It was end of the road for Corporal Gad Barminals yesterday as an Abuja high court sitting in Maitama, sentenced him to death following his involvement in an armed robbery attack that resulted in the death of an Abuja based taxi driver, Mr Paul Ojo.

Corporal Barminals was said to have arrested the deceased driver at gunpoint, took him to a secluded spot within the Airport road in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, pumped loads of bullets into his chest and made away with his Toyota Camry marked XA398RBC.

The lifeless body of the murdered cab driver was subsequently recovered from a ditch located close to Dantata Company, after the owner of the vehicle, one Abbas Akintayo, on May 25, 2005, reported to a police station situated at Lugbe a suburb in Abuja, that his driver was missing.

As the trials of some sacked bank chiefs begin in November, some of them, who were initially averse to plea bargaining, may embrace the option as a result of the soft-landing perceived to have been secured by the former Managing Director, Oceanic Bank Plc, Chief Cecilia Ibru.

A source at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, who craved anonymity, told SATURDAY PUNCH in Lagos on Thursday that this option had become attractive to those of them who had claimed that their health had deteriorated recently.

The leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission is in a dilemma on the presence of its controversial Resident Electoral Commissioner in Ondo State, Mrs. Ayoka Adebayo in the organisation.

The commission is equally agonising on how to deal with the troubling presence of other top officials and Electoral Officers, who colluded to rig the 2007 elections in some of the states of the federation, as exposed by the tribunals and the Court of Appeal.

SATURDAY PUNCH gathered that the INEC leadership was split on the Ondo REC as some officials of the commission insisted that her presence was giving it (INEC) an image problem.

Allegations of corruption against FIFA are not new. One of the major ones was against Sepp Blatter in 1998 during his campaign for the FIFA presidency.

He was, along with his godfather, the departing FIFA President Joao Havelange, accused of bribing delegates to the FIFA Congress to vote for Blatter who wriggled out of the morass with claims that the money was federations to develop the game.

PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has described himself as the man to beat in the forthcoming presidential primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), telling his aides therefore that there is no need to engage

his opponents in a campaign of calumny.

He was reacting to Thursday’s online publication insinuating that he planned to bribe PDP delegates with $13,000 each.

According to a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Ima Niboro, in Abuja on Thursday, the online report was an attempt to prejudge the election where he was the clear front runner.

THE sanitisation efforts embarked upon by the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, appears to be heading for the rocks, as the moneyed class, whose wards benefitted from admission racketeering, has mounted pressure on Governor Gbenga Daniel to halt the purge.

This is coming at a time when the certificates issued by the nation’s tertiary institutions are being discredited within and outside the country, necessitating call by stakeholders for an overhaul of the education sector.

THE presidency has instituted a probe into the growing rift between the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice over the prosecution of corruption cases in recent months.

The AGF, Mr Mohammed Adoke (SAN), had on Tuesday, in a letter  to the EFCC, asked the commission not to overheat the polity on the release of its corruption advisory list sent to political parties on Sunday.

A Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Abuja, yesterday ordered the former governor of Plateau State, Mr. Joshua Dariye, to be prepared to face trial over charges of stealing and misappropriation of public funds to the tune of N7.4 billion  preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC).

The court also called on him to stop filing  applications in various courts to stall trial.

The Senate yesterday indicted the Presidential Implementation Committee on sales of federal government property, saying members of the committee are guilty of corruption in the handling of the sales of the houses.

The indictment followed the adoption of an interim report of the Senate committee on housing. The report, which was discussed on Tuesday, stated that members of the Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC) abused their powers, engaged in racketeering and defrauded the federal government during the first and second phases of the house sales.

The recent advisory list of politicians standing trial for various charges of fraud released by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) cannot stop those affected from contesting in the forthcoming elections, previous Supreme Court rulings show. EFCC recently released a list of politicians standing trial for fraud advising political parties not to field them as flag bearers in subsequent elections.

The Supreme Court had however ruled on various cases involving politicians disqualified by the EFCC from contesting in the 2007 general elections that the anti-graft agency lacks the power to stop contestants.

Ruling on a case between Otunba Oyewole Fashawe and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) in 2006 on the inclusion of the plaintiff on the EFCC list, the Supreme Court ruled in a judgment delivered by Hon. Justice Inumidun Akande that “With regards to the investigation report of the EFCC in exhibit 2 attached, prepared and submitted by the 2nd respondent (EFCC) to the President of Nigeria as averred in the affidavit, it has no probative value.

“This is because Section 5 of the Act and Section 6 of the Act set out the functions and special powers of the 2nd respondent.

The functions do not include power to prepare the report as in exhibit 2 and submit same to the President of Nigeria as done in this case.”

The EFCC also made the list of alleged corrupt politicians available to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) which used it to disqualify some contestants from standing in the 2007 elections.

The Supreme Court ruled against INEC saying it lacks the power to disqualify a candidate on the basis of the EFCC list as only the courts can do so.

The Court ruled in a case between then Presidential Candidate of the Action Congress, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and INEC that “Section 137(1) of the 1999 Constitution does not confer on the INEC the power to disqualify any candidate from contesting election, either expressly or by necessary implication. Moreover, there is nowhere in the Constitution where any such power is conferred on INEC to disqualify any candidate.”

Just like it did in 2007, EFCC has released a list of about 40 politicians standing trials for various charges of fraud and corrupt practices saying they should not be allowed to contest elective offices in the forthcoming elections.

Unlike in 2006 when EFCC forwarded the list to then President Olusegun Obasanjo and INEC, the anti-graft agency this time has sent the list to the political parties with a view of stopping affected politicians from being nominated as candidates in the polls.

Some of the prominent names on the latest EFCC list of politicians to be barred from contesting elections include, former  state governors, Saminu Turaki, Ayo Fayose, Orji Uzor Kalu, James Ibori, Lucky Igbinedion, Joshua Dariye, Jolly Nyame, Chimaroke Nnamani, Micheal Botmang, Boni Haruna, Abdullahi Adamu, Rasheed Ladoja, Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa.