 Konfu-shun protest in Kano as api cults certified two copies affirms aba kabiru yusuf as Kano governor. I am Bola Oba-Athis Explos politics. There was confusion in Kano state until state would the emergence of a certified two copy of the court of appeals judgment on the state governorship election. While the widely reported verdict of the court last Friday indicated that the appellate court upheld the decision of the petition to Buddha sakin governor Aba Yusuf, the state attorney general and commissioner for justice. I don't know. Yusuf there argued that the CTC that is the certified two copy of the judgment should that Yusuf's victory at the poll was affirmed by the api cult. He said, as indicated in the written judgment, the court of appeal set aside the judgment of the Kano electoral petition to Buddha for lakini merit. Joninous life is lad equal Johnson, lege practitioner and the national auditor and spokesperson for new Nigeria people's party, NMPP. Also, Joninous life is lege practitioner Barista Abasidong. Gentlemen, welcome to plus politics. Good evening. Hello Bola, how are you doing? Hello Nigeria. Fine. Good to have you on. Let's start with Barista Abasidong. What do we make of this seeming mess? I'm scandalized to say the least. Do we still have Barista Abasidong there? I would like to clarify the situation that should be in court. We may need to resort to audio Barista. In the meantime, let me have your colleague give us his opinion, especially because his interest is directly connected to the case. Hello. Hello. Good evening. Sorry. My network seems to be very bad. I didn't hear a word that my Leonard colleague said. To be honest with you, it was not so much your network's fault. It was the fact that his line was a bit cracky. We could barely hear him. That is why we are coming over to you. We could barely hear anything coherent about what he said. Yes, what I will say, I heard him say he was scandalized. It is a scandalous judicial debacle. That's how I defined it earlier. It's very unfortunate that we've gotten to this stage. If you have read the page you are showing right now, I think it's page 67. It starts by saying that he is finding for the respondent, which is the APC. Then the next paragraph goes to say he is finding for the appellant, which is Governor Abhakabir Yusuf. Then it goes on to talk about the appeal failing, lacking in merit. And then it concludes with the fact that it is taking aside the judgment of the tribunal in Kanu on what date. That he was awarding costs of about a million naira to Governor Abhakabir Yusuf against the first respondent, which is the APC. Now, how on earth did we get to this stage? We all know, as you said in your introduction, what he said, what the lead judgment said on Friday. And now you bring out a certified true copy of this. All it shows really and they need to come out and say we are saying the wrong thing. All it shows is that there was most likely, most probably to the average man, there was another judgment. There was another document that had Abhakabir Yusuf as the winner being successful. And maybe it was changed and then they forgot these two, three paragraphs in the judgment by some mistake or by some fortune. For some fortuitous reason, this has happened to bring this thing out to Nigerians so they can see that when some people are saying they have fears about whether the judiciary is right now, then they are not just talking bull to dash. They have their points. Okay, let's go to your colleague and get his opinion. Is Baistair Yidong back online now? I didn't know you couldn't hear what I said earlier. I was saying that I am totally scandalised and horrified by reports coming out of Kanu Appeal Tribunal. I think the judiciary should take steps to immediately fight the situation. This is an environment where tempers are really high. I understand protests right now, the rocking Kanu state. This shouldn't be allowed to exist. The judiciary shouldn't be adding more confusion to a terrible state of affairs. This country deserves a lot more than this. But thankfully, we still have because of the Supreme Court and I am hoping the Supreme Court will put this straight. I would also call on the CJN of the Federation of the Supreme Court to immediately conduct investigations instead of a panel. To conduct an independent panel to conduct investigations into what actually transpired. The situation where we have two judgments that purportedly emanated from that tribunal should not be tolerated. It's unacceptable and should be cleared up. Two judgments or one duplicitous judgment. One judgment but given duplicitous positions on its findings. Well, I wouldn't be so hasty as to conclude that there has been any funny dealings going on behind the scenes. What I would say is an investigation needs to be done urgently in the next 48 hours and a clarification of the situation needs to be made to avoid the situation where the confidence in the judiciary is further worsened by this unfortunately. I really understand where you are coming from. And I know to be honest with you, any reasonable Nigerians should be scandalised as you have rightly been scandalised. But I am not insinuating any Anki Pankki having occurred. I am just saying that in simple plain English there are contradictory paragraphs of that page, that particular page. Paragraph one awards the judgment to a particular party. Paragraph two directly contradicts that award. So are we, has it gotten this bad in Nigeria a couple of days ago in Lagos state? Some so-called professionals of a particular department that should be in charge of cost accounting were said to have made two billion naira, become two billion naira. Not too long ago we thought it was a joke. We heard that the International Criminal Court at the Ex rejected a Nigerian judge that went for an interview because they said he couldn't even understand the basics of the trade. Are we this now, are we at this nada or this is just an exceptional case? Well, I'm sure. Okay. Barista Hidon, let me let Barista Hidon wrap that up and I'll come to you. I'm being careful with you because you have a vested interest. You are a chieftain of the semi-beneficiary of the circumstance