popular political redeemer of his people, is Aregbesola whose victory at the election was clearly testified to by the clarity of evidence led at the two different tribunals that heard the case and the two panels of the Court of Appeal that considered the appeals arising from the case. While Oyinlola, whose election was nullified has resigned himself to fate and is praying for forgiveness over all the atrocities he and his supporters perpetrated during the election and the mis-governance to which he subjected Osun State, the weeping gnome (egbere) in the person of Omisore has rent the air with his cries attempting to tear our eardrums through his ululating contemptuous libels. Why are we this unlucky as a people?
It must be noted that the cases of Oshiomole v. INEC and Agagu v. Mimiko were decided by Justice Umaru Abdullai and not Isa Ayo Salami. These cases have been worthy precedents in any society where electoral justice is appreciated as sine qua non to progress and development.
We are aware of the connivance among the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Aloysius Katsina-Alu, J. B. Daodu, Iyiola Omisore and the PDP. Never in the history of Nigeria has the Supreme Court shamelessly entertained an application in a matter in which it has no jurisdiction until the reign of Katsina-Alu when the Supreme Court, in the Sokoto election petition case, dabbled un-meritoriously into a case in which it had no jurisdiction and denied the Court of Appeal its constitutional status as the final court in such election petition.
We have it on good authority and are ready to prove it at the appropriate time, that Katsina-Alu aided the Sokoto Governor in its attempt to bribe the Justices sitting on the Sokoto appeal but the incorruptible Justices refused. Katsina-Alu then directed the Sokoto bribe givers to approach Ayo Salami to help them in talking to the Justices sitting on the case but Salami refused to compromise his conscience. Since then, Katsina-Alu and his crony NJC members have been looking for an opportunity to deal with Ayo Salami but knowing full well that an adverse step might be devastating against them, have decided to transfer, (not elevate) Ayo Salami to the Supreme Court so that he could pave way for them to replace him with someone who will be more amenable to their dictates. This is terrible!
Omisore is lamenting the huge sums of money he had spent towards obtaining nomination by PDP as its governorship candidate in Osun State in 2011. He once boasted that he had more than 20 billion naira he could waste on the 2011 governorship election without batting an eye-lid and any opponent who would engage him would definitely sell his life to the devil.
Now, for Nigerians to be aware, the plan by Justice Katsina-Alu, Iyiola Omisore, J. B. Daodu and their cohorts in PDP is to wrongfully indict the incorruptible Justice Clara Bata Ogunbiyi and the members of her panel upon which Katsina-Alu would then entertain a fraudulent application by Omisore and order that Aregbesola should vacate the office of Osun State Governor and a re-run election be conducted immediately thereby paving the way for Oyinlola to come back, complete his illegal tenure and for Omisore to be able to contest and be foisted on the hapless people of Osun State.
But, please, NOTE! Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable. Any attempt, we repeat, any attempt to apply the unfortunate Sokoto tactics of Katsina-Alu would lead to nothing but total war. This is not a threat but a solemn promise.
A word is enough for the wise.
•Quasim Mohammed
c/o Human & Environmental Development Agenda,
16, Mojidi Street,
Off Toyin Street,
Ikeja, Lagos.
