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Court Dismisses Suit Against Appointment Of FCT High Court Judges
In a significant ruling on Friday, the Federal High Court in Abuja threw out a lawsuit challenging the appointment of 12 judges for the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Presiding Judge Inyang Ekwo delivered the judgment, asserting that the plaintiff, Azubuike Oko, identified as a lawyer from Ebonyi, lacked the necessary legal standing to pursue the matter.
The court also upheld objections raised by Akinlolu Kehinde, SAN, legal counsel representing key judicial figures, including the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, the National Judicial Council (NJC), and the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court, Hussein Baba-Yusuf.
According to a report, Oko, in the suit identified as FHC/ABJ/CS/205/2024, contested the absence of lawyers from his state among the recently appointed judges of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
He alleged systematic exclusion and marginalization of Ebonyi lawyers in the appointment process by figures including Baba-Yusuf, the NJC, and the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC).
Oko asserted that the FCT chief judge was responsible for compiling the list of eligible lawyers from certain states, which was then forwarded to the FJSC for recommendation to the NJC for presidential appointment as judges of the court.
According to Oko, the states from which the recent appointments were drawn include Bauchi, Bayelsa, Enugu, Imo, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Taraba, and Zamfara.
He contended that Oyo and Kogi, which already had two serving judges in the FCT High Court, were granted additional slots to now have three judges each despite the absence of any serving judge from Ebonyi State in the High Court of the FCT.
In Friday’s judgment, Justice Ekwo emphasized that the plaintiff did not claim personal injury caused by the CJN, NJC, or the Chief Judge of the FCT, nor did he seek redress for any such injury.
He said that “the plaintiff only claimed that he is from Ebonyi, which had been routinely excluded and marginalised with respect to the appointment of judges of the High Court of FCT by the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd defendants (the CJN, NJC, and the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC).
“What the plaintiff needed to establish to demonstrate his locus standi is how the appointment being considered by the defendants has affected him as a person.
“This, he would have done, by showing that he applied to be considered by the defendants for appointment, but he was ‘routinely excluded and marginalised.’
“On the other hand, he would have established that he is acting for any person or persons from Ebonyi State who are qualified to be appointed and who have indeed applied to be considered for the said appointment but had been ‘routinely marginalised.’
“In other words, there is no averment that the plaintiff ever applied to be considered for the appointment in issue. Without this, I find that the plaintiff has failed to establish his locus standi to initiate this action.”
The judge also criticized Oko’s reliance on his ethnicity as a basis to establish his legal standing to bring forth the lawsuit.
“The fact that the plaintiff is from Ebonyi State does not still avail him of the locus to initiate this case because, in his view, Ebonyi State of Nigeria has been routinely excluded and marginalised with respect to the appointment of judges of the High Court of FCT by the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd defendants.
“Ebonyi State, for whose cause the plaintiff claims to undertake, is a legal entity established by the constitution with requisite corporate characteristics, including the capacity to sue and be sued for any wrong done to it by any person.
“Assuming that the plaintiff can sue on behalf of Ebonyi State of Nigeria, which according to him, has been routinely excluded and marginalised with respect to the appointment of judges of the High Court of FCT by the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd defendants, the averment that would have established his locus beyond any conjecture would be that the case is in a representative capacity and that he has the consent and authority of Ebonyi State of Nigeria to file the case.
“It must be understood, at this point, that public interest litigation does not extend to suit purportedly filed on behalf of any person who has the capacity and wherewithal to seek remedy for any wrong done to his/her person, but does not deem it necessary to do so.
“I find that Ebonyi State has the requisite capacity to seek remedy for any wrong done to it.
“By this reason, the plaintiff is obviously meddling in the affairs of 1st, 2nd, and 4th defendants by taking up a cause of a state, who has not authorised him to do so.
“It is the law that the court, in ascertaining whether the plaintiff in an action has locus standi, pleadings, that is, the statement of caim, or the affidavit in support of the originating process, must disclose a cause of action vested in the plaintiff and the rights and obligations or interests of the plaintiff that have been violated.
“Now, as the law is, where a plaintiff has been adjudged to lack locus stand, it does not matter whether that action is premature, speculative, and academic, or discloses no reasonable cause of action against the defendant, or the originating process is defective and incompetent, or suit is not justiciable, or the suit is an abuse of court process.
“Lack of focus stand ordinarily means the plaintiff has no legal right or authority to cross the threshold of the court for the matter at hand.
“Once the court finds that the plaintiff lacks focus, then the case ends there. The court ceases to have jurisdiction to consider or decide any other issue in the suit, and this is the case here.
