Appeal Court Delivers Judgments on Onnoghen’s Pre-conviction Appeals Friday

Appeal Court Delivers Judgments on Onnoghen’s Pre-conviction Appeals Friday

Alex Enumah in Abuja

The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal has fixed friday for judgments in the four appeals filed by the ex-Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, in relation to the validity his trial before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

The judgments are coming about three weeks after the CCT had convicted Onnoghen and ordered his removal as CJN, and about two months and 10 days after the Court of Appeal heard the appeals and reserved its judgments.

There is another pending appeals challenging the April 18, 2019 judgment of the tribunal convicting him, and another challenging an earlier ruling of the CCT, which dismissed his no-case submission.

The Court of Appeal has yet to fix any date for the hearing for the two pending appeals.

The press officer of the Court of Appeal, Sa’adatu Musa-Kachalla, announced today as the date for the judgments on the four appeals earlier heard by the court in a statement issued yesterday.

A three-man bench of the court led by Justice Steven Adah, had heard the four appeals and reserved judgments, on February 27, 2019.

Justice Adah led Justice Tinuade Akomolafe-Wilson and Justice Peter Ige, on the panel that heard the appeals.

Onnoghen, who was then on suspension following an ex parte order of the CCT, had subsequently after instituting the appeals, resigned from office and also got convicted by the CCT on charges of failure and non-declaration of assets.

He had by one of its appeals challenged the jurisdiction of the CCT to hear the charges.

Another of the appeals challenged the ex-parte order on which President Muhammadu Buhari relied on to suspend him and appointed Justice Tanko Muhammad as the acting CJN.

The third appeal challenged the CCT’s refusals to be bound by the orders made by the Federal High Court and the National Industrial Court directing the tribunal to halt the CJN’s trial.

The last one asked the court to set aside the arrest warrant issued against him by the CCT on February 13.

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