Why blackmail Supreme Court Justices Over Andy Uba’s Appeal

Justice is the foundation of any society. When the aggrieved is forced to swallow acts of injustice, society is endangered, and not just the perpetrators of the act. This is why nations establish courts of law. No citizen is preemptively stopped from seeking redress in court for perceived wrong simply because he has a “bad case.” It is only the court that decides whether a case is bad or has merit. But, alas! The Nigerian situation is peculiar. Using the case of Dr. Emmanuel Nnamdi “Andy” Uba, until June 14, 2007, the governor of Anambra State, removed by a Supreme Court judgment on that day, many Nigerians have become emergency “legal practitioners” ”legal analysts” and “observers.”

But idleness is described as the devil’s workshop. This is the inevitable conclusion concerning one faceless internet fraudster calling himself Benjamin Anosike, Ph.D. Is there any university worldwide offering “legal analysis” and “observation” as a course of study? But, pathological hatred for Dr. Uba and a desire to perpetuate injustice has caused the pull-him-down (Ph.D) specialist Benjamin Anosike, “Ph.D” to invent just such a course to keep himself busy. I shall return to this busy-body later.

 

Dr. Andy Uba, Supreme Court and Quest For Justice

It is common knowledge that Dr. Andy Uba has returned to the Supreme Court. That was on Tuesday October 2, 2007. He is seeking justice, not merely to have the great Court set aside or vacate its order of June 14, 2007, and the reasons for it, of July 13, 2007, which removed him as governor of Anambra State, having duly won an election to that position on Saturday April 14, 2007, but to obtain justice. But many detractors of Uba’s and those who do not consider justice as a building block for an egalitarian society, are out to say that Uba has no right to cry to the Supreme Court to reconsider its earlier decision simply because it is the final arbiter in cases of law. But, narrow-mindedness, myopia, illiteracy in law (though purporting to be experts) mischief and a love of mischief have blinded and deafened people like these to the timeless, infallible and universal aphorism that “To err is human.”

Have even judges themselves arrogated infallibility to themselves? Did Jesus Christ considered holy by many, not concede that none but God is good? Indeed, who says that Supreme Court cannot set aside its own judgment?

I say this because of emerging information, which has been corroborated by Comrade Tony Nwoye, chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Anambra State chapter. And what is the information? It is that Mr. Peter Obi and his collaborators, Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN and his lawyer, Barrister Onyechi Ikpeazu have been holding series of meetings at which they have been mapping out strategies to blackmail and intimidate the Supreme Court Justices from considering the application filed by Dr. Uba.

Upon a chance meeting, Comrade Nwoye made the disclosure to this writer only a few days after Dr. Uba filed his application. It would be recalled that the same Barrister Ikpeazu has been accused by Ifeanyichukwu Okonkwo, the governorship candidate of the Nigerian Advanced Party, NAP, in the Saturday April 14, 2003 governorship election of colluding with Mr. Peter Obi to bribe him with N10 million vide a Zenith Bank, Onitsha branch cheque No. 00000103, dated 18 th July, 2007, to discontinue with his Obi opposition. Recall also that the same Obi and Ikpeazu fraudulently caused Okonkwo’s name to be de-listed as the 8 th respondent in the Obi appeal which later went up to the Supreme Court, culminating in the judgment that led to the removal of Dr. Andy Uba as governor on June 14, 2007.

According to Nwoye, some persons who participated the clandestine meetings tipped him off that these elements, awed by the soundness of Uba’s application/motion and of its accompanying brief, and the analyses therefrom, have been running from pillar to post in trepidation. The result?

They have begun a calculated move to checkmate Uba, resorting to blackmail, haranguing and heckling- all in a bid to intimidate the revered Justices of the Supreme Court. This, obviously, is because they have no reply to match, let alone beat the sound case put up by Uba.

Then, again, the question: is there any law stopping a citizen from appealing against an unsatisfactory judgment by the Supreme Court? Dr. Uba did not go to the trenches when that court sacked him! He did not constitute an army of thugs to sustain him in power and beyond arrest! He did not appeal to Anambra people through radio and television to oppose the judgment. On the contrary, fifteen minutes after learning of the judgment, and before he could be served a copy of it, Uba vacated State House Awka because he believes that, he that must demand equity, has to come with clean hands. Thus, to equity he has come seeking justice, in according with the rule of law and due process. Afterall, is this not guaranteed by Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution as a right; the right to fair hearing?

Having studied the document of appeal tendered by Dr. Uba to the Supreme Court, one cannot help but concede to its soundness. I shall not comment on it beyond that because I am not dilettante’s. I do not claim to be a lawyer neither will I dorn the toga of a “legal analyst” or “observer.” I am definitely not qualified to speak for their Lordships, the Justices of the Supreme Court. It suffices that Dr. Uba has confidence in them, in their great learning and in their impartiality or else he would have preferred to lick his wounds in private and leave the matter to God.

Uba is, therefore, not an outlaw like the “Ph.D” wielding “legal analyst” Benjamin Anosike. It is obvious our “legal analyst” knows everything, including the likely judgment of the Supreme Court in a case that has not even commenced.

 

By Chukwujindu Okafor

Onitsha