The Court of Appeal on Thursday refuted the reports of purported resignation of Justice Boloukuoromo Ugo from the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, sitting in Abuja.
The Chief Registrar of the Court, Umar Bangari, in a telephone media interaction in Abuja on Thursday, noted that the court refuting the report, dismissed it as false and misleading. He urged the general public to ignore the fake news.
An online report on Thursday had indicated that Justice Ugo resigned from the bench, citing demands from the executive arm that he believes would destroy the country’s democracy. The disputed controversial news on the purported resignation of Justice Ugo from the Bench, citing demands “to kneecap democracy,” went viral on the internet, triggering urgent response from the Appeal Court.
The online publication citing a purported statement, reported that Justice Ugo said that siding with the government on the petitions challenging the election of Bola Ahmed Tinubu would be the “death of Nigeria’s democracy” and that he could not in good conscience remain silent.
The disputed report cited Justice Ugo as having said in the purported statement that he was asked to “cripple the independence of the judiciary” by ruling in favour of a certain political candidate. And that he was, in addition, asked to suppress evidence and dismiss cases that could have an impact on the election.
The Chief Registrar, responding, insisted that Justice Ugo is still on the panel of Justices of the Court handling the petitions.
The Registrar maintained that neither his office nor the information department of the Court was contacted before the said report went out.