Court Sentences LP Candidate to Seven Years Imprisonment 

An Enugu South Magistrate Court presided over by Justice E D Onwu, has sentenced the Labour Party candidate for Enugu South Urban state Constituency, Hon Bright Ngene, to 7 years’ imprisonment. The Magistrate, who handed the verdict on Friday had on Thursday, said that he was under instruction to deal with a matter involving the LP candidate who won the Enugu South Urban state Constituency, during the March 18, 2023, general elections. Ngene and two others were arraigned in court since 2017 by the Nigeria Police Force, Enugu command in a matter involving himself and his community worth about N15million. After he won the 2023 general elections against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, who also challenged the victory of Ngene and sought for the election to be declared inconclusive, which the election petition tribunal agreed and ordered rerun election in eight polling units, the ruling government resurrected the matter involving his community development fund. The matter was abandoned since 2017 when he was lawyer for his community, Akwuke, Enugu State. SaharaReporters reported on June 25, that Bright Ngene had raised the alarm over an alleged conspiracy between the executive and judiciary arms of the state government to imprison him.  Ngene, who spoke to journalists in Enugu, had claimed that the plot was aimed at punishing him for insisting on the mandate he won in the March 18, 2023 House of Assembly Election.  He had noted that the Chief Judge of Enugu State, Justice A. R Ozoemena, the Deputy Chief Registrar, Chijioke Agbo, and Magistrate E. D Onwu colluded to disregard the petition pending before the National Judicial Council which seized the case.  Ngene is seeking for an urgent intervention to prevent what he sees as a gross miscarriage of justice aimed at terminating his political and legal careers. Ngene of the Labour Party was declared the winner of last year’s Enugu South Rural Constituency election and was sworn into the House of Assembly but was aborted by the court in a petition by his rival, Sam Ngene of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.   Re-run elections for the disputed eight polling units in the Constituency have been held twice but were inconclusive, while the scheduled third-time re-run of June 8 was cancelled without notice to the LP candidate. In his petition to the NJC, Ngene alleged that “there is corruptive agreement between the Honourable Chief Judge of Enugu State, His Lordship A. R Ozoemena, the Deputy Chief Registrar N.L Chijioke Agbo, His Worship E. D Onwu, Esq and the Enugu State government to at all cost or willy nilly put me behind bars before a re-run is conducted over my seat in the Enugu State House of Assembly. “Otherwise, why are these parties applying impunity in continuing with the trial when the NJC has accepted custody of the matter? The ideal thing is that parties in this matter should relax for NJC to decide but they are rushing the matter to put me behind bars and go ahead to conduct the re-run election. “I seek the NJC to save me from oppression, persecution, and impeding wrongful conviction bathed by corruption and obvious abuse of judicial office and power. “Unless the National Judicial Council intervenes, the Honourable Chief Judge of Enugu State, the Deputy Chief Registrar, and His Worship E. D Onwu will wrongfully and corruptly destroy my ambition to continue to be in the House of Assembly of Enugu State and dent my political and legal career with conviction,” Ngene petitioned. But when the matter came up for adoption of written addresses, on Thursday, there was an uproar in court room as three lawyers fought fruitlessly to dissuade the magistrate to give a long adjournment date in a matter against Ngene and two others. While the defence counsels, Messrs CJ S Okereke, Benjamin C. Nwobodo and Frabel Awgu asked the trial Magistrate to adjourn the matter till next week to enable them study and reply to application filed by the prosecuting counsel, His Worship E D Ownu insisted that c

Forge Discharge Certificate go to jail, NYSC warns Nigerians

The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has said forgers of its discharge or exemption certificates risk jail term, option of fine or both as penalties. The Director, Legal Services, Mr Ahmed Ibrahim, said this on Monday in Abuja during the 2023 Legal Officers’ Capacity Building Training. The training has “The Role of the Legal Officer in the Defence of the Public Service in Nigeria” as its theme. According to Ibrahim, the NYSC Act contains all the infractions that people should know about. “The infractions are many, like forging the NYSC certificates. “Also, persons that are supposed to go for youth service as specified in the Act are not coming for youth service while those that are supposed to come for service will do but will not complete it and abscond. “Therefore, the Act itself has specified what is to be done in respect to these instances.” Ibrahim also said some attend the orientation camps with forged documents and when such persons are caught, they are arrested by the police for prosecution. He said that though such cases abound in court, the exact number could not be determined, adding that they were being followed up. “The punishment, first of all, is to arrest them, the police will now charge them to court and it is now left for the courts to decide if it is imprisonment or fine. “It is at the discretion of the court to say this is what we are going to do as the term of imprisonment. “If you are found guilty by the court, the court can give you two years jail term depending on the type of offence or three years or an option of fine or both jail term and fine.” Regarding Corps Producing Institutions’ (CPIs) involvement in such infractions, Ibrahim said that those caught in the NYSC engage in the ‘lifting of the veil of corporate personality’ of such institutions. According to him, if they submit names of unqualified corps members they are also guilty and are sent to court.He said the punishment to be meted to such institutions was also at the discretion of the court. He, however, said that such institutions are not delisted but are allowed to still send the names of their intending corps members for mobilization. He also said that it was worrisome that such infractions were coming up day by day. On the essence of the training, he said a lot of people were committing a lot of infractions against the NYSC Act. He said therefore, it deemed it necessary to ensure that members of the public know exactly what the Act contains and what they should and should not do. The Director-General, Brig.-Gen. Yusha’u Ahmed said that the enhancement of capacity building to stimulate efficiency and higher corporate performance was in line with one of the focal areas of his policy thrust to the scheme. Ahmed, represented by Ibrahim, said the training was organized to enhance the capacity and knowledge of legal officers in the scheme on their professional roles in the defence of the Public Service in Nigeria. He said that the training was expected to harness the potential of the legal officers in the scheme for improved professional services. “Over the past 50 years of existence of the scheme, our experience has shown that the decision by management to train and re-train staff of the scheme has proven to be very fruitful. “This is especially in the training of legal officers, judging from the laudable achievements recorded so far by the Legal Unit and the professional conduct of legal officers in the scheme. “The unit has kept faith with its mandate of rendering quality legal advice to the NYSC management and has shown due diligence in handling cases involving the scheme in different Courts of Law in Nigeria. “To further contribute to the achievements of the legal unit, this training is an ideal platform to evaluate the activities of the unit with a view to breaking new grounds towards strengthening the values of the scheme.” The training is expected to enhance their competence and practical performance/service delivery in the areas of legal drafting and litigation in both civil and criminal matters. Others are legal education involving corps legal activities and general legal advice.