Human rights activist and lawyer, Chidi Odinkalu, has reacted to the controversy trailing the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the Court of Appeal judgment delivered on the Kano State governorship election.
The appellate court sacked the Kano State Governor and candidate of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP), Abba Kabir Yusuf, in its judgment delivered on Friday.
However, in the CTC of the judgment released by the court on Tuesday, several pronouncements in the judgment appeared to be contradictory.
In the CTC, most of the rulings were in favour of Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf, who was the appellant in the appeal, while the 1st respondent was the All Progressives Congress (APC) with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the NNPP as 2nd and 3rd respondents.
Reacting in an X post on Tuesday, Odinkalu said the Nigerian judiciary is crooked and has shown that it cannot be redeemed.
He stated that the only way to understand or explain the contradiction is for the Court of Appeal to change the judgment after they had concluded deliberations.
He wrote: “When we say the judiciary in #Nigeria is crooked, ppl wonder how so. Look: the Court of Appeal in Kano governorship case resolved all the issues “in favour of the appellant & against the 1st Respondent.” Yet it found the appeal lacking in merit & liable to be dismissed. Explain!
“The only way to understand or explain this is that the Court of Appeal changed the judgment after they had concluded deliberations. If this does not persuade people as to how bad things are, I don’t know what will.
“I am hearing this evening that the court has bn asking the lawyers to return the judgment for “correction”. But this does not fall within the ambit of the #SlipRule. This is #JudicialCorruption on the face of the record.”