that is seemingly imagined. Well Nigerians. Barista Hidon at this juncture is the fear habitat. Barista Hidon, let me just give him that. He is the Abicor school here, he is the friend of this court. Okay Barista, you want to respond to that before I go to your colleague? Absolutely. The judiciary has some weaknesses and it's apparent for all to see. We also have very brilliant minds on the bench. And I think those upright brilliant judges who are running our judiciary will be rightfully horrified by this situation. And I believe in the judiciary's ability to reinvent itself. I believe that they would clear up the situation. Definitely this situation will be cleared up at the Supreme Court. But beyond that, I am hopeful that the CJN will do what is necessary to restore confidence in that tribunal that gave that judgment. The conflicting paragraphs nonetheless. My fear now, and this is to the chieftain of NNPP. My fear now is that for anybody who knows the partisan history of Kano, we know that this is a mistake that is going to be very costly. We just pray. One pray is at this juncture that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will let sanity prevail in Kano. Because the partisan history of Kano, at least that I am well acquainted with in the last 300 to 350 years, is such that from how Amy has emerged to the politics of Kano, it is always on the borderline of civility and violence. What can this translate to in such a combustible environment? Well, the first thing is to thank God that the two main people, apart from the party, on the receiving end of this are peace-loving people. That is Senator Konkozo and of course his excellency Governor Abba Kabya Yusuf. They have spent God knows the amount of effort trying to calm their teaming supporters down. Say, wait for the rule of law, wait for the courts. Now, unfortunately, the CTC, as I said, the average man, because I heard earlier, I don't know yet, I mean, Buja at the moment, I just heard when you were speaking or when Bersaidon was speaking that time, they arrived in Kano. No one has called me to tell me that yet. If that is the situation, it is unfortunate. And it is because of this CTC. It has made them believe, as I said earlier, the average man's test, it has made them believe that something funny might have happened. They were peaceful all through. They know whom they voted for. So to those there who do not understand all these technicalities, we might understand. We might say, oh, the court is right, this that that. But the man on the street doesn't. But please let me swing back to what the question you asked before. The problem we have now is that when society as a whole is losing its moral fabric and things are going from bad to worse, inflation is rising, the economy is getting worse, it is difficult to expect that one institution will remain upright, remain solid when everything around it is falling apart. But having said that, I expect that the judiciary will lead the way in trying to reinvent itself and make sure that the people of Nigeria begin to gain confidence in it again. It is very difficult and the judiciary needs help. Very important, I might speak as a politician at times, but now speaking as a lawyer, the judiciary needs help. Because it is under attack from the political class. You have issues with the budget of the judiciary. If a chief judge has to go cap in hand to a governor or to the state house, you can imagine what will happen when the government has interest in matters. So we really have to look at democracy. We have to look at the way we are operating between the different arms of government, etc. These are very important things that we must work on. I want us, looking at it from your non-partisan lens, I want us to do a bit of a forensic examination of what may have happened. Maybe the forepaw or maybe this lousy came from the clerical staffers of the justices who sat on the case. I am just trying to convince myself that I could hear a chuckle. I am trying to convince myself that it has not gotten this bad. Maybe this was, I don't know, what are the processes for writing judgments. Barista, if you could give us a basic enlightenment, I know you are not a judge, but it is not supposed to be too akin a subject for a barista, a lawyer like you to understand. Absolutely, Bola. I wouldn't want to lend myself to speculation, but I understand that after the judges have written their judgments, especially if they are in a panel, they meet amongst themselves and adopt a position and determine if they are dissenting views. Then on the day of judgment, judgment is read in open court. People take notes, lawyers take notes of what is read in open court. Afterwards, parties are at liberty to apply for certified true copies of the judgment, which is what I believe happened in this situation. By the time the certified true copy of the judgment was released, it was adherence with what was heard in court. So we have two parties claiming victory. That's not the ideal situation for the political climate. The incredibly volatile political climate in Karno state. So like I said, it wouldn't help us to speculate as to whether it was a clerical error or whether there was malice intended. I believe an investigation will reveal what actually transpired. And if there was any perfidious intentions behind this particular low, particularly low, real deep in the reputation and confidence we have in the judiciary, if there's anybody fingered as being responsible, that should face the full weight of the law. The judiciary wants to redeem itself. I agree with my learned friend in the studio when he says the judiciary needs help. They do need help. They need to be cut away from the coattails of the executive. But that will take some doing and judicial reform is an ongoing process. I believe that even the chance the judiciary can do the best possible job they want to do. And this is a great opportunity for them to clean that board in stable with this case. Since 1999, we have had the machinery that produces our benches, senior judicial officers, especially I court judges and appellate court justices. We have had the politicians feeding that machinery since 1999. We know