Zimbabwe 'male rape' charge dropped case

Zimbabwean prosecutors have dropped charges against three women arrested in connection with male rapes.

They were charged last year with 17 counts of aggravated indecent assault - as Zimbabwean law does not recognise the act of a woman raping a man.

At least two of them will face charges of prostitution instead, officials say.

Nigeria: Maevis, FAAN know fate today

A Federal High Court in Lagos will today rule on the suit by an aviation services firm, Maevis Ltd, against the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, over alleged breach of contract.
Trial judge, Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako, adjourned to ruling on whether or not to stay proceedings in the matter, pending the separate appeals by FAAN in respect of the matter before the Court of Appeal, Lagos.
The  court, meanwhile, yesterday, said the Managing Director of FAAN, Mr. George Uriesi, must appear in court today to face the contempt proceedings filed against him over alleged disobedience to court order.
Uriesi, who was in court at the last adjourned date, was absent when the case came up, yesterday, but was said to have written a letter to the court, saying that he had to visit his doctors.
Maevis had dragged FAAN to court in the substantive suit, over alleged breach of contract for the provision of the Airport Operations Management System platform in four international airports in Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt.

Nigeria: Court voids two arbitration awards worth N840bn against NNPC

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has voided two separate arbitration awards worth $5.25 billion (about N840 billion) against the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, in favour of some oil exploration companies in the country.
In the first case, the court voided the arbitration award of $3.45 billion and $1.8 billion award in the second suit.
Trial judge, Justice Adamu Bello, in the two judgments that lasted over three hours, held that the subject matter of the arbitration, the interpretation, application and administration of the Petroleum Profit Tax Act and the Deep Offshore Act, Education Tax Act and Company Income Tax Act were functions solely to be carried out by Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, and not the oil companies as they had done and had wanted to continue doing.
FIRS had filed the action to impeach the arbitral proceedings initiated against NNPC by oil majors in the country outside the country, on the grounds that the tax issues raised in the arbitration proceedings were not resolvable by arbitration.
It would be recalled that Shell, Esso, Nigerian Agip, Total Exploration had, following a dispute over Production Sharing Contract entered into on April 19, 1993 over Oil Mining Lease, OML, 118 in Bonga oil field, dragged NNPC before an arbitration panel which sat in South Africa and another European country and awarded costs against Nigeria.
Even before the arbitration panels entered their judgments, FIRS was in court, contending that the issues raised by the oil companies in the arbitration  panels concerned  taxation, which reference had been made to the arbitration and was not one which was allowed by law to be settled by arbitration.
However, the award of $3.45 billion in the Shell-led arbitration claim was on the verge of being made in South Africa before the judgment was delivered. The award of$1.85 billion against NNPC was hurriedly made in favour of the ESSO/Mobil-led arbitration claim during the pendency of the case but has been rendered illegal by the judgment.
Again in the AGIP led arbitration claim, an award of $592 million was also hurriedly made overseas on October 3, 2011, after parties had been served the court processes on September 29, 2011. The Statoil and Chevron led arbitration claim is ongoing in London despite service of court processes and hearing of the FIRS case at the Federal High Court, Abuja.
All these arbitrations were taken overseas as venue contrary to express provisions that it will be anywhere in Nigeria. All the claimants asked for an injunction restraining NNPC from lifting oil from most of Nigeria’s prolific offshore oil fields until they (oil companies) have lifted such quantities as would satisfy their claims and thereafter to stop NNPC from lifting what in their opinion was in excess of their perceived allocation for tax oil.
Counsel to Shell was Chief Richard Akinjide, SAN; that for ESSO/Mobil,  Mr Eyimofe Atake, SAN; Mr Etigwe Uwa, SAN, appeared for NNPC; Mr Fagbohunlu, SAN for Statoil and AGIP, while Mr J. Ugboduma also for NNPC and Mr Lucuis Nwosu, SAN for FIRS, the plaintiff in all the cases in court.
FIRS had in the suit asked the court to determine whether the arbitral tribunal before which the oil companies had dragged NPPC, had jurisdiction to enter a valid award on the issue of taxation of the oil companies, which will have a binding effect on the plaintiff in the interpretation, application and administration of the Petroleum Profit Tax Act and the Deep Offshore Act, Education Tax Act, Company Income Tax Act, and any other statute for the time being in force in Nigeria.
It also asked the court to determine whether the arbitral tribunal in the case of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Limited; Esso Exploration And Production (Deepwater) Limited; Nigerian Agip Exploration Limited; Total E&P Nigeria Limited; and NNPC had jurisdiction to determine the subject matter of the arbitration, which deals with taxation of the oil companies, which is solely the duty of FIRS and a matter, which jurisdiction is conferred on the Federal High Court by the 1999 constitution.
FIRS had also asked the court for an order revoking the arbitration clause in so far as it relates to taxation or in the alternative an order excluding taxation and matters related thereto from the ambit of the arbitration agreement between the defendants.
* An order restraining the defendants, by themselves, servants, agents or counsel from continuing with, or purporting to take any benefit from or abiding by any obligations or rights no matter howsoever described or arising from the arbitral proceedings or awards made pursuant thereto.
* A declaration that the arbitration provisions in the Production Sharing Contract and the defendants submission to an arbitration on matters exclusively reserved for the Federal High Court is unconstitutional, null void and of no effect.
Under the said allocation mechanism, portions of available crude oil sufficient to generate proceeds to cover payment of Petroleum Profits Tax or PPT (as defined by the Petroleum Profits Tax Act, PPTA; Education Tax, as defined by the Education Tax Act, and Royalty and Operating Costs (as defined by the PSC) were allocated for payment of the said obligations.
The oil companies, being aggrieved with the computation by NNPC of the PPT, Royalty and Investment Tax Credit (ITC) due pursuant to the PSC, the PPTA and Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contracts Act, DOIBPSCA, commenced an arbitration contending that the PPT and Royalty as calculated by NNPC were inaccurate and that as contractor under the PSC, they had the exclusive right to compute PPT and make same returns which the NNPC was obliged to send to FIRS without any amendments.
They added that NNPC had been lifting oil in excess of the amount allocated to it by the oil companies for defraying Royalty and PPT.
The oil companies had urged the arbitration panel to resolve the issue as to whether the PPT calculations of NNPC was right and in accordance with the PPTA and to determine whether NNPC had been over lifting crude oil, a determination must first be made by the arbitration tribunal as to what the PPT obligations of the defendants were, what Investment Tax Credit was due and how it was to be calculated.
The oil companies had also asked the arbitration panel to determine the method by which cost of oil was to be computed; the method by which PPT was to be computed, the method by which the ITC was to be computed and whether certain costs, such as signature bonuses, loans interest and non-operator cost were deductible from otherwise subject to capital allowances for PPT purposes.
In the panels, the chairpersons/umpires were white, forcing on NNPC a situation where the oil companies nominated a white man as expected, with a white umpire and a Nigeria, which made the outcome of the arbitration predictable.
Meanwhile, FIRS has asked the court to refuse the application for stay of execution of the judgment by the oil companies, contending that it will be a great disservice to the country, if the NNPC was made to pay the awards, which it argued were illegal.

