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  • Updated: February 13, 2023

Undue Criticism Of Supreme Court Will Clamp Down Judiciary, Senior Lawyers Warn Nigerians

Undue Criticism Of Supreme Court Will Clamp Down Judiciary,

Two legal experts have warned Nigerians to desist from rebuking the supreme court on cases they lack adequate knowledge of or think defeat public opinion because it would weaken the country's judicial system.

The supreme court has been dipped into murky waters lately.

Recent reasons include upholding the nominations of Senate President Ahmad Lawan and immediate past Minister for Niger Delta, Senator Godswill Akpabio, despite contesting the APC presidential primaries.

Meanwhile, legal luminaries, including Monday Ubani and Dr Sam Amadi, have said the supreme court is not a “bought entity” but a court which determines cases based on facts before it.

The law, they said, is no respecter of public opinion or national appeal.

Monday Ubani, the Director of Abuja School of Social and Political Thought (ASSPT), said the dictates of the law and facts supersede basic human technicalities.

He added that the supreme court uses professional technicalities while giving substantive justice.

Similarly, Dr  Sam Amadi urged Nigerians to avoid picturing legal technicality the way they perceive the opinionated framework because they are dissimilar when related to justice.

Both learned colleagues gave their viewpoints while speaking with The Guardian.

They jointly agreed that in terms of election matters, “If the court by over-reliance on technicality defeats the electorate’s intention and imposes someone else because of technicality, then the law has failed to deliver justice.

However, Ubani, a human rights activist and Chairman of the Nigeria Bar Association Section on Public Interest and Development Law (NBA-SPIDEL), charged Nigerians to understand the facts surrounding political cases before throwing criticisms at the supreme court.

He stated: “In Akpabio’s case, the retired DIG Ekpodum was the one that went to Federal High Court Abuja, and he asked the court to compel INEC to put his name as the senatorial candidate of APC in Akwa Ibom Northwest Senatorial district.

“Now, when he did that, he did not join Akpabio as a party, contrary to the rules of procedure in a pre-election matter.

"He also brought the case when the thing he complained of had happened more than 14 days because pre-election matters must commence within 14 days. He filed out of time.

"Then, third, in his statement, he agreed that it was the party's state Executive Committee that organised his primary, contrary to all the known procedures and processes that it is only the National Working Committee that organises primary elections for political parties.

“Finally, the one that was fatal to his case was that he said his own primary election took place on May 27 instead of 28, which was supposed to be the day the senatorial election of APC took place throughout the country.”

Both legal experts believed strongly that contrary to insinuations in the public domain, no electoral law was breached in the decision of the Supreme Court, adding that there was also no breach of procedural or substantive law in the cases. 

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