Paris Saint-German’s Neymar and Marseille’s Alvaro Gonzalez have avoided punishment after allegedly making racist and homophobic remarks in the meeting between the sides earlier this month, the French league (LFP) announced on Wednesday.

The world’s most expensive player was accused of making the remarks towards Marseille’s Japan right-back Hiroki Sakai and Gonzalez. The Brazil attacker claimed the Spanish centre-back had called him a “monkey”.

“The disciplinary commission states that it does not have sufficient proof to allow it to establish the substance of the facts concerning discriminatory language,” the LFP said.

Marseille’s victory at Parc des Princes on September 13 was marred by an injury-time scuffle which saw five players red-carded. Neymar was sent off for slapping Gonzalez on the back of the head and was given a two-match ban for the incident.

Last week, PSG’s Angel Di Maria received a four-match ban for spitting during the fixture.

The Federal High Court setting in Abuja, on Tuesday, dismissed a suit, asking the court to restrain Hope Uzodinma as Imo State governor.

The judge, Okon Abang, who delivered the ruling after taking arguments from counsel to parties, also ordered the award of N500, 000 each in favour of 1st, 2nd and 7th defendants in the matter.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Kingdom Okere, Reform and Advancement Party (RAP)’s 2019 Governorship Candidate in Imo, had filed a suit asking the court to stop Mr Uzodinma.

While Mr Uzodinma is the 1st defendant in the suit, the governor of Imo, Attorney-General of Imo, All Progressives Congress (APC), Action Alliance (AA), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are 2nd to 7th defendants respectively.

Although all parties were represented at the resumed hearing on Tuesday, only Action Alliance was not represented.

Ifeoma Ogufo, Counsel to Mr Okere, informed the court that she had filed a notice to discontinue the suit and that defendants had been served.

M.A. Aguda, who was counsel to Mr Uzodima, did not oppose the application.

He urged the court to dismiss the suit.

However, Mr Aguda, who described the suit as a distraction to his client in steering the ship of the state, asked for an award of N5 million cost against the plaintiff.

The Kwara State House of Assembly Rerun Election Petition Tribunal, on Monday, nullified the victory of Adam Rufai of the All Progressives Congress in the by-election for Patigi constituency.

The tribunal subsequently declared Salihu Mohammed Gada of PDP winner of the by-election held on March 14, 2020.

However, the Kwara State chapter of APC rejected the judgment of the tribunal which declared the candidate of PDP the winner of the recent Patigi by-election.

The seat became vacant when Rufai’s brother, Saidu Ahmed, died in December 2019 after a brief illness.

It explained that the judgment was based on the difference between ‘Adam’ and ‘Adama’ on the certificate of the candidate of the APC.

APC Vs PDP

Kwara APC made the complaint in a press statement by its Publicity Secretary, Folaranmi Aro, on Monday.

The statement was titled, ‘APC rejects, to appeal Tribunal’s judgment on Patigi … Says judgment a judicial subversion of people’s mandate’.

Aro complained that the PDP never called any witness from the examination body to substantiate its claim that the APC candidate was not the owner of the certificate he tendered for his election.

Part of the statement read, “The tribunal did not deny that we won the election overwhelmingly. It instead hid under a feeble excuse that the names of our candidate on the two certificates he presented to the electoral body are slightly different from each other to award our mandate to the opposition.

“It is a sad day for democracy as the judgment is a slap on thousands of the electorate who stood in the sun to make their choices.

“This judgment is a violent attack on the position of the Supreme Court in many established cases where an alphabet was either omitted or added to a candidate’s name. We are definitely going to appeal the judgment because it signals a danger for our democracy and amounted to stealing the mandate of the people. The judgment is a judicial subversion of the mandate of the people.”

Meanwhile, a former senate President, Bukola Saraki, has congratulated Yahaya over the judgement.

The former Kwara State governor tweeted, “A big congrats to the candidate of our party @OfficialPDPNig for the State Assembly by-election held in Patigi, Kwara State on 14th March, 2020. Hon. Salihu Muhammad Yahaya has just been declared the winner by a tribunal. I also congratulate all our stakeholders for their steadfastness.”