No credible judiciary will produce confusing CTC of judgement —Professor Chidi Odinkalu(SAN)

A former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof Chidi Odinkalu, has knocked the judiciary for producing a “confusing” Certified True Copy (CTC) of an appellate court judgement on the Kano State governorship election.

Odinkalu, who was on Channels Television yesterday, said no credible judiciary will produce what he described as a “confusing” CTC.

“No judiciary that is credible will produce this kind of judgment and certify it,” he said. “This is not coming from a customary court, it is not coming from an area court, it is not even coming from a high court.

“This is the Court of Appeal of Nigeria, the second highest court in the country. Any lawyer worth their onions should be scandalised by it irrespective of whatever side you take.”

Confusion gripped political players and residents of Kano State on Tuesday following the emergence of a Certified True Copy of the Court of Appeal judgment on the March 18 governorship election.

Last week, the appellate court sacked Abba Yusuf of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) as governor of Kano State, upholding the decision of the lower election petition tribunal that earlier nullified the governor’s election.

A three-member panel of the Court of Appeal led by Moore Adumein, in a unanimous judgement last Friday, declared Nasiru Gawuna of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the 18 March governorship election in Kano State.

In his reaction to the controversy over the CTC judgement which was at variance with what was read in court, Odinkalu said, “The country relies on credible adjudication in order to make progress in order to sanitise the society in order to retain balance in our country. If we are producing judgements like this and then asking the lawyers to come back so that they can be corrected, how do you trust the judicial system?”

‘Typo Error’

Meanwhile, the appellate court has cleared air on the controversies surrounding the judgement delivered by the court on the Kano Governorship Election dispute.

In a reaction, the Chief Registrar of the Court of Appeal, Umar Bangari, said that what happened in the judgement body was a typo error that did not in any way invalidate or change the findings and conclusion of the court.

The chief registrar assured Nigerians that the error would be rectified once parties in the matter file formal application to that effect.

He cited Order 23 Rule 4 of the Court of Appeal HandBook which empowered the court to correct any clerical error once detected by the court or any of the parties in the matter.

He insisted that contrary to insinuations, the judgement of the court remained valid.