Nigeria: Aloma Mukhtar Takes Over As Ag. CJN

The chief justice of Nigeria (CJN), Dahiru Musdapher, who is billed to travel to Sussex for official function, has asked Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar to act on his behalf.
Musdapher has already written the National Judicial Council (NJC) to give the required three months’ notice of his impending retirement as a judicial officer on July 14, when he would have clocked the mandatory retirement age of 70.
It was learnt that; in the letter he sent to the NJC on April 11, 2012, Musdapher nominated a female justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Aloma, as his successor-in-waiting.
Aloma is the most senior justice of the Supreme Court, after Musdapher.
Source close to the apex court said the CJN, who is yet to make his terminal leave official, would proceed this weekend  to the United States of America to rest with his family there.
However, following the speculations that he resigned after tendering a “quit notice” to the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC) and the National Judicial Commission  (NJC) on Wednesday, the CJN, on Thursday, issued a statement in Abuja debunking the rumour.
The statement signed by his media aide, Mr Mohammed Adamu, reads: “The Honourable Chief Justice of Nigeria Justice Dahiru Musdapher, contrary to speculations, has not resigned his appointment.
“The CJN had, on April 11, 2012, written to the National Judicial Council, NJC, to give three months’ notice of his retirement from service as a judicial officer.
“This, as the CJN indicated, is so ‘that the necessary processes will be commenced early enough to enable the swearing of a new Chief Justice’ by July 16, 2012.
“It is public knowledge that by the provisions of Section 291(1) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, the CJN shall cease to be a judicial officer come July 14, 2012 when he would be 70 years.”
Aloma Mukhtar, a Kano-born first female lawyer from the north, was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1967. By September 24, 1987, she became the first female to be promoted to the Court of Appeal. And when the Senate confirmed her appointment to the apex court on May 10, 2005, she was as well the first female justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
So the thinking in many quarters is that feminists may soon celebrate the country’s any first female chief justice barring twist of fate.
But  there has been  the fear that President Goodluck Jonathan and the current CJN may stop the woman on the grounds that she is reportedly considered too independent-minded, tough and smart to manipulate.
To  confirm the fear,  the authorities allegedly influenced her appointment as chief justice of the Gambia but she quietly turned down the offer without giving reasons to avoid controversy and crisis of confidence reminiscent of the Katsina-Alu vs Salami saga.
While Justices Idris Legbo Kutigi, Aloysius Iyorger Kastina-Alu, Niki Tobi and Dahiru Musdapher dismissed the Buhari appeal and upheld the election of Yar’Adua and Jonathan in 2007, justices George Oguntade, Mariam Aloma Mukhtar and Walter Onnoghen who delivered dissenting judgments held that there were substantial non-compliances with the Electoral Act 2006 which vitiated the election.
Tobi, who read the lead judgment, said: “In my view, the most important complaint in an election petition is the disenfranchisement of eligible voters who reported within the statutory time to cast their votes but could not for reasons of violation of the Electoral Act.”
Oguntade, who delivered the minority judgment, differed with Tobi and his co-travellers, and insisted alongside his co-dissenters that failure by the electoral commission to use serialized ballot papers bound in a booklet meant that the election was not conducted substantially in tandem with the Electoral Act.

