The Rivers State Chapter of the
All Progressives Congress, APC, on Friday raised the alarm over an ongoing
attempt by Justice Chinwendu Nworgu and the Rivers State Judiciary to frustrate
the appeal of the judgment handed down by the judge on October 10, 2018 in
favour of Senator Magnus Ab’se supporters.
APC alleged that despite having
entered an appeal and stay of execution of the judgment, Justice Nworgu has
frustrated its efforts to obtain a certified true copy of the judgment in a bid
to enable its legal team perfect the appeal process.
A statement by
the spokesperson of the state chapter of the party, Chris Finebone claimed that
earlier in the week, its “sources” revealed that shortly after the judgment was
handed down, a “tripartite accord was struck by Gov. Nyesom Wike, Senator Abe
and Justice Chinwendu Nworgu to ensure that Rivers APC is frustrated by ‘whatever
possible means” from swiftly perfecting its appeal process through the delay in
making available to the party a certified true copy of the judgment.
The statement contained a letter
by Lateef O. Fagbemi, SAN, Counsel to the Respondents (Ojukaye Amachree-led
EXCO).
The statement quoted Fagbemi’s
letter addressed to the Director (Litigation) and copied to the Registrar, High
Court of Rivers State, as saying: “Considering the nature of the case, being a
pre-election matter of which time is of utmost essence, efforts have been made
by the Respondent, prior to this application, to obtain a certified copy of the
judgment so as to enable her exercise her constitutional right of appeal
against the said judgment in good time, but to no avail. It is now more than 7
days after the delivery of the judgment in the open court, yet all effort to
obtain copy of the judgment has proved abortive.”
“We make bold to state that the
inexplicable delay to make available the judgment 9 days after Justice Nworgu
read it in the open court runs against the requirement that such judgment
should be made available to parties within 7 days. Unfortunately, there appears
not to be any intention by Justice Nworgu and officials of the Rivers State
Judiciary to comply accordingly.
“We cannot but disclose our
findings which unequivocally revealed that Justice Nworgu is awaiting directive
from Gov. Nyesom Wike on whether to release the judgment to us or not. This is
despicable and should be condemned by all who cherish the integrity of the
temple of justice.
“As a party, we condemn this
underhand scheme to pervert justice and call on the Chief Justice of the
Federation, the President, Court of Appeal and the National Judicial Council
(NJC) to take notice and swiftly intervene to forestall a resort to self-help
in the face of an obvious sabotage of the judicial system by Justice Nworgu,
Governor Wike and Senator Magnus Abe working hand in gloves.”
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