Author: Lawbreed Limited

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu In March 2017, columnist, Eric Teniola, began his article tracing the history of appointments to the Nigerian Supreme Court with the following lines: “[c]risis is not new to the Supreme Court in Nigeria. From inception, there has always been one crisis or the other in that court.” That crisis of appointment has often been accompanied by a crisis of retention and mortality. When Stafford Foster Sutton retired as the last foreign Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), the government appointed an Egba prince, Adetokunbo Ademola, to succeed him as the on 1 April 1958. 14 months later,…

An Ikeja Special Offences Court on Friday fixed 6th December for the trial of the former Attorney-General of Lagos State, Olasupo Shasore, charged with corrupt offers to public officers. Mr Shasore, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, served as the Attorney-General of Lagos State and the Commissioner for Justice during the tenure of Babatunde Fashola as the governor. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) charged the embattled senior lawyer with a two-count charge bordering on corrupt offers to public officers. The defendant pleaded not guilty to the charge. Following his not-guilty plea,…

President Muhammadu Buhari has conferred Nigeria Excellence Award in Public Service (NEAPS) on 44 prominent Nigerians. NEAPS was set up to recognise excellence in leadership, service, or humanitarianism. To be eligible, the recipient must be a public official or a private citizen excelling consistently in a given sphere of influence, in good character standing and must also be at the forefront of service and innovation. The 2022 recipients include former President Goodluck Jonathan; Nyesom Wike, Rivers state governor; and Buba Marwa, chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). Others are Senate President Ahmad Lawan; Femi Gbajabiamila, the speaker…

The supreme court has affirmed the nomination of Sherrif Oborevwori as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta state. Delivering judgment on Friday, a five-member panel of the apex court, led by Amina Augie, upheld the decision of the Abuja court of appeal. During the PDP primary in May, Oborevwori polled 590 votes to beat David Edevbie, the commissioner for finance during the James Ibori administration, who polled 113 votes. Oborevwori, the speaker of Delta state house of assembly, is the preferred candidate of Ifeanyi Okowa, the incumbent governor, while James Ibori, a former governor, is…

Nigeria’s local currency unit is set to weaken further next year as its current exchange rate to the dollar is well above fair value, the Bank of America (BofA) has said. BofA economist, Tatonga Rusike, in a note to clients yesterday said the forecast based on three indicators – the widely-used black-market rate, the central bank’s real effective exchange rate, and “our own currency fair value analysis” – show that the naira is 20 per cent overvalued. “We see scope for it to weaken by an equivalent amount over the next six-nine months, taking it to as high as N520…

Lafarge has pleaded guilty to paying armed groups in order to ease the movement of its staff and goods within a war zone in Syria. The French cement company was fined charged $778 million as penalty after pleading guilty at a United States court in Brooklyn of conspiring to provide material support to the jihadist group ISIS and another terrorist organization as part of a deal with the U.S. justice department, CNN reports. The company had denied allegations that it paid $15.3 million to the Islamic State to retain a cement plant north of Syria at the dawn of the…

The Chinese government has opened secret police stations in Nigeria and in over 20 countries in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa in its effort to tackle the increasing criminal activities of its citizens abroad. This was contained in an investigative statement titled, ‘110 Overseas Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild.’ It was widely reported that the police stations are created to bring “down on all kinds of illegal and criminal activities involving overseas Chinese.” Lesotho and Tanzania are the two other African countries apart from Nigeria that have Chinese secret police stations to curb crimes among China citizens. The report…

There are indications that the fifth alteration to the 1999 Constitution may not see the light of the day as speakers of states’ Houses of Assembly have given conditions to act on the bills transmitted to them by the National Assembly. The demands of the speakers include bills seeking the establishment of state police and state judicial councils. Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, disclosed this while briefing newsmen on Tuesday on the state of the constitution review exercise at the National Assembly, Abuja. The federal lawmakers had in March voted on 68 bills aimed at amending the 1999 Constitution, after…

25-year-old Abimaje Shittu, a commercial tricycle operator in Lokoja has been arrested for impersonating an Inspector of Police. The suspect who hails from Egume in Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi State was caught with a falsified police identification card, which identified him as a Police Inspector. He was apprehended by the security personnel of the Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja on Saturday 15th October 2022, at the Main Campus of the institution. The Head of the Public Relations and Protocol Unit of Kogi State Polytechnic, Lokoja, Uredo Omale confirmed the incident and said the culprit has been handed to the…

An Abakaliki Magistrate Court, yesterday remanded a two-term member of the House of Representatives and the Labour Party senatorial candidate for Ebonyi South Zone in the 2023 election, Hon. Linus Okorie. Recall that Okorie was said to have been kidnapped on Sunday morning, while driving out of his Abakaliki residence, and was on Monday morning brought to the Headquarters of the Ebubeagu Security outfit. It was further gathered that the police allegedly went to the office of Ebubeagu in the Old Government House and took custody of him. He was arraigned for alleged offences bothering on false information, fraud, murder…