The verdict read by Justice Isa Hamma Dashen of the Federal High Court sitting in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, which cleared former President Goodluck Jonathan to contest the 2023 presidential election yesterday has been in circulation as pieces of news stories in the online media just as the Prominent Civil rights advocacy group- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) Â has called on the Chief Justice of Nigeria Justice Muhammad Tanko and the National Judicial Council to investigate the circumstances surrounding the massive leakage of the judgement which as predicted turned out exactly so.
The Rights group through the National coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko said it is a shame that contents of a Court’s judgment could leak to the media 48 hours before it is delivered which has eroded the integrity and the independence of the judicial arm of government in Nigeria. The Rights group expressed consternation that the judiciary that is the last hope of the common man described as that institution with the judicial powers of the Federation in the Grund Norm seems to have embarked on a journey into existential perdition and self-destruction.
HURIWA quoted the media as reporting that Justice Dashen gave the judgement on Friday stating that the former President who handed over in 2015 to President Muhammadu Buhari who is being railroaded by political hawks in Northern Nigeria to run for another term in another party aside the PDP that made him politically relevant can indeed be featured as the Presidential flagbearer of the All Progressives Congress in the 2023 Presidential poll. HURIWA wondered what the locus of the Plaintiffs is in the overall subject matter since the suit wasn’t instituted by Goodluck Jonathan himself but yet the Fededal High Court assumed accelerated jurisdiction and determined the matter in the media even before the real ruling was read out. The Rights cautioned the Court System against destabilising the judiciary which could spell doom for democracy and rule of law since citizens will now have the perception that judgments are fixed and therefore will rather opt for self help measures rather than pursue their lawful matters in the competent court of law.
The presiding judge of the Federal High Court Bayelsa state was also quoted to have held  that Jonathan’s right to vie for the office of president again cannot be stopped by any retroactive law. The former president has not issued an official comment about the ruling as at the time of publishing this report. HURIWA is also asking the National Judicial Council to determine how some persons without locus could pursue a matter and the court has now played the role of a Father Christmas by gifting to another person unconnected with a suit the fruit of the labour of different sets of persons.
HURIWA however is calling for the annulment of the LEAKED judgment which became a choice item of news in the online media as far back as 48 hours ago because the impression it has created is that the judgment is heavily compromised and lacks substantial credibility just as the Rights group has stated that should the head of the Judiciary in Nigeria fails to arrest this heavily LEAKED judgment as read reportedly today which was a complete resemblance to the news story that circulated on SaharaReporters and many other online news channels then it will be assumed that President Muhammadu Buhari’s political cabal who are largely the unelected blood relatives of President Muhammadu Buhari may have manipulated the court so as to reach this predetermined conclusion to push through their political agenda to shortchange the South of Nigeria by reducing the number of years that the South will spend in the office of the President of Nigeria so the political power could then once more return to the Hausa/Fulani cabal in another four years even when the North through President Muhammadu Buhari would have completed 8 years on May 29th 2023.