Justice Jonathan Shakarho of the Federal High Court, Ibadan, on Monday, adjourned indefinitely the hearing of a contempt suit brought against the Oyo State Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala. The judge said that he was making the decision on moral grounds, having been accused of receiving N50 million from Mr. Alao-Akala to rule in his favour last week. The case was brought before the court by Wole Oyelese, Yekini Adeojo, Lekan Balogun, Azeem Gbolarumi and 33 other members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo state to challenge the emergence of the governor and other nominees as the party’s candidates for the April polls. The group asked the court to declare that Mr. Akala and the other candidates’ nominations were products of ‘illegal party primaries’.
Although the court was to reconvene on Monday to begin the hearing on the contempt suit and substantive matter, Mr.
Shakarho said he would have to wait for a directive from the office of the chief justice of Nigeria, Alloysius Kastina-Alu.
“We can’t go on with the case by the undoing of some of the plaintiffs,” Mr. Shakarho said. “I am leaving the case as it is. When there is a directive from my chief judge, we will go on”.
Yekini Atoyebi, one of the plaintiffs, had in a petition asked the chief justice to investigate an alleged induced reversal of an interlocutory injunction earlier given by Mr. Shakarho. Mr. Atoyebi, in his petition, alleged that the judge’s body language when he reversed his initial order restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from recognizing the governor and others as PDP contestants suggested that he had made up his mind to tilt the ruling in their favour.
‘What is my business?’
Speaking on the petition and the implication on his continued sitting over the suits, Mr. Shakarho said: “Once one person writes against me, we cannot go on. He (Mr. Atoyebi) said in his last paragraph that, in his view, it was clear they cannot obtain justice before me. I want another judge to hear the matter. Can I, in the face of this, go further in this matter? This case is adjourned sine die. ‘Case yi, o ti ba je’ (This case has gone bad). They shot themselves on the leg. It is their own case, if they want to put block on it, ‘ki lo kan mi ni be? (what is my business?)”, he asked in Yoruba.
Efforts by Sanyaolu Akinyele, one of the counsel to the plaintiffs, to get the court to strike out the name of Mr.
Atoyebi and continue the case proved abortive. The judge insisted that he would wait until the chief justice directed him to proceed.
Reaction
Dotun Oyelade, special adviser to Mr. Alao-Akala on public communications, reacted to the adjournment, describing it as a sad day for the relationship between politicians and the judiciary.
“What manner of politicians are these who will turn the innocent into villains within the twinkle of an eye because a case did not go their way? Resorting to cheap blackmail to pervert the course of justice does not augur well for democracy. We strongly suggest that the National Judicial Council should investigate this and bring the culprits to book,” he said in a release to journalists on Monday.
Lateef Fagbemi and Richard Akinjide, counsel to the defendants, agreed with the court on the indefinite adjournment. An appeal filed by the plaintiffs against the controversial vacation order has been slated for Monday, February 28 at the Ibadan division of the Court of Appeal.
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