Walter Onnoghen, suspended chief
justice of Nigeria (CJN), has asked Danladi Umar, chairman of the Code of
Conduct Tribunal (CCT), to hands off his trial.
Onnoghen asked Umar to withdraw
from presiding over his trial on the grounds of “real likelihood of bias”.
He described the CCT chairman as
the “prosecutor, judge and jury who has constructively convicted” him without
either hearing from the defendant or his being formally arraigned before him.
According to The Nation, he made
the submission in a motion filed before the CCT through his lawyers, while
responding to a directive by the CCT chairman, asking him to appear for trial.
Onnoghen, who is being prosecuted
by the federal government on alleged false assets declaration, is yet to appear
before the CCT since his trial began in January.
In the motion filed before the
CCT on Monday, he argued that since his trial, the chairman of the tribunal has
showed acts of partisanship and “demonstrated favourable dispositions towards
the respondent.”
He also described Umar as a
“tainted arbiter” who is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) for alleged bribery.
“The honourable tribunal,
especially the Chairman, has constituted himself as the prosecutor and accuser
of the defendant/applicant and cannot in good and clear conscience continue to
be part of the proceedings and trial of the applicant,” the motion read.
“The partiality of the honourable
Chairman of the tribunal is not in doubt as there are manifest cases of real
likelihood of bias on the part of the Chairman of the tribunal against the
applicant by reason inter alia of the disclosures above.
“The applicant has no confidence
in the honourable Chairman of the tribunal to do justice fairly between parties
in this case as he is a man on a mission to please his masters.”
He urged the tribunal to issue an
order “directing the honourable Chairman of the tribunal, Honourable Danladi
Umar to disqualify/recuse himself from further participating in the
adjudication of this case on the ground of real likelihood of bias.”
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Which means you have been doing so even before you became the CJN. God Almighty will expose you one by one.
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