The Lamidi Apapa faction of the Labour Party has described Justice Hamman Barka of the Court of Appeal as a threat to democracy.
It said Apapa had appealed an Appellate Court judgment reinstating Julius Abure as Labour Party chairman.
Dr Abayomi Arabambi, the National Publicity Secretary of the party faction in a statement on Sunday faulted some pronouncements of the Appeal Court.
At a press briefing on ‘Justice Hamman Barka Judicial Rascality and Corrupt judgment of the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division delivered on March 6, 2024 in the appeal filed by Julius Abure and Anors,’ the party faction said the day marked the darkest day in the history of Court of Appeal judgements in Nigeria.
It lamented that some judges “just choose personal relationships and celebrate criminals above our constitutional provisions”.
The Appellate Court on March 6 affirmed Julius Abure as the Chairman of the Labour Party.
The court also set aside the decision of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court which last year, restrained Abure and two others from parading themselves as national officers of the party.
In the judgement delivered by Justice Barka, the Appellate Court held that the high court was wrong to have assumed jurisdiction on the matter.
The court also awarded a cost of N1 million in favour of Abure and against the respondent, Lamidi Apapa.
However, Arabambi said that Apapa had successfully filed an appeal and stayed the execution of the judgement delivered in favour of Abure by the Abuja Court of Appeal.
Arabambi said the appeal was filed in the Supreme Court through a motion for stay of execution filed on Thursday, March 7, 2024, “24 hours after the most bizarre, disturbing and corrupt judgement ever delivered by any justices of the Court of Appeal in Nigeria’s history”.
He said, “Most disgusting, disturbing and worrisome gross misconduct of Justice Hamman Barka was his deliberate discountenances of the Certified True Copy of the FCT High Court letter dated 11th day of January 2023 signed by Lawal Funmilola (Director, Commissioner For Oath Department) that confirmed Julius Abure forged the seal of the judge of FCT, forged the Commissioner of Oath’s signatures and generated his own TSA receipts without payment to the Federal Government.
“Justice Hamman Barka must explain why a Certified True Copy of court response and confirmation of Julius Abure's forgery should be ignored.
Justice Hamman Barka also tore in shred the police investigation and indictment report against Julius Abure where the IGP consequently established a prima facie case against him for forgery, criminal conspiracies and perjury.
“You would also recall that sometime on the 12th May, 2023, the FCT High Court presided by Hon. Justice Hamza Mua'zu dismissed the Notice of Preliminary Objection filed by Abure and ors challenging the jurisdiction of the court to hear the Originating Summons filed by Martins Esikpali & Ors basically on the ground that there was an allegation of crime and that it’s a contentious issue in the said summons and as such, not suitable for Originating Summons which inherently meant that the case ought to have been commenced by Writ of Summons so that oral evidence can be taken.
“As stated earlier, the said objection was dismissed as the court held that it has jurisdictions as the case has to do with the construction of documents submitted before it simpliciter without more.
“Abure and 3 ors then appealed to the Court of Appeal. Therefore, the issue before the Court of Appeal was whether the issues raised in the case were contentious or not. If the court says the case was contentious, all that the Court was required to do was to ask parties to convert the Originating Summons to Writs of Summons and order parties to file pleadings so that the case can be heard on the merits at the trial court i.e., FCT High Court.
“Surprisingly, the Court of Appeal in a rather strange and massive fraudulent manner, went on the voyage of discovery totally out of context to deliver judgment touching on the substantive case as if the appeal was against a final judgment.”
One of the appellate court's pronouncements that the Apapa faction objected to was that “Abure ward executives in Edo State have no powers to suspend him except the NEC of the Labour Party. That was not the issue before it”.
Others are that the order of the FCT High court made on 5th April, 2023 restraining Abure and Co. is hereby set aside. There was no appeal against the said order.
“That the case ought to have been begun by Writs and still went ahead to dismiss it without calling on parties to file pleadings, the power which the court has by virtue of section 15, Court of Appeal Act etc.”