Former Governor of Adamawa State, Alhaji Murtala Nyako, has accused the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta, of frustrating his case challenging the legality of his impeachment by allegedly withdrawing the case file from the Yola Division of the court.
Nyako made the allegation on Wednesday.
Auta was alleged to have withdrawn the case file few days to the delivery of judgement by the trial judge, Justice Bilikisu Aliyu.
Nyako through his counsel, Olukoya Ogunbele, at a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday, appealed to Justice Auta to immediately release the case file to the Yola Division of the Federal High Court so that the trial judge can deliver judgement in the interest of justice.
Ogunbele said withdrawing a case file few days to judgement date by any judicial officer is in bad taste and should not be condoned.
However, in a swift reaction to the allegation of case file withdrawal, the Chief Registrar of the Federal High Court, Rosemary Dugbo Oghoghorie, dismissed the allegation.
Oghoghorie said this was untrue.
She stated that a counsel in the suit, Festus Keyamo, representing the Chief Judge of Adamawa State, Justice Ishaya Banu, had petitioned Justice Aliyu on the ground of denial of fair hearing and forwarded same to Auta.
Oghoghorie added that as a tradition, Justice Auta had to call for the case file to ascertain the genuineness of the allegation of denial of fair hearing and also forwarded a copy of the petition to the trial judge for her response.
She however added that up till date, the trial judge is yet to respond to the petition against her, with the CJ is still awaiting the response.
Besides, the she noted that the Court of Appeal, Yola Division on Tuesday granted a stay of proceedings in the matter and for that reason none of the parties can take any step as far as the matter is concerned.
She however urged parties to exercise restraint and stop throwing out allegations at highly placed judicial officers for no just cause.
In a related development, Nyako has dragged Banu before the National Judicial Council for disciplinary action over alleged miscarriage of justice in a suit challenging the legality of his impeachment.
In a petition to the NJC dated February 10, Nyako alleged that Justice Banu frustrated his legal action by delaying proceedings in the matter assigned to himself, thereby subverting the cause of justice.
The petition, signed by Nyako’s Director of Media, Ahmad Sajoh, alleged that throughout the period the case was with Justice Banu, no substantial progress was made as he allegedly used every ploy to delay the case.
He said this went to the extent of deliberately refusing to return from Abuja to Yola when the case was slated for hearing.
Justice Banu was also accused of giving long adjournment and refusing to attend court on hearing dates, thereby, creating unnecessary bottleneck in the hearing of the suit.
The petition further stated that in another suit between Nyako and state House of Assembly and two others, Justice Banu, through his counsel, Keyamo, curiously applied to be joined as interested party in the suit where he had no legal interest to protect.
He however called in the NJC to investigate the matters with a view to establishing their veracity or otherwise.
He also asked the NJC to apply appropriate sanctions against Justice Banu in order to protect innocent citizens from any further abuse of their judicial authority.
The petitioner also called on the NJC to order a speedy hearing of the case before Justice Banu in the interest of justice.