abdkabir:

Well, The lawyers say the recent INEC/Atiku related court rulings aren't contradictory but complemetary. Legal Analogies. So what do you think.

The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has said that there was no confusion or contradictory judgment arising from the verdict of the Court of Appeal and that of the Federal High Court on Vice President Atiku Abubakar‘s suit against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).


Read More: http://www.tribune.com.ng/05042007/news/news4.html

INEC to my knowledge said that he was being disqualified due to the indictment

so since it has been ruled that they can disqualify candidates, they might as wel go to court to and use that right,abi?

Atiku won’t be allowed to contest - FG insists

Lanre Adewole, Abuja with Agency Report - 06.04.2007

THE Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Bayo Ojo (SAN), has said that Vice President Atiku Abubakar stands disqualified from contesting the 2007 presidential election by virtue of the two judgments delivered on Tuesday.

Ojo also condemned the various interpretations given to the judgments on the constitutional power of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to disqualify a candidate from contesting an election.

“Judgments of the court, particularly on Atiku, have turned to a football analysis, everybody is now free to interpret it the way he/she likes ,’’ he said yesterday, while addressing a news conference in Abuja.

He particularly kicked against the interpretation given to the two judgments by the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Olisa Agbakogba (SAN), to the effect that Atiku had been cleared to contest the election.

Ojo said that as the chief law officer of the country, the judgment of the Federal High Court Abuja and that of the Court of Appeal were clear and unambiguous.

He added that Atiku’s case challenging the report of the Federal Government administrative panel of enquiry and the report of the EFCC, which indicted him, was still pending in court.

He said that the judgment of the Lagos State High Court, which purportedly quashed the two reports, was on appeal and had yet to be decided by the Court of Appeal.

“The position of the law is clear that when a case is on appeal, the status quo remains,’’ he said. Ojo said that the judgment of the Court of Appeal was superior, being a court of superior jurisdiction to the Federal High Court.

When asked to respond to the NBA’s position on the matter, Ojo said “everybody is free to interpret the constitution. It is only the court that interprets the law. I’m the chief law officer and custodian of the law, so whatever anybody says is his business. The order is still being challenged and this does not mean the disobedience of the order.”

Prodded further over the status of Atiku on eligibility, Ojo said “what I have said on this matter is very clear. The matter is still in court. The order is still being challenged. Even the Court of Appeal judgment is being challenged, so there is nothing confusing about it.”

Atiku: Gani carpets NBA
By Ijeoma Ogwuegbu
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Vice President Atiku Abubaka
Photo:Sun News Publishing
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Human rights lawyer, Chief Gani Fawehinmi has accused the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) of partisanship in its utterances over recent Court of Appeal and Federal High Court judgments.
In a recent statement, Fawehinmi stated that the NBA had more or less become legal advisers to Vice President Atiku Abubakar by the way the body had been reacting to court judgments affecting him, adding that it had positioned itself as a court of some sort, pushing forward private views as authoritative views on court judgments.

“One must ask, whose interest is the present leadership of the association serving? Whenever a judgment is delivered in favour of Atiku Abubakar, the association will applaud such a decision to high heavens, almost at the risk of losing professional decorum and dignity. However, when the court decides against Abubakar, the association will down play the defeat and search for reasons to confuse Nigerians with regards to the efficacy of the judgment.”

He said he had therefore decided to dissociate himself from the position of the NBA, stating that what he called the clumsy interpretation of the Court of Appeal and Federal High Court judgments by the association necessitated such an action. He added was imperative, so that the public would not assume that the views of the NBA president and those of some members of the executive represent the position of the entire lawyers in the country, since they did not.

Concluding, he stated that the judgment of the Court of Appeal was the law on who has the constitutional right to disqualify candidates, insisting that the judgment of the Federal High Court, which contradicts the position of the Court of Appeal on the same issue, has no legal effect and no legal meaning.

“The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which has now been confirmed by the Court of Appeal as having the authority to disqualify candidates, is justified in its disqualification of Atiku Abubakar. Until the Supreme Court decides otherwise, Atiku Abubakar is not a candidate in the presidential election taking place on Saturday, 21st April, 2007.”

The NBA had previously, after the contradictory judgments from the Court of Appeal and The Federal High Court, declared that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar could still run in the presidential elections, stating that both judgments were actually not contradictory, but addressed different matters.
Submitting that there was no confusion in the two judgments, Mr Agbakoba, president of the NBA, argued that the Court of Appeal judgment, which gave power to INEC to disqualify candidates, stands, but that the decision is a general proposition that does not relate to any candidate.