that over decades now that machinery has been so inundated with substandard people who may have been beneficiaries of nepotistic appointments, is this where we have pushed ourselves to now that we may need to do a complete overall. If we really want to redeem, if we really want to redeem our image. And this is for the national auditor and spokesperson of the NMPP. Fortunately, we are a liar too. I am thinking this is not only about funding or the source of the funding. We may need to do a very clinical examination of the quality of the so-called professionals, populating our benches. Am I getting a bit too emotive about this? Please help me. Well, no you are not. I believe that you are right on point. We really need to take stock and tell ourselves the truth and seek to move ahead. Unfortunately, it cannot be done in isolation because judges have children and wives who go to the same markets. They have children overseas. They are affected by the high inflation rates. They are affected by the crashing value of the Naira, etc. As I said, it is not something that could be done in isolation. Yet at the same time, we know that we have men and women of good moral upstanding. We know people when you are the bar. You know people who practice. You know lawyers with sharp practices. You know people who are sound. Once you practice, you know all these things. Now we should, as you said, we should look at the process of appointing judges, of elevating judges. You understand, we have to look at all those things. But you see, for as long as I know, for instance, I am legal based or whatever, I know the influence that the executive arm, especially the number one citizen in any state, or the KBSC, the OBA, or what have you, the influence they have in the appointment of judges. It's crazy. And we've been watching it going down here, going down here. One minute, sir. One minute. We have an update on the scandalous, seemingly scandalous, the appeal court, as an update on the judgment. The chief registrar of the court of appeal, Umar Bangari, has cleared the air on the controversy surrounding the judgment delivered by the court on the Kano Gov. election dispute. In a reaction, Bangari said that what happened in the judgment body was a typo error that did not in any way invalidate or change the findings and conclusion of the court. The chief registrar assured Nigerians that the error would be rectified once parties in the matter filed formal application to that effect. He cited under 23 Rule 4 of the Court of Appeal and Book, which empowered the court to correct any clerical error once detected by the court or any of the parties in the matter. He insisted that contrary to insinuations, the judgment of the court remained valid. Okay, let me start with... Go ahead, yes. I want to hear your reaction to this. I thank you for that. I heard that earlier this evening. And you see the bottom line is this. That order is like a codification of what we call the sleep rule, which is the ability for a court to recall a ruling or a judgment for some clerical minor errors. But there are things there. It mustn't change whatever. It mustn't lead to controversy. And as you well know, my brother, you read this thing out. Those are not clerical errors. These are paragraphs, especially the concluding paragraphs. These are paragraphs. And I make bold to say that in this day you asked a question earlier. And if the investigation is carried out, like my brother said, or suggested that it should be, I am almost certain they will find that that lead judgment was typed gradually, gradually by his lordship himself or by his assistant. They no longer give these things to full typists. They don't. And it is even worse if it were given to a full typist or some clerical error. Because how would you go on to put in a whole paragraph about the judgment and the tribunal being set aside, followed by costs in your conclusion? So I still maintain my brother is not allowed to use neutral. I still maintain that there was something there that they tried to change. And there was a mistake and error and either they forgot or what happened. I say that, yes, I'm a lawyer, you understand. And there will be people who say, oh, the MBA should look at it. I'd like someone to want to look at this whole thing and will know where we are at. The bottom line, as I said earlier, is we have problems. We have issues and we have to take both steps to try to sort out these issues. They are not clerical errors, but when we get to the Supreme Court, let's possible to your colleague now and sorry if I seem like I'm giving some form of preeminence to his opinion. No, it's understandable. It's understandable because he is non-partisan in this instance. Yeah. These things do happen. Should an average energy and watching just believe that by Mr. Hidon? I'm even more disturbed by the explanation given by the court of the field because that document was signed by somebody. It was certified by somebody. And you can't plead non-est factual, not my deed. It was an error. It's an oversimplification of what transpired. I don't think that explanation is sufficient. Mr. Hidon, I know this is not your fault. But there are some words you've used this evening. There are some phrases you've used that just when you are using them innocently, my emotional persona is getting lacerated. You know, like variants, like scandalized. Like, you know, and this is, you know, the Europeans have a saying which can be translated thus. That, you know, some things can be so sad that the best you want to do out of it is just to laugh. But it does not take away the sadness. But I must be honest with you, given the methodical way with which you are choosing your words, your phrases, you are really making me feel as somebody who is not a lawyer that we are now at the nether. We really need to do serious self-re-examination. Is that what I'm thinking? Am I thinking right? We need soul-searching at all levels, all levels of our government. We need a steep systematic reform. Nigeria is going nowhere in a hurry if we are unable to resolve basic issues such as this. I, for one, I would like to see a judiciary where judges don't take notes in long-hand. It