The All Progressives Congress has offered a different narrative to the controversy trailing the Certified True Copy of the judgment on the Kano Governorship election delivered by the Court of Appeal in Abuja. The three-member panel of the Appeal Court, in the lead judgment read by Justice Moore Aseimo Abraham Adumein last, dismissed the appeal filed by Governor Abba Yusuf on the basis of his membership status.
The appellate court affirmed the judgment of the tribunal, which affirmed the APC candidate, Dr. Nasiru Gawuna, as the duly elected governor in the election held last February. Speculation is, however, rife that the CTC of the judgment, released on Tuesday and signed by Registrar Jameel Ibrahim, affirmed Abba Kabiru Yusuf of the New Nigerian People’s Party as duly elected Governor.
Addressing journalists on Wednesday at the APC national secretariat, its National Legal Adviser, Prof. Abdulkareem Abubakar Kana, maintained that the three Justices of the Court of Appeal affirmed the earlier judgment of the Tribunal. While he claimed typographical errors as responsible for the affirmation of the Kano Governor in the CTC, the APC National Legal Adviser further dismissed the CTC, submitting that what was important was the judgment read in the open court.
He said, “We woke up this morning, and we are confronted with media reports from different news outlets, mostly print media and a few social media posts where the controversy was identified in the released certified true copy of the judgment of the Court of Appeal that was delivered on the 17th of November 223 here in Abuja.
“However, those of us who are lawyers know that typographic errors often occur in the certified true copy of court judgment ordinarily wouldn’t have been confusion if it was probably not a political matter because it will not be the first time such typographic mistakes will be seen in the judgment, and being lawyers we have been used to a situation like this all that is done is to correct that mistake merely. The most important thing is a judgment that was read in open court.
“The merits and other facts of the judgment of the tribunal, which was delivered on September 28, the appeal was upheld. And then, if you read through the entirety of the judgment from lead justice, my Lord analysed the submissions of different cited cases and the case and arrived at appropriate findings. It gives you an idea of what the conclusion should be.
But that’s not all. If you read the concurring judgments by two justices because there are three judges who sat over the appeal. The two justices had explained and clarified their positions. If you really read the findings of my Lord honourable justice, the judgment of my lord Justice Bitrus Sanga, who stated that he has read the judgment of my Lord Justice Aseimo, and I agree with him completely.
Therefore, dismissing the appeal for lacking merit explains what he has read because he said he read the draft copy of the documents and he agrees with my lord, dismissing the appeal for lack of merit, my lord honourable justice.
My lord Justice Lateef Ganiyu also read and delivered his own judgments dismissing the appeal. In other words, there were two concurring judgments out of three, which are even clearer, very clear, making it obvious that the last three lines and the concluding part of the judgment of my Lord the presiding judge, whereby an assertion was made on the CTC not as read in open court finding merit in the appeal and awarding one million costs on the respondents, the first respondents instead of the appellant was clearly and obviously an error.
In a situation like this for us, lawyers, we do a community reading of the entire judgment to see what exactly is the finding of the court. For anyone who reads the judgment from page one all the way to page 72 of the judgments. You will agree that, most certainly, that assertion will not hold water; instead of upholding the judgment of the lower court, it sets it aside. So, I don’t think the explanation needs to come from us.
But for us, we can only render our perspective as a party to the entire uproar that is going on. But as to the explanation as to where the error happened in the course of typing the judgement, it is for the court to provide an explanation, and I’m sure the court will have done that by now by taking necessary measures to issue a fresh CTC with respect to an appropriate judgment of the court.
So for me, I don’t think there is any confusion as it were, except for those who would prefer to continue to see it as a confusion.” However, the APC National Legal Adviser admitted that he had not seen the CTC of the Court of Appeal judgment.
“As far as my office is concerned, we have not received an official copy of the certified true copy of the judgment. But we will write and get a copy. If the copy that will be conveyed to us still contains this error, we will take steps eventually. What we will do, and we have done right now, is to write to demand the CTC. Until the CTC contains that error, which is being bantered around, we will know what to do next.”
. TheWitness
