Factional National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, has said that he will send a petition to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mahmoud Mohammed and the National Judicial Council against some judges of the Federal High Court in the country.
He alleged that some of the judges had demonstrated what he described as unethical behaviour.
He further alleged that the unnamed judges ought to be removed from the system in order to restore sanity to Nigeria’s judiciary.
Sheriff, who is currently contesting the national leadership of the party, spoke at an emergency press conference in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said that he was shocked by the order issued by the Federal High Court in Port-Harcourt in which Justice Watila Mohammed validated tomorrow’s national convention in the state on the ground that the July 4 2016 which upheld the decision taken at the May 21, 2016 convention was still subsisting.
Sheriff was full of praises for President Muhammadu Buhari, who he said was able to identify the key problems with Nigeria’s Judiciary.
He expressed his frustration and disappointment on the ruling of the Port Harcourt division of the Federal high court.
Sheriff said, “We are shocked even with that ruling. All the judges in Nigeria are on annual vacation.
“We have been in court with all of them for the past one month on an issue that a judge went into in Port Harcourt which started on Friday; people went and filed court cases on Thursday and got an exparte motion, which has been frowned at by the judiciary for now.
“Most stakeholders in the judiciary don’t want exparte motion because it denies justice to others.
“But let’s accept that the judge decided to do that. The life span of the exparte motion is 14 days, which means you have time to serve the other people to respond.
“On that Thursday, the judge gave exparte motion. The next day he converted that exparte motion to interlocutory order. On Monday, he sat and heard the main case to give a ruling or judgement today at 2pm without allowing us as defendants to defend ourselves.”
Sheriff further alleged that “This morning, when our lawyers went to court, the judge authorised all the registry staff to run away.
“It took our lawyer, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria to call everybody in Nigeria that this judiciary should not be destroyed. From 9am till now (4pm), they are receiving our own response to the application.
(Punch)
