Lawan judgement: Supreme Court angry over attacks on judges, warns critics

The Supreme Court has expressed its dissatisfaction with attacks on its judges following the judgement that affirmed the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Yobe North senatorial district. Accusing critics of the judgement of working for some political interests, the court in a statement by its Director of Press and Information, Festus Akande, on yesterday warned that “our silence must not be mistaken for weakness or cowardice,” and added that its judges “are not politicians and should not, by any stroke of imagination, be cast in that mould either.”

The statement identified renowned columnist and professor at Kennesaw State University in the United States, Farouk Kperogi, as someone whose criticisms are dictated to him by paymasters while describing Kperogi’s reaction to the court’s decision as “ineptly scripted toxic article”. It added that the columnist “decided to plunge into an abysmal pit of irredeemable ignorance by venting convoluted anger on Supreme Court Justices with a view to pleasing his paymasters.” According to the statement, the call by an unidentifiable group on the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Olukayode Ariwoola, to resign is nothing but “prosaic”.

“It is so disheartening to learn that some individuals and groups of persons who ought to know better and even assume the revered positions of role models to a larger proportion of the citizens are now sadly, the very ones flagrantly displaying ignorance and infantilism in the course of defending the indefensible,” the statement stated. While Nigerians have “inalienable right to express his or her opinion without any encumbrance”, the court said, in exercising such right, citizens” should be circumspect enough to observe the caution-gate of self-control in order not to infringe on another person’s right.”

Akande insisted that the judges’ decisions were always based on the facts brought before them. “Courts don’t advertise or scout for cases for adjudication; but at the same time, we are duty-bound to adjudicate on all matters that come before us with a view to giving justice to whoever justice is due, irrespective of status. No Court in any clime is a Father Christmas; so, no one can get what he or she didn’t ask for. Similarly, all matters are thoroughly analysed and considered based on their merits and not the faces that appear in Court or sentiments that attempt to becloud the sense of reasoning. So, for anyone in his or her right frame of mind to insinuate that the Justices have been bought over by some unknown and unseen persons is, to say the least, a bizarre expression of ignorance, which definitely has no place in law or even in the realm of pedestrian reasoning,” he said.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.