The Supreme Court said yesterday that it remains a united institution, denying media reports that the resignation of the suspended Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, had ripped it apart.
“It is necessary to state categorically clear that the publication is false and misleading in its entirety. There is no iota of truth in the story, as every word in it only exists in the realm of rumour and mischief,” the Director of Press and Information, Supreme Court, Mr. Festus Akande, said in a statement.
According to the statement, the Supreme Court of Nigeria is one big, indivisible judicial family that is not in any way governed by religious, tribal or parochial influence or sentiments. The statement added that the judicial oath taken by all the justices of the court is “a potent sacred bond that regulates and conscientises the conducts of the judges in the discharge of their judicial functions.”
It added: “For the umpteenth time, let it be known to all and sundry that no judicial officer is appointed on account of religious or tribal affiliation, as such, the discharge of their judicial obligations cannot be dictated by such extraneous considerations. As it has always been, the Supreme Court justices and the entire management are united, cohesive and indivisible in the quest to move the court to an enviable height.” The apex court enjoined members of the public to always cross check their facts from it.
Justice Onnoghen is currently under prosecution by the federal government over allegations of failure to declare some of his assets in line with the provisions of the law for public officers. He has been on suspension since January 25, 2019, by President Muhammadu Buhari on the orders of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).
Onnoghen, however, was said to have turned in his notice of retirement to President Muhammadu Buhari last Thursday, a development that has not been confirmed by the Supreme Court but nevertheless has assumed prominence in the media and other public discourse.
Meanwhile, the apex court yesterday struck out the appeal instituted by Senator Magnus Abe, seeking the court’s pronouncement on the authenticity or otherwise of the direct primary conducted by the APC in Rivers State for the nomination of its candidates for the 2019 general election. A seven-man panel of justices in striking out the appeal, held that the notice of appeal filed by the senator representing Rivers South-east at the upper chamber of the legislature was defective and not in compliance with the rule of the court.
The Acting CJN, Justice Tanko Muhammad, who delivered the unanimous decision of the seven-man panel of justices of the court, held that the notice of appeal was defective because it did not contain the names and titles of parties in the matter.
The panel held that the notice of appeal offended Section 285 of the 1999 Constitution since the amendment could not be done to the notice of appeal in view of the fact that the 14 days required by law to file the appeal had expired. Abe, a factional leader of the Rivers APC, had prayed the apex court to make a final pronouncement on the legality of both direct and indirect primary polls conducted by the two factions of the party last year.
