The ruling All Progressives Congress APC has dismissed concerns about the reported contradictions in the Certified True Copy CTC of the appellate court judgment which recently affirmed the judgment of the Kano State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, declaring its candidate, Dr Nasiru Gawuna as winner of the Governorship election.
National Legal Adviser of the APC, Prof. Abdulkareem Kana at a news conference Wednesday in Abuja said every lawyer knows that clerical errors are not strange with regards to such documents.
“Those of us who are lawyers know that typographical errors often occur in certified true copies of court judgments. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t have been a confusion if it was probably not a political matter, because it will not be the first time such typographical mistakes will be seen in judgments and being lawyers we are used to a situation like this. All that was done was to merely correct that mistake. The most important thing is the judgment that was read in open court”, said Kana.
Asked if the party has formally sought correction of the misleading portion of the judgment, Kana said as far as his office was concerned, he had not received the certified true copy of the judgment.
“But we will write and get a copy. If the copy that will be conveyed to us still contains this error, we will take steps eventually. What we will do and we have done right now, is to write to demand for the CTC. Until the CTC containing that error, which is being bandied around, we will now know what to do next. But, I will suggest that whoever may have received the CTC containing that error, if he was an appropriate person and entitled to a copy would have taken the necessary steps. I will say that the court should have taken the necessary steps to make corrections”, he stated.
Speaking further on the issue, the legal adviser said; “The merits and other facts of the judgment of the tribunal which was delivered on September 28, the appeal was upheld. And then if you read through the entirety of the judgment from the lead justice, my lord analysed the submissions of different cited cases and the case and arrived at appropriate findings. It gives you an idea of what should be the conclusion. But that is not all. If you read the concurring judgments by two justices because three judges sat over the appeal. The two justices had explained and clarified their positions. If you have read the findings of my lord honourable Justice Bitrus Sanga who stated that he had read the judgment of my lord Justice Aseimo and agreed with him completely, and therefore dismissing the appeal for lacking in merit. That explains what he has read because he said he read the draft copy of the documents and he agreed with my lord, dismissing the appeal for lack of merit. My lord honourable Justice Lateef Ganiyu also read and he also delivered his judgment dismissing the appeal. In other words, there were two concurring judgments out of three, which are even clearer, very clear, making it obvious that the last three lines and the concluding part of the judgement of my Lord the presiding judge whereby an assertion was made on the CTC not as read in open court finding merit in the appeal and awarding one million costs on the respondents, the first respondents instead of the appellant was clearly and an error.
“In a situation like this, for us lawyers, what we do, is to do a community reading of the entire judgment to see what exactly are the findings of the court. For anyone who reads the judgment from page one to page 72, you will agree that most certainly that assertion will not hold water – instead of upholding the judgment of the lower court, it sets it aside.
“So, I don’t think the explanation needs to come from us. But for us, we can only render our perspective as a party to the entire uproar that is going on. But as to the explanation as to where the error happened in the cause of typing the judgment it is for the court to explain and I am sure the court will have done that by now by taking necessary measures to issue a fresh CTC concerning an appropriate judgment of the court. So for me, I don’t think there is any confusion as it were except for who would prefer that we will continue to see it as confusion”, Kana added.