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Justice Jonathan
Shakarho of the Federal High Court, Ibadan, on Monday, adjourned
indefinitely the hearing of a contempt suit brought against the Oyo
State Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala. The judge said that he was making
the decision on moral grounds, having been accused of receiving N50
million from Mr. Alao-Akala to rule in his favour last week. The case
was brought before the court by Wole Oyelese, Yekini Adeojo, Lekan
Balogun, Azeem Gbolarumi and 33 other members of the People’s
Democratic Party (PDP) in Oyo state to challenge the emergence of the
governor and other nominees as the party’s candidates for the April
polls. The group asked the court to declare that Mr. Akala and the
other candidates’ nominations were products of ‘illegal party
primaries’.

Although the court was to reconvene on Monday to begin the hearing on the contempt suit and substantive matter, Mr.

Shakarho said he would have to wait for a directive from the office of the chief justice of Nigeria, Alloysius Kastina-Alu.

“We can’t go on
with the case by the undoing of some of the plaintiffs,” Mr. Shakarho
said. “I am leaving the case as it is. When there is a directive from
my chief judge, we will go on”.

Yekini Atoyebi, one
of the plaintiffs, had in a petition asked the chief justice to
investigate an alleged induced reversal of an interlocutory injunction
earlier given by Mr. Shakarho. Mr. Atoyebi, in his petition, alleged
that the judge’s body language when he reversed his initial order
restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from
recognizing the governor and others as PDP contestants suggested that
he had made up his mind to tilt the ruling in their favour.

‘What is my business?’

Speaking on the
petition and the implication on his continued sitting over the suits,
Mr. Shakarho said: “Once one person writes against me, we cannot go on.
He (Mr. Atoyebi) said in his last paragraph that, in his view, it was
clear they cannot obtain justice before me. I want another judge to
hear the matter. Can I, in the face of this, go further in this matter?
This case is adjourned sine die. ‘Case yi, o ti ba je’ (This case has
gone bad). They shot themselves on the leg. It is their own case, if
they want to put block on it, ‘ki lo kan mi ni be? (what is my
business?)”, he asked in Yoruba.

Efforts by Sanyaolu Akinyele, one of the counsel to the plaintiffs, to get the court to strike out the name of Mr.

Atoyebi and
continue the case proved abortive. The judge insisted that he would
wait until the chief justice directed him to proceed.

Reaction

Dotun Oyelade,
special adviser to Mr. Alao-Akala on public communications, reacted to
the adjournment, describing it as a sad day for the relationship
between politicians and the judiciary.

“What manner of
politicians are these who will turn the innocent into villains within
the twinkle of an eye because a case did not go their way? Resorting to
cheap blackmail to pervert the course of justice does not augur well
for democracy. We strongly suggest that the National Judicial Council
should investigate this and bring the culprits to book,” he said in a
release to journalists on Monday.

Lateef Fagbemi and Richard Akinjide, counsel to the defendants,
agreed with the court on the indefinite adjournment. An appeal filed by
the plaintiffs against the controversial vacation order has been slated
for Monday, February 28 at the Ibadan division of the Court of Appeal.