A’Court Denies Alleged Resignation of Presidential Tribunal Member, Ugo

*Says it’s false, misleading

Alex Enumah in Abuja

The Court of Appeal has described as complete falsehood and calculated attempt to mislead the public, report on the purported resignation of a member of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PREPEC), Justice Boloukuoromo Ugo, from the five-member panel hearing petitions against the conduct of the February 25 presidential election.

Chief Registrar of the Court of Appeal, Mr Umar Bangari, who made the clarification, however, appealed to the general public to ignore the fake news in its entirety.

Bangari spoke with newsmen yesterday in Abuja in reaction to the widespread news on the purported resignation of the PREPEC member.
The social media woke up yesterday to the news of the purported resignation of Justice Ugo from the panel heading the petitions against President Bola Tinubu’s election, on the grounds of alleged demands “to kneecap democracy”.

The online report stated that, Ugo resigned from the bench, citing demands from the executive branch that he believed would destroy the country’s democracy.  
Ugo was said to have issued a statement, wherein he claimed to have  said siding with the government on the petitions challenging the election of Tinubu would be the “death of Nigeria’s democracy” and that he could not in good conscience remain silent.

According to Ugo’s purported statement, he was asked to “cripple the independence of the judiciary” by ruling in favour of a certain political candidate, whom he did not name but was widely believed to be Tinubu.  

In addition to this, he reportedly claimed to have been asked to suppress evidence and dismiss cases that could have an impact on the election.  
But, the Chief Registrar of the Court of Appeal, said there was no iota of truth in the news, saying Ugo was still on the panel of justices of the court handling the petitions by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Labour Party (LP) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Bangari, while faulting the report said neither his office nor the information department of the court was contacted before dishing out what he called false report.