Acting president of the Appeal Court, Justice Dalhatu Adamu, might have bowed to pressure by reinstating the Borno State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which he inexplicably disbanded on Thursday.
Apart from reinstating the panel, Justice Adamu also ordered it to give its ‘arrested’ ruling on the petition filed by the defeated candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party against Governor Kassim Shettima of the All Nigeria Peoples Party.
An authoritative source confirmed that, following the order by the PCA, the tribunal is set to deliver judgement on the Borno gubernatorial tussle today amidst tight security.
The source said that the tribunal was given the marching order to deliver the judgment in order to prevent another crisis of confidence in the judiciary.
The chief justice of Nigeria, (CJN), Dahiru Musdapher, is said to have ordered the acting president of the Appeal Court to reinstate the panel without delay.
Governor Kassim Shettima’s lawyer, Dr Alex Izinyon(SAN),? confirmed yesterday that he had been notified of the panel’s sitting today but added that he could not tell whether it was the new or old panel that would sit on the petition.
Contrary to the Supreme Court order last week? for the Borno State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal to continue its work from where it? stopped,? Justice Adamu dissolved the tribunal just before? it resumed sitting in Abuja on Thursday.?
Coincidentally, the panel’s? dissolution order? came when it? had? only three days left before the 180 days stipulated by the constitution for the conclusion of the case lapsed.
The Supreme Court had granted Governor Shettima’s appeal and discharged the arrest order on the tribunal’s proceedings earlier granted by the Jos Division of the Court of Appeal. The apex court ordered that “the parties should return to the tribunal to continue with the proceedings from where they stopped”.
However, when the litigants and their lawyers arrived at the venue of its sitting on Thursday, the tribunal’s secretary, who spoke through its registrar, told all of them to disperse because he had received directives from the chief registrar of the Court of Appeal to dissolve the panel.
The Secretary said he was directed by the registrar to inform parties in the matter that the panel had been dissolved and as such it could not sit.
The tribunal was expected to rule on applications filed by the respondents asking the court to quash the petition and another application filed by the PDP seeking extension of time.
PDP’s candidate in April’s governorship election in Borno State Alhaji Muhammadu Goni had filed a petition challenging the victory of the ANPP candidate, Alhaji Kashim Shettima.
Just before the tribunal delivered its ruling, the PDP and its candidate went to the Appeal Court in Jos and obtained an order stopping the tribunal from further sitting or delivering judgment.? ANPP, Governor Shettima and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) then went to the Supreme Court challenging the Appeal Court’s arrest order.
On Monday last week, the Supreme Court ruled that the Appeal Court had no right to stop the tribunal from sitting, and consequently struck out the interim order that the Appeal Court granted PDP and its candidate.
The apex court held that the appeal filed by the PDP and Goni was a mere academic exercise in view of the absence of jurisdiction and the 60 days’ period provided by Section 285(7) of the 1999 Constitution to determine the case.? Governor Shettima, through his counsel Yusuf Ali (SAN), had prayed the court to hold that the stay of proceedings granted by the Court of Appeal, Jos, was illegal.
Following the crisis of confidence that rocked the judiciary after the arrest of the judgment of the Sokoto gubernatorial election last year, the CJN recently set up a 28-man committee to resolve the crisis.
The Sokoto? Appeal Court? judgement by the Supreme Court brought an open quarrel between erstwhile CJN Aloysius Katsina-Alu and suspended Appeal Court president Justice Ayo Isa Salami .