An Abuja-based legal practitioner has approached the Court of Appeal in Abuja, seeking to set aside a judgment that declared former President Goodluck Jonathan eligible to contest a return to the presidency.
The lawyer, Mr. Jideobi Johnmary, filed a three-ground appeal, urging the appellate court to nullify the May 26 ruling of the lower court, which he described as a “nullity.”
In his first ground of appeal, he argued that Justice Peter Lifu, who granted Jonathan eligibility to contest again, “erred in law and occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice” by concurrently hearing a motion seeking his recusal alongside the substantive suit on May 18, and delivering a composite ruling on May 26. He contended that this amounted to a breach of the appellant’s constitutional right to fair hearing as guaranteed under Section 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
Providing particulars of the alleged error, the appellant stated that on May 11, he filed a motion requesting Justice Lifu to recuse himself from further hearing the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/2102/2025, and to return the case file to the Chief Judge for reassignment.
He further argued that:
“The matter came up for hearing on the 18th day of May, 2026. The appellant’s counsel drew the attention of the learned trial judge to the pendency of the motion for recusal and urged the learned trial judge to first hear and determine the motion for recusal one way or the other.
“Despite the plea of the appellant’s counsel, the learned trial judge insisted on hearing both the motion for recusal and the originating summons together in the same proceedings and adjourned for a composite judgment encompassing the ruling and the judgment.
“A motion for recusal challenges the judge’s right to even hear the case. It is an issue that goes directly to the judge’s impartiality. The motion for recusal having been formally filed, the learned trial judge was under a duty to first deliver a ruling dismissing the motion before he could validly take any further step in the substantive suit. Deciding the recusal motion simultaneously with the substantive matter defeats the entire purpose of the application.
“Hearing the substantive originating summons first on the 18th day of May, 2026, before deciding whether he could hear it on the 26th day of May, 2026, simply means that the learned trial judge put the cart before the horse by deciding the civil right of the appellant as ventilated in the motion for recusal without according him a fair hearing.
“By delivering a composite ruling, the trial judge sat as a judge in his own cause (nemo judex in causa sua) while determining the substantive rights of the parties.
“By refusing to decide first whether he was supposed to hear the substantive originating summons or not — his impartiality having been called into question — the learned trial judge denied the appellant his fair hearing rights, which are sacrosanct and indubitably entrenched in Section 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), and occasioned a miscarriage of justice.”
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