“It is the law that the claims must be struck out, and I am bound to follow the law. I therefore make an order striking out this action for lack of locus standi of the applicant,” Justice Ekwo declared
The President of the African School of Governance, Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu has admonished state actors against resorting to brutal force in the bid to muscle out separatist agitators.
In the aftermath of Mazi Simon Ekpa, the Finland based Biafran nationalist agitator being caught in legal web and the Nigerian government moving swiftly to seek his repatriation, the former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has cautioned that ‘We either fix our problems, or our problems will eventually “fix” us. No alternative to a renegotiated union.’
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The political economist, while expressing his hope in Nigeria, made it clear that “hope is not a strategy”.
He bared his mind in a series of posts on his verified handle on micro-blogging site, X on Friday.
Moghalu wrote, “Despite sustained contemporary difficulties, I am hopeful about Nigeria. But hope is not a strategy. We need to improve state capacity for effective governance.
“We either fix our problems, or our problems will eventually “fix” us. No alternative to a renegotiated union.
“We must learn to be honest with ourselves and address the root causes of our problems. Why ignore them, when the problem is actually quite solvable? The problem with continuing with this approach is that when the danger crystallizes, those who thought they were benefiting from
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has criticized the federal government’s plan to secure an additional N1.7 trillion loan through Eurobonds to cover a shortfall in the 2024 budget, describing the borrowing as unsustainable and harmful to Nigeria’s economy.
In a statement shared on Thursday via his X (formerly Twitter) handle, Atiku accused the Bola Tinubu-led administration of burdening Nigerians with debt while failing to provide clear answers about the country’s fiscal challenges.
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He also faulted the National Assembly for enabling what he called a “voracious appetite” for loans.
The former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate expressed alarm over a recent World Bank report ranking Nigeria as the third most indebted country to the International Development Association (IDA), calling the development troubling.
“The recent report released by the World Bank, showing Nigeria as the third most indebted country to the International Development Association (IDA), is very concerning,” Atiku stated.
He raised further concerns about the government’s decision to benchmark the proposed loan at an exchange rate of 1 USD to N800, despite the Central Bank of Nigeria’s official rate being over N1,600.
“What makes this particular loan proposal even more concerning is that it is benchmarked at the exchange rate of 1 USD to N800, whereas the current exchange rate from the Central Bank of Nigeria stands at over N1,600 to 1 USD,” he said.
Atiku questioned the need for additional borrowing, given the government’s earlier claims of record-high revenue collection.
“In July this year, Tinubu boasted that the FIRS and Customs under his watch had collected all-time high revenues to finance the budget. Why are they still borrowing?” he said
He accused the government of a lack of transparency, describing the borrowing spree as detrimental to Nigerians already struggling under economic hardship.
“There is something that they are not telling Nigerians, even as they are being crushed by a combination of their failed trial-and-error policies and loan rackets.”
Atiku also referenced a report by BudgIT, a budget monitoring group, which criticized the 2024 budget for its inefficiencies.
He alleged that corruption, rather than infrastructure or development needs, was driving the government’s borrowing decisions.
“These loans are powered by corruption and not for infrastructure and development needs. This voracious appetite for humongous loans is deeply concerning,” he said.
Reflecting on Nigeria’s financial history, Atiku lamented the return to significant foreign indebtedness just years after former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration cleared the country’s debt.
“It is agonizing to see that just a few years after the Obasanjo administration took us out of foreign indebtedness, we are today back at the top spot in the same conundrum,” he stated.
He called for a more cautious approach to borrowing, urging the government to prioritize fiscal responsibility and transparency to avoid worsening Nigeria’s economic challenges.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has taken a historic step, issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The charges include crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed during Israel’s recent assault on Gaza.
In a detailed statement, the ICC accused the Israeli leaders of “intentionally and knowingly depriving the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”
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The ICC’s move marks a significant escalation in international scrutiny of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu and Gallant are alleged to have orchestrated policies that caused severe harm to the civilian population in Gaza, leading to widespread condemnation from human rights organizations.
Alongside the charges against Israeli officials, the ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif. Deif has long been a central figure in Hamas’s military operations. Israel’s military claims to have killed him in a July airstrike, although this has not been independently verified.
The warrants highlight growing calls for accountability amid the ongoing conflict in the region. The ICC’s actions are likely to provoke heated debate and may complicate diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the crisis.
With the warrants issued, global attention now turns to how the international community will respond and whether any practical steps will be taken to enforce them.
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