gives them too much power over what they write. I'd like to see a situation where you've got stenographers who are independent. If you had that kind of device today, we could compare against that device to know what particular document emanated. We even have audiovisual recording, contraptions, devices. Look, many of this program, as we speak, verbal team is recorded. So why is it difficult to have some of this equipment or devices in our courts? It's a head-scratcher, honestly. I don't know why we're lagging behind technology-wise when it comes to the judiciary. Unfortunately, it does seem to be serving certain interests to keep the judiciary in the dark ages while the rest of the world marches on purposefully into the new centuries ahead. Having said that, I quite agree with you. We need to bring a deep seated reform to the judiciary so that issues like this don't ever happen again. I'm not very proud to be a lawyer at this time and hearing these kinds of explanations. It's unacceptable and I still insist that we need to get to the bottom of this beyond the explanation given by the Court of Appeal. As to the legality of the document, unfortunately, whatever the Court of Appeal endorses as their decision is what will be litigated upon at the Supreme Court. So, fortunately, whatever they say was their decision on the day is what the Supreme Court would consider and every other fact or document will be extraneous to the case. Barista Politician may be just maybe a baller about this evening is overplaying the emotional card. Like a friend, Pulani lambasted me when I was complaining and the friend said, you know, baller, you have engineers these days civil and structural engineers who put up structures that before those structures are completed, they collapse and kill people. That if you really want to if you really want to if you really want to make sure that a civilization fails and then let them be doing what we do in our schools in our universities that ultimately these symptoms these negative manifestations will be slapping us in the face. The engineers, they are doctors who just kill at random because they probably paid with their bodies or bought their results. So, why are you surprised? How do you want to respond to that? I know your party, NMPP also had a moral agenda beyond the conventional promises of parties that we are going to be tackling the value system. I know when you were campaigning. You want to respond to that? Yes, you are absolutely correct. As I said, you cannot take the judiciary at all. It's the entire society. And when you go down to say even secondary school go to secondary school, go to the university when you have to pay to have your child get a bed in a hostel or when you have to pay someone for your child to go in on the dean's list on the vice chancellor's list to get admission. You are teaching that child immediately that corruption pays and that without the corruption and cutting corners that child cannot achieve. So, these things have they start early. They are there in the mosques in the churches, in society everywhere. The man who has just gotten into government you call him to your church and say that you have a building form that you need him to donate 20 million. What are you saying to him? So, these are the problems and we don't need to fool ourselves. We have to begin to look at it. If someone asked me and this is just a bit of politics you mentioned it. Someone asked me how on earth in 100 days this same Aba Kabya Yusuf was able to sponsor and pay for a thousand and one students PhD students on scholarship, various fields to India and I said to them simply put priorities. Some are busy buying four wheel drives some are busy doing other things that they've just gotten into government but that is what our movement believes in we believe as you said in the fact that we have to work on morality both of ourselves and the students and the society as a whole we had to do other things we had to sacrifice you had to save costs you have to cut costs in government so all these things work together but the only prayer one can give I mean it's a short program is that we hope that people like my brother and others will get involved you understand Speaking of getting involved let me go to Baista the two of you are lawyers as the MBA said everything on this because this is so scandalous that it will be it will be doubly scandalous if the MBA does not does not have an opinion or say something about this well the news only just broke and I believe the MBA is considering its position I'm sure the MBA's voice will be heard I'm sure senior members of the bar will speak up but I don't want this to be like every other scandal that's it's like a candle blowing in the wind yes it's overshadowed by a bigger scandal I don't want this to be the next social media candy item after a few days of talk it disappears under the headlines I was going to say a femoral I was going to say a few I was going to add a femoral to it after a few days that would be my concern too go ahead please sorry for the interruption exactly so I would want sufficient pressure public opinion brought to bear on the institution of the judiciary in such a way that it takes steps to self correct the judiciary has inherent powers it's one of the arms institutions in this country that have inherent powers to self correct they can purge themselves and they've done this in the past I have an abiding faith in the ability to do this again like my colleague in the studio said they do need help and that help has to come from you Bola in the studio and the wider community we need to insist that the standards the highest standards we expect from the judiciary we maintain and we shouldn't allow politicians ruin the last institution we hold which indeed should be the hope of the common man gentlemen I must say a profound thank you to the two of you you have been worthy contributors on the one hand won a sudden with the fact of this developing story because it's state developing but on the other hand the quality of contributions that the two of you have given I really appreciate and celebrate the two of you thank you for guesting thank you for having us we are so grateful