Politics

How Presidency cabal programmed plot to remove Onnoghen in buried dates

Published

5 years ago

January 28, 2019

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A stakeholder in the Nigerian project, Chidi Odinkalu, has exposed that the plot to remove Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, by President Muhammadu Buhari, which he said was buried in dates towards pre-determined outcome by the cabals in the Presidency to work. Invariably, President Buhari merely played out a script of clandestine plots to devastate the Judiciary and transplant the leadership.

Odinkalu in series of tweets narrated that the gist of the story and clear intent to work to pre-determined outcome in the CJN Onnoghen matter is buried in dates.

He highlighted that the petition against CJN Onnoghen was dated 7th January; and was actually stamped in the Office of the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) on 9th January.

Odinkalu noted that the same day, 9th January, according to the ex-parte order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), which only became public on Friday after the purported suspension of CJN Onnoghen, the Buhari administration filed a petition with the CCT for his removal.

He observed that it’s quite clear that there was no time between the receipt of the petition by the CCB and the referral to the CCT. “Under the law, the obligation to verify claims made in asset declaration forms belongs exclusively to the CCB. This could not have been done before charges were filed,” he argued.

Odinkalu pointed out that curiously, the application to remove Onnoghen dated 9th January predates the filing of the charges against him, which did not happen until over 24 hours later on 10th January.

Odinkalu protested that basic legal proceedings in handling issues in the Code of Conduct Bureau or criminal cases in the court from the reception of the petition to investigation and motion for hearing were all boycotted to hurried executive conclusion and rash sanction which, he said was contained in the surreptitious template of the cabal in the Presidency.

Odinkalu, accordingly argued: “When a motion is filed in a court or tribunal, it bears the name of the lawyer or person filing it. The motion has to be formally moved or argued on a date fixed by the court. In this case of Onnoghen, the motion for his removal bears no name and the order doesn’t say who moved it.”

Odinkalu declared: “So, to sum things up, Nigeria’s President Buhari, who has no recent memory of having obeyed any court order, purports to procure the removal of the CJN based on a petition that was not investigated, a charge that was not prosecuted and an ex-parte application that was not moved.”