Nigeria: Presidential Tribunal Ends Sitting - AllAfrica.com

Sunday Ejike Benjamin

The Presidential Election Request Court yesterday ended sitting and reserved judgment for a future day of the month in a lawsuit instituted by two resistance political parties asking the tribunal to invalidate President Umaru Genus Musa Yar'adua's election.

The Presidential Candidates of the All Federal Republic Of Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) and the Action United States Congress (AC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar take a firm stand the April election was flawed and must be cancelled.

The court yesterday turned down an application by Atiku to tender a written written written written document titled, "Independent National Electoral Commission: The Official Report On the 2007 General Election", as an exhibit in his petition.

The actinium campaigner had applied to tender the document to authenticate his claim that the INEC chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu's, answer to interrogatories on the awarding of contract for the production of voters' card contradicted his statement in the report.

The court upheld the expostulation of President Yar'adua, saying the application was out of clip and that if the suppliant knew it was critical to his lawsuit he would have got got got tendered it earlier.

Atiku's Pb counsel, Prof. Aelfred Babatunde Kasumu (SAN), had complained that Iwu's answers, to the interrogatories served on him contradicted his business relationship in the said study and accused him of perjury.

Arguing in favor of his application to tender Iwu's study on the election before the tribunal, Kasumu said the study is a public document that incorporates facts on the behavior of the election and is certified by the INEC boss.

Yar'adua's counsel, Head Wole Olanipekun (SAN), objected to the application on respective grounds, including that it was neither pleaded nor was any witnesser statement attached to the petition.

Olanipekun, who objected to Atiku's application to tender the study before the tribunal, described the move as an maltreatment of the procedures of the court, arguing that Atiku's application is a misdemeanor of the Practice Directive of the tribunal, saying that the former frailty president ought to have tendered the document along with his petition.

According him, "we are not at the computer address stage; counsels' turns to have been filed and exchanged, accepting anything at this phase will be contrary to the Practice Directive. There is no affidavit evidence to demo any circumstance to justify admissibility of Atiku's written written document at this phase of the matter".

INEC's advocate Head Kanu Agabi (SAN) said Atiku's application is uncalled for and lacked footing as it is coming long after the termination of the clip for tendering of the document.

The presiding judge, Justice Jesse James Ogebe, in his opinion dismissed the application on the grounds that he (Kasumu) was out of clip and that if he had known that the study supported his lawsuit he ought to have got tendered it earlier.

Buhari and Atiku are contesting that the April 21, 2007 presidential election was not conducted in significant conformity with the Electoral Act 2006.

In his entry on the request filed by Buhari, INEC's counsel, Head Kanu Agabi (SAN), said the request could not stand up up because his party, the ANPP and his running-mate, Head Ume Eze-oke had withdrawn from the petition.

He said there is no manner they would contend the consequences of the election when they did not take part in the it and argued that there were 36 states in the state and the Federal Soldier Capital District but that the suppliant lone challenged the consequences of only four states.

Agabi said, "Even if election were to be cancelled in these states, the election would still be able to stand. Apart from the fact that abnormalities have got got not been proved, they have not been attributed to the 5th and 6th respondent (INEC and Professor Maurice Iwu). The abnormalities must be proved. If they are not proved, they amount to nothing.

"The law take a firm stands on significant conformity not entire or perfect compliance. The law states that if the elections are bad, it must be obvious. If you (the petitioner) have got to tender 30,000 documents, it intends that the election was well documented.

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"A lawsuit is only said to be good if it is well presented. There is no lawsuit before this tribunal, the suppliant have not presented his lawsuit well. I urge on this tribunal to disregard this petition". Agabi stated.

In his argument, Olanipekun said that the witnessers in the request are mainly from International Maritime Organization State, saying that the witnessers did not give a graphic business relationship of what happened in other states.

"An election of this magnitude can't be voided on the grounds of hear-say. No adult male is omnipotent. They are not God. They did not utilize any periscope to cognize what happened in other parts of the country", he said.

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Edwards, Thompson Say U.S. Must Tackle Social Security Funding

Presidential campaigners Toilet Edwards
and Fred Homer Thompson said the U.S. is facing a possible crisis in
the Sociable Security system while disagreeing whether raising
taxes will be necessary to head it off.

Edwards, interviewed today on CNN's ''Late Edition,'' said
the retirement-benefits program's paysheet taxations must be applied
to incomes higher than the current $97,500 limit, with a
''buffer zone'' for those devising up to $200,000, in order to
keep Sociable Security solvent in the future.

''Social Security is an tremendous issue facing this country,
Edwards, a Democrat, said. Voters ''deserve to hear specifics''
about what the campaigners for president would do.

