The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on Wednesday, November 22, said it was yet to receive the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the Appeal Court judgment on the Kano State governorship election.
The national legal adviser of the party, Prof. Abdulkareem Abubakar Kana, disclosed this to newsmen at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja following the confusion surrounding the CTC of the judgment.
The media was awash with the emergence of a CTC of the Appeal Court judgment which was contrary to the widely reported verdict on Tuesday, November 22.
The appellate court last Friday upheld the decision of the petition tribunal sacking Governor Abba Yusuf, but the CTC of the judgment showed that the NNPP candidate’s victory at the poll was affirmed by the appeal court.
Addressing newsmen the APC Legal Adviser said the party is yet to receive the Certified True Copy of the judgement.
Kana stressed that the pronouncement of the court during judgement delivery cannot differ from what is contained in the CTC, stressing that if that happens, it could have been a typographical error.
Dismissing the error the APC Legal Adviser said the needless confusion had been orchestrated primarily because the case is a political matter.
He said: “Those of us who are lawyers know that typographic errors often occur in certified true copy of court judgement ordinarily wouldn’t have been confusion if it was probably not a political matter because it will not be the first time such typographic mistakes will be seen in judgement and being lawyers we have been used to a situation like this all that is done is to merely correct that mistake. The most important thing is a judgment that was read in open court.
“The merits and other facts of the judgement of the tribunal which was delivered on September 28, the appeal was upheld. And then if you read through the entirety of the judgement from lead justice, my Lord analysed the submissions of different cited cases and the case and arrived at appropriate findings. It gives you an idea of what should be the conclusion. But that’s not all.”
He added: “If you read the concurring judgements by two justices because there are three judges who sat over the appeal. The two justices had explained and clarified their positions. If you’re reading the findings of my Lord Honourable Justice, the judgement of my lord Justice Bitrus Sanga who stated that he has read the judgement of my Lord Justice Aseimo and agreed with him completely.
“And therefore dismissing the appeal for lacking merit that explains what he has read because he said he read the draft copy of the documents and he agrees with my lord, dismissing the appeal for lack of merit, my lord honourable justice.
“My Lord Justice Lateef Ganiyu also read and he also delivered his judgement dismissing the appeal. In other words, there were two concurring judgements out of three, which are even clearer, very clear, making it obvious that the last three lines and the concluding part of the judgement of my Lord the presiding judge whereby an assertion was made on the CTC not as read in open court finding merit in the appeal and awarding one million costs on the respondents, the first respondents instead of the appellant was clearly and an error.
“In a situation like this for us lawyers what we do, is to do a community reading of the entire judgement to see what exactly the finding of the court is. For anyone who reads judgement from page one, all the way to page 72 of the judgements. You will agree that most certainly that assertion will not hold water instead of upholding the judgement of lower court it sets it aside.”
Asked what the party intends to do to address the situation, the Legal Adviser said the party will wait to receive their copy from the court before taking necessary action.
He stated: “As far as my office is concerned, we have not received an official copy of the Certified True Copy of the judgement. But we will write and get a copy.
“If the copy that will be conveyed to us still contains this error, we will take steps eventually. Until the CTC contains that error, which is being bantered around, we will now know what to do next.
I don’t think the explanation needs to come from us. But for us, we can only render our perspective as a party to the entire uproar that is going on. But as to the explanation as to where the error happened in the cause of typing the judgement it is for the court to explain and I’m sure the court will have done that by now by taking necessary measures to issue a fresh CTC concerning an appropriate judgement of the court.
“So for me, I don’t think there is any confusion as it were except for who would prefer that and who will continue to see it as confusing.”