Nigeria: N15m Share Scam: Nollywood actor, Jim Iyke loses bid to stop trial

An Abuja Chief Magistrate Court has okayed ace Nollywood actor, James Ikechukwu Esomugha, a.k.a Jim Iyke, for prosecution over his alleged complicity in a N15 million share scam.
Magistrate Azubike Okeagu in a ruling he delivered on Tuesday, said he was satisfied that the Nigerian Police Force has successfully established a prima-facie criminal case against him.
Consequently, the court fixed May 23 for police lawyer, Inspector Danjuma Ebune, to call witnesses to testify against the controversial actor who often plays bad boy role in movies.
Police had on November 11, 2011, docked Jim Iyke on a one count charge bothering on criminal breach of trust, criminal force, assault, cheating and criminal misappropriation contrary to sections 312, 265, 322, 397 and 309 of the Penal Code.
He was accused of defrauding a music recording company, Untamed Records Ltd, by surreptitiously transferring 15 per cent of its equity shares to his personal account.
The police maintained that its investigations revealed that the transferred shares were worth N15million in monetary value.
One of the prosecuting counsels, Mr Chijoke Okezie, had told the court that the accused person who he said was a resident of Sunnyville Estate, Abuja, hoodwinked one Habiba Abubakar into granting him access to share documents of the recording company.
He said police was invited into the case after Abubakar who is the manager of the company, discovered that 15 per cent of its equity shares were illegally transferred to Jim Iyke.
Following his plea on not guilty, the presiding Magistrate granted him bail in the sum of N500, 000, even as he was ordered to produce two persons to stand as his sureties.
Meanwhile, owing to his absence in court for trial on two successive dates, Police applied for a bench warrant to be issued for his immediate arrest, a prayer the trial Magistrate vowed to grant should the accused fail to appear in court on the last adjourned date.
His lawyer, Mrs Esther Uzoma, had pleaded the court to temper justice with mercy, blaming the absence of her client for trial on the fact that he was mobbed when he went for a video shoot in Cameroun.
Informing the court that Jim Iyke was hospitalized, Uzoma, pleaded Police to allow the matter to be settled out of court.
At the resumed sitting on the matter on Tuesday, the defence lawyer applied that the case be struck out for want of diligent prosecution, a request that was immediately refused by Magistrate Okeagu.
Jim Iyke sought the dismissal of the case after Police notified the court that the manager of the defrauded music company, Mrs Abubakar, who was billed to testify at the first prosecution witness in the matter, had family issues that kept her away from the court on that day.
Responding to Jim Iyke’s application for quash, the Magistrate held: “it is the humble view of this court that the prosecution has always been in court since the inception of this case.
On the last adjourned date, prosecution was in court with his witnesses and was ready to proceed if not for the absence of the accused person.
“I hold that the prosecution has not shown any sign of lack of diligence, therefore, this case is hereby adjourned till May 23 for Police to open its case against the accused person.”
Meantime, a mild drama played out shortly after the case was adjourned, as the actor who wore black shirt on black jean, and kept punching his Black Berry phone throughout the duration of the court proceeding, clashed with his  some of his fans who attempted to snap him with their mobile phones.
On his order, his aide seized the handset of one of the fans, and allegedly wiped the contents of his memory card in a bid to forestall the publication of his pictures within the vicinity of the court.
Further hearing on the matter has been adjourned till May 23.