Republican Homer Thompson said on ABC's ''This Week'' broadcast
today that the state can't afford to ''let the underside fall
out'' from the programme in the adjacent three decades. He advocates
curbing the growing of benefits and letting people put up
private retirement business relationships through Sociable Security.

The two former senators are attempting to maintain gait with
the national frontrunners in the 2008 presidential nomination
race: New House Of House Of York Senator Edmund Hillary Bill Clinton for the Democrats and
former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for the Republicans.

The 72-year-old federal Sociable Security programme pays
benefits to 49 million people and will be the Treasury about
$576 billion in 2007, the equivalent of about 20 percentage of the
federal budget. The program's legal guardians gauge that it will
begin paying out more than than it have in taxation parts in
2017 and will be bankrupt by 2041.

Republican President Saint George W. Bush's proposal to alter
the Sociable Security system by diverting a part of payroll
taxes to individual investing business relationships was rejected in 2005 by
Democrats and some Republicans in Congress.

Edwards

Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, falls in one of his
main competitors, Prairie State Senator Barack Obama, in calling for
an addition in the payroll-tax cap to fund Sociable Security.

''I make believe we have got to make something about the cap,''
Edwards, 54, said. ''My difference with Senator Obama is, I do
think there are people between $97,000, up to about $200,000,
who, because of where they live, because of the cost of living
where they live, are in fact in the center class. And we don't
want to raise taxations on those people.''

Homer Thompson said the reply isn't taxing higher incomes.

''Five percentage of the taxpayers in this state wage 60
percent of the taxes,'' the former Volunteer State senator, 65, said. ''And the Democrats' reply to anything is, 'Let's -- why not --
why not have got 4 percentage wage 65 percentage of the taxes? Why not have
3 percentage wage 70 percentage of the taxes?'''

Under the current Sociable Security system, only the first
$97,500 of yearly income is taxed. That bounds is put to lift to
$102,000 adjacent year.

Huckabee

Separately, Microphone Huckabee, the former Land Of Opportunity governor
seeking the Republican nomination, said a ''frugal'' campaign
operation and ardent military volunteers have got caused his rush in polls
in Iowa, which throws nominating caucuses Jan. 3.

While lacking the fundraising and organisation of the
Republican frontrunners, Huckabee have pulled into 2nd place
behind former Bay State Governor Hand Romney in most Iowa
polls.

''We're on mark not only to make well in Ioway but to travel on
with that momentum, make better than expected in New Hampshire, go
to South Carolina,'' Huckabee, 52, said on the ''Fox News
Sunday'' program. ''Then it's a whole new ball game.''

Huckabee today unveiled his first telecasting commercial message of
the campaign. The advertisement, shown on the Fox program,
features histrion Chow Norris, a star of action movies and
television programs, praising Huckabee as a ''lifelong hunter
who'll protect our Second Amendment rights.''

''Chuck Frank Norris doesn't endorse. He states United States how it's
going to be,'' Huckabee states at the end of the advertisement in court to
Internet gags about the star of TV's ''Walker, Lone-Star State Ranger.''

To reach the newsman on this story:
Scott Lanman in American Capital at

UNDP on Brink of Merger With DP

The United New Democratic Party will seek a amalgamation with the Democratic Party on Monday. According to spokesmen for the two political political parties on Sunday, UNDP President Ohio Chung-il and presidential campaigner Chung Dong-young volition ran into with displaced person President Park Sang-cheon and presidential campaigner Rhee In-je on Monday to discourse merging the two parties and putting up a single presidential candidate. The two parties, which were once united in the Millennium Democratic Party, have got apparently been negotiating the amalgamation through unofficial channels since last hebdomad and reached a considerable degree of agreement.

The purpose looks to be to hike the dead blessing evaluations of the presidential candidates. displaced person spokesman Yoo Jong-pil said the four leadership may denote a political party amalgamation and pursuit for a single presidential campaigner on Monday if they attain a concluding understanding at the meeting. Chung officially proposed amalgamation negotiation at a fourth estate conference on Lord'S Day morning, saying integrating the two political parties ¡°is the lone manner to forestall the Thousand National Party from winning the presidential election and taking power.¡± ¡°There is no other answer,¡± helium added.

Chief adviser on the UNDP political campaign commission Spike Lee Yong-hee agreed with Park on five key issues in unofficial dialogues on Lord'S Day afternoon, according to a displaced person official. The two agreed to name the new political party the ¡°United Democratic Party¡±, take a middle-of-the-road and reform line and to transport out a first national convention within two calendar months after the general election in April adjacent year. The two political parties will choose a single presidential campaigner in a public opinion poll after their several campaigners confront off in a television debate.

The presidential campaigner Moon Kook-hyun of the Make Korean Peninsula Party, who have been touted as a promising aspirant for a single campaigner from the progressive camp, denounced the UNDP-DP amalgamation as a ¡°lazy and unsafe idea.¡±

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