By Ibrahim Fatika

Indeed, the right to express an opinion is germane to every democratic society. More so, to abhor or criticize the decision of court’s is a tradition that has long been practiced by experts and academics. However, the sanctity and prestige of the judiciary commonly requires that these criticisms be done with knowledge, logical precision and ingenuity. These are qualities Farooq Kperogi’s rants on the judgement by the highest court of the land lacked, I dare say, severely!.

It is only intellectual arrogance and pomposity that could drive a journalism or communications professor to condemn a Supreme Court’s decision in such an adjective soiled verbiage. The article titled “A Reply to a Supreme Court of Illiterate Judicial Bandits” reeks of logical fallacies, adhominems, false binaries and ignorant takes mainly from superficial understanding of how law practice works. This is why so much time was expended on personal attacks, attacks on grammar and unfounded allegations rather than addressing the issue as it is.

For this reason, and for the sake of some gullible readers of Kperogi and the sanctity of the judicial institution, I shall delve briefly into the basis of the decision of the court in APC VS BASHIR SHERIFF & ORS (SC/CV/1689/2022). After the primary election of Yobe North Senatorial District, which saw Bashir Sheriff emerge as the candidate of the APC. The party after various internal squabbles allegedly held another primary election on the 9th of June 2022 and alleged that the 1st primary election conducted on the 28th of May 2022 was not duly conducted by its National Working Committee, thus substituting Machina’s name for Lawan’s. So, the status quo was that Ahmad Lawan was the rightful candidate submitted by the APC to INEC. It is important to know that this is no business of the court, a court cannot take upon itself the responsibility of deciding matters that have not been brought before it!

Bashir Sheriff Machina, instituted an action challenging his wrongful substitution and alleging fraud by the APC. It is noteworthy that the procedure adopted by counsel to Machina was through an Originating summons which is used when matters are not contentious. It is used when seeking an interpretation of law and the court relies on written affidavits and documents to make its decision without necessarily listening to oral evidence! This is opposed to a Writ of summons which is filed when matters are contentious i.e when alleging fraud. Here, pleadings are exchanged and witnesses are called. The Supreme court in determining the issues arising in the appeal, one of which was whether the suit could be instituted by an originating summons as opposed to writ of summons (note that wrong procedure for commencing an action affects the jurisdiction of the court as well encapsulated in the revered case of Madukolu & Ors Vs Nkemdilim F.S.C 344 1960 ) held that the appropriate procedure in this suit is a writ of summons and not an originating summons since the issue is a contentious one. By this the supreme court declined jurisdiction and so the initial status quo remains the same i.e The submission of Ahmad Lawan’s name by the APC.

The above is the reason why the Supreme court said it is not “father Christmas” commonly used to mean the court cannot decide issues that are not before it, since the court has declined jurisdiction (i.e it’s power to adjudicate on the issue) it cannot be heard to grant reliefs which is not before it! Kperogi’s interpretation of “the supreme court is not father Christmas” as “Justice is only given to those who pay for it” bespeaks ignorance of the language of the law. Unlike journalism, law practice is inherently ruled based. There is a simple and proper way of doing things.

In a rather unsuccessful and ignorant attempt to fault the decision of the Supreme court with his rudimentary understanding of precedents and the doctrine of stare decisis “The learned Journalist” cited the case of Akeredolu V. Abraham & Ors (2018) LPELR-SC.698/2017. Where he opined that the Supreme court said “Technicalities in the administration of justice shuts down justice …” Conveniently or ignorantly Mr Kperogi never averted his mind to what a precedent is and how it must be used. The rules of stare decisis does not allow a court to use precedents across board with little regard to the peculiarities of facts, precedents are not applied in a vacuum, they’re used by the court when facts are similar. As a matter of fact, this was highlighted by Justice John Inyang in the case of Akeredolu V. Abraham which he (Kperogi) cited. A brief perusal would show that the statement on technicalities was made in regards of an order for substituted service particularly with regards to order 6 rule 5(b) of the Federal High Court( Civil proceedure) Rules 2009. I would easily have forgiven Kperogi’s lack of contextual knowledge had he not embarked on an embarrassingly futile exercise of teaching Supreme Court Judges the application of judicial precedents. He either did not understand what he read in the aforementioned case or did not read it at all. To criticize court decisions requires lots of diligence and understanding, it is not sufficient to deploy gargantuan idioms to fabricate knowledge and intelligence. The realm of law is no place for subjective rants.

No doubt, if Mr Kperogi had understood the facts and factors of the Machina case, he would have directed his anger, insults and crude verbiage to the APC and not the court. To criticize the highest court of the land in such a manner is highly despicable and outrightly condemnable..

Finally, I will be the first to admit that Mr Kperogi is a good journalist and probably a better professor, hence my advice that he should stick to Journalism and political punditry and leave the law for those who understand it or are at least not too arrogant to understand it.

By Ibrahim Fatika, [email protected]