Nigeria: Anxiety as Supreme Court rules on guber contest

Expectations are high among supporters of Governor Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State and the immediate former Governor, Timipre Sylva, who have stormed Abuja to witness today’s ruling of the Supreme Court on who is the rightful candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last governorship election in the state.
The apex court would also decide whether the Court of Appeal, Abuja was right to have held that the Federal High Court, Abuja had jurisdiction to hear Sylva’s suit. Sylva had, through a cross-appeal filed on his behalf by his lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), asked the court to evoke its constitutional powers to hear the matter as if it were a trial court.
The apex court panel chaired by Justice Mohammed Mahmud after hearing the arguments of the counsel in the matter adjourned the matter for judgment.
Sylva’s prayers: Before the adjournment, counsel to Sylva, Lateef Fagbemi, prayed the court should declare as valid the PDP guber primary of January 2011, adding that there was no basis to jettison it. He said it could be nullified if the winner resigns from the contest or dies before the main election.
He said the argument of the appellant that there was no selection or nomination by the time Sylva went to court was neither here nor there as long as they admit there was submission of Dickson’s name as PDP’s candidate. Besides, he said when jurisdiction is challenged, the defendant is bound by averment in statement of claims and in this case the originating summons.
In addition, he said the court should look at Sections 33 and 35 of Electoral Act to establish whether there could be a second primary or substitution of names when the original winner of a primary poll is still alive and interested in contesting the forthcoming poll.
On the other hand, the appellants said the only reason the appeal court said that the Federal High Court had jurisdiction was because INEC was a party to the suit. He further said that PDP was not an agency of the Federal Government but a private organisation and as such the matter was the domestic affair of the party.
S/court’s earlier ruling Earlier, the Supreme Court had granted Sylva an approval to file a cross appeal against the ruling of the Court of Appeal, which held that the trial Judge, Gabriel Kolawole, went beyond himself in warning PDP not to tamper with the subject matter of the action brought before him. Both Sylva and PDP are presently before the apex court because they were dissatisfied with the judgment of the Abuja Court of Appeal.
Court of Appeal verdict: The court of appeal had held that Sylva was right to have filed his case against PDP at the Federal High Court but added that the trial judge, Justice Gabriel Kolawole went too far when he threatened to sanction PDP and INEC if they failed to appear before it within 72 hours to show cause why he should not grant Sylva all the reliefs he sought from the court.
In his appeal, Sylva said that the court of appeal erred in law when it held that the pronouncement of the trial judge, asking the Respondents to show cause and also warning the Respondents  from taking any action that would foist upon the court a hopeless situation without hearing the Respondents amounted to pre-judging the issue before him. He argued that a court of law had the responsibility of protecting the sanctity of its proceedings.
PDP’s appeal:  PDP in its own appeal, said the court of appeal erred in law when it held that the federal high court had jurisdiction to hear Sylva’s case. It asked the court to strike out the case. Sylva, however asked the court to grant all the reliefs he asked for at the high court.  Sylva, is seeking leave of the apex court to validate his candidacy based on the January 2011 PDP primaries he won.
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Court compels Lagos to pay ram seller N7m compensation for unlawful detention

An Ikeja High Court, Lagos, yesterday, dismissed an application by the Attorney-General of Lagos State, Mr. Ade Ipaye, asking the court for a stay of execution of the judgment of the court delivered in favour of an illegally-detained Nigerian, Mamman Keita.
Justice Habeeb Abiru, had in the judgment last December 16, ordered the Attorney-General to pay N7 million to Keita as compensation for his  detention in prison for over 10 years without trial.
The judge held that Keita’s detention  without proper arraignment and trial in court was a violation of his fundamental human rights as guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution.
The court also ordered the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar, and Ipaye to tender an apology to the 43-year-old ram seller for detaining him unjustly for murder.
Abiru, while dismissing the application, said it lacked merit because Keita was unjustly detained for over 10 years and deserved the compensation.
The judge faulted Ipaye’s claim that Keita was remanded in prison by the police without forwarding the case to the office of the Attorney- General.
He said the police and the AG were responsible for ensuring that people were given justice, which was denied Keita in his case.
Ipaye said: “The criminal justice administration law was proposed by the Ministry of Justice and we have a duty to uphold its provisions.”
He had filed an appeal at the Appeal Court, Lagos,against the judgment and had asked the lower court to stay execution of its judgment pending the determination of the appeal.