Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed
The Supreme Court on Monday gave
President Goodluck Jonathan and the National Assembly till Wednesday to
settle their disagreement over the process of amending the 1999
Constitution.
The seven-man panel of the apex court,
led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, asked the
senior lawyers appearing in the matter to broker the settlement talk.
The court then adjourned till Wednesday for the report of the settlement.
The surprise twist came after the
counsel for the plaintiff, the Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief
Bayo
Ojo (SAN), failed in his bid to change the plaintiff from the AGF
to President Jonathan.
Ojo appeared with Duro Adeyele (SAN) for
the plaintiff while Chief Adegboyega Awomolo (SAN) led three other SANs
— Ikechukwu Ezechukwu, Yakubu Maikyau and Mrs. Victoria Awomolo — for
the National Assembly.
Ojo had anchored the application filed
on May 20, 2015 on the provisions of Order 3, Rules 1, 14 and 15 of the
Supreme Court Rules and Order 17, Rules 1 and 2 as well as Order 9 Rule 2
of the Federal High Court Civil Procedure Rules.
As soon as he moved the motion, some
members of the panel took turn to fault it on the grounds that Ojo ought
to have filed an entirely fresh suit in the name of the President as
the plaintiff, instead of filing an application for the substitution of
the AGF.
The panel also maintained that since the
AGF who was being sought to be substituted was believed to be a wrong
plaintiff in the suit; he lacked the competence to file an application
to bring in the competent plaintiff.
“You can’t build something on nothing and expect it to stand,” one member of the panel told Ojo.
The panel also maintained that there was
no way the court could grant the second prayer in the application which
sought an order amending all the processes in the suit to reflect the
President as the new plaintiff.
The CJN explained that such an order
could not be granted in view of the fact that the court lacked the power
to amend the supporting affidavit which was one of the processes being
referred to by Ojo.
