There had been controversy during the week after the Court of Appeal in Abuja affirmed the verdict of the Kano State governorship election petition tribunal which sacked Abba Yusuf, candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), as the governor.
Aformer president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Olumide Akpata has called on the president of the Appeal Court, Monica Dongban-Mensem, to provide “cogent clarifications” on the “clerical error” in the Kano State governorship election judgement.
There had been controversy during the week after the Court of Appeal in Abuja affirmed the verdict of the Kano State governorship election petition tribunal which sacked Abba Yusuf, candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), as the governor.
However, the certified true copy of the judgment contained contradictory resolutions, with the judge ruling in favour of, and against the governor, at the same time.
Addressing the situation on Wednesday, Umar Bangari, chief registrar of the court of appeal, had said the purported discrepancy was a clerical error that did not affect the court’s final decision.
“What happened in the part of the judgment is just a mere clerical error that ought not to draw any issue. The court is empowered to correct such clerical error and would be done as appropriate,” he had said.
In a statement on Saturday, Akpata said during his time as NBA president, he had openly queried the manner in which potential justices of the Court of Appeal were being screened and had warned of the potentially negative and detrimental consequences.
The former NBA president said since the end of his tenure, he had at different times, revisited the issue of the sub-optimal recruitment process.
“It is for this reason that I urgently call on the PCA, My Lord, Hon. Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, as the Head of the Nigerian Court of Appeal to provide, for the benefit of Nigerians and, indeed, the world, a hopefully cogent explanation and clarification of this quagmire,” the statement reads.
“It is the very least My Lord can and should do in the circumstances. It is imperative that His Lordship makes a categorical statement on this matter because the stakes are way too high and the current situation in the Judiciary (and indeed the country) too dire for the issue to be left in the hands of Registry officials.”
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