The names of about ten dead and
retired judges appeared among the recently sworn-in 250 election tribunal
members.
Lawyers in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom
State capital, told Daily Independent about the inclusion of dead and retired
judges in the list.
According to the newspaper, the
group of concerned lawyers who declined being identified, faulted the list of
the recently sworn in 250-tribunal members as parading over 10 names of dead
and retired judges.
They admitted that this would not
be the first time the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government has displayed
this level of “cluelessness and carelessness in handling sensitive issues
concerning Nigeria.”
They described “a posthumous
appointment of anyone for such sensitive role in the country as burying Nigeria
alive.”
The new acting Chief Justice of
Nigeria, CJN, Tanko Mohammed swore in 250 members of the election tribunals at
the Supreme Court Complex in Abuja.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on Friday suspended the Justice Walter Onnoghen
and swore in Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed as acting CJN.
Some Nigerians who have long been
dead and buried have posthumously made the list.
One of the lawyers told Daily
Independent that up to 10 judges in the list were dead.
He named Justice Edemekong
Edemekong whose name appeared as number 58 on the list and declared that the
late Justice died since 2013.
Another, Justice Chukwu, from
Ebonyi State and number 53 on the list, who was formerly of the Federal High
Court, is also said to have been long dead.
The lawyer’s revelation also
indicated that Justice Stephen Okon, a retired Chief Judge of Akwa Ibom State
and justice Okoyo Essang (number 56), a retired justice of the High Court in
Akwa Ibom State, both made the list.
The lawyers expressed concerns
that if such errors could be spotted at a glance on such a sensitive list and
on the first official outing of the new acting CJN, then Nigeria may be heading
towards a doom.
“If dead and retired men are to
sit on our election petition tribunal, then the APC-led federal government is
out to drown this country and we vehemently reject a list parading dead men as
members of the tribunal,” they said.
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