Transcript of the special radio broadcast by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu on the issue of Senate confirmation of Ibrahim Muhammad Tanko the Sharia judge as the substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria
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What’s is technicality in law?
With this simplest of questions, every thing that is wrong with Nigeria, the deep rooted ignorance of the law at the heart of the judiciary started unravelling before our eyes. Tonight I will establish all the facts that leads me to believe and confirmation for all you listening from around the world that the newly confirmed Chief Justice of Nigeria is a an illiterate and a compound fool. Those that ignorantly took offence when President Trump referred to Africa in general and Nigeria in particular as a shit-hole, would come to appreciate he was only being kind and modest. Nigeria the British created ignominy and affront to nationhood is under the damaging spell of Fulani mediocrity and unyielding autocratic feudal mindset. Its like a black hole in the cosmos that devours everything within its reach without giving anything back in return.
The appointment of this unlettered Sharia Judge follows the unconstitutional sacking of the Christian Onnoghen from the South in furtherance of predetermined Fulanization agenda for total domination and Islamisation of Nigeria. unknown to most scholars, self appointed elites and commentators, the foundation for this ongoing agenda of the Fulani’s can be found in the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria. When Abdulsalami Abubakar and the caliphate decided to decree that Sharia and Customary Court judges can be appointed to the Appeal Court from where Supreme Court Justices and Chief Justice of the Federation is drawn from, forward thinking people knew a day like this would come when a stark illiterate from the Sharia arm of the judiciary will be appointed to the highest judicial office in the land. Fulani caliphate tutored by British neo-colonialists, to their credit, know how to play the long term waiting game. Who would have thought that an innocuous constitutional provision on Sharia would end saddling nearly 200 million people with an illiterate Chief Justice determined to impose Sharia jurisprudence on the populace.
The handbag (that resembles that of a native doctor) carrying Mohammad Tanko is a Sharia Court Judge which might explain why he does not know the difference between Technicality & Technical.
Every sensible person should watch the Question & Answer session of the proceedings of the confirmation hearing on the floor of the senate between Sen. Eyinnaya Abaribe and the Sharia Alkali CJN Muhammad Ibrahim Tanko Yusuf to realise the catastrophe the cabal has foisted on hapless Nigerians.
This Sharia CJN of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was not able to comprehend nor define the word ‘legal technicality’ before the senate and watching public. He instead told Nigerians that legal technicality in his own understanding was introduced by the British. That it was Britain that added technicalities to their jurisprudence. Unbelievable!
CJN Tanko does not even understand what ‘legal technicalities’ or ‘technicalities in law’ means. And he was nominated to lead the entire judiciary in Nigeria.
The video clip showing Tanko’s comical confirmation hearing has gone viral and it reveals a total lack of capacity to be a lawyer on the part of the CJN, not to talk of being a Chief Justice. This is a Sharia judge without the foggiest understanding of what English Common Law is. He does not even know how a Common Law jurisprudence works. All his life his orientation, learning and practice has been within the Islamic Arabian Sharia Law in the north but here is appointed the CJN to effectively run a Common Law system that requires understanding of English language which he doesn’t possess. And people keep wondering why Nigeria is called a shit-hole?
Nigeria’s new Alkali Sharia CJN was asked a simple question by Senate Minority Leader, Eyinnaya Abaribe, on whether the Supreme Court under his leadership would be more concerned with deciding cases based on the “merits of cases” or “technicalities of the law in such cases”.
This was Abaribe’s question, and I quote:
“In the 2018 case of Akeredolu vs Abraham, the Supreme Court said, ‘technicality in the administration of justice shuts out justice’ and went further to say, ‘it is therefore better to have a case heard and determined on its merit than to leave the court with the shield of victory obtained on mere technicality’.
“This is the Supreme Court, so we are very happy with that. But My Lord (Abaribe called Tanko a bumbling incoherent illiterate Sharia magistrate his lord but some people complain anytime I am affectionately referred to as a lord) just a few weeks ago, the Supreme Court also said, ‘The correct order is to declare the judgment of the trial tribunal a nullity as a resunlt of one of the panelists not sitting on the day proceedings were held’.
“And so Nigerians are really worried. Where would the Supreme Court stand under you? Where would justice be and what can we expect from the Supreme Court under you?”
In his convoluted response and deviating from the msin thrust of the question, the CJN attempted woefully to define what a “technicality in law” means. But who can blame him even the supreme court he has inherited is even more foolish.
Tanko defined a technicality as something technical and went ahead to compare a technicality with the inability of a judge such as himself to effectively “drive an airplane”.
He said, and I quote:
“Now, if something which is technical comes before the court, what we do in trial courts is to ask people who are experts in that field to come and testify. We rely on their testimony because they are experts in that field” This mad Sharia Alkali was likening expert witness testimony to legal technicality. What planet do these poorly educated retards live in? Which law school did he attend?
Continuing to disgrace himself, Nigerians and the entire legal profession, he went further to say:
“Ask me anything about an aeroplane, I don’t know; ask me to drive an aeroplane….”
Is there any sane mind who would like to be “driven” in an aeroplane by Honourable Justice Ibrahim Tanko. He Tanko continued, “I am sure you will get out of the plane because it is something that requires technicality and if I have any technicality, my technicality will only be limited to law.“ To fly an aeroplane in the opinion of this poorly Sharia educated Alkali requires technicality whereas in legal practice courts deal with technical matters that may require technical experts. There is something definitely wrong with our brain as black African people. Our level of ignorance and mediocrity is a disgrace. How can any normal society allow or approve such a person to become a Chief Justice of a country.
This is disgraceful, it’s a travesty. It’s the lowest any nation can go to pick a nitwit to be her Chief Justice. The Zoo is doomed.
Now, let me, as a layman, educate Tanko on what ‘technicality in law’ means. And I will use case authorities that issued from his own Supreme Court.
In OSAREREN VS. FRN(2018)10 NWLR (PT. 1627) 221 @ 226, RATIO 12, the Supreme Court stated, and I quote:
“Technicality in a matter could arise if a party is relying on abstract or inordinate legalism to becloud or drown the merits of a case. In other words, it arises when a party relies on or holds tenaciously unto the rules of court with little or no regard to the justice of the matter. As far as such a party is concerned, the rules must be followed to the last sentence, the last word and the last letter. The party emphasising technicality has little or no regard to the justice that would be sacrificed or the injustice that would be caused to the opponent”. I prefer to call it unwritten code, rules of engagement that guide administration of the justice system. Like the invisible force known as gravity holds everything together in our solar system but nobody has ever seen gravity or pinpoint exactly where it is located.
Above is what Senator Abaribe was alluding to but despite how clear he made it to Tanko, he still veered off to Alice in Wonderland of a ‘Justice Tanko lacking the technicalities of DRIVING (not even flying) an aeroplane’.
Continuing to define technicalities, the same Supreme Court has said in:
FRN VS. DAIRO (2015) 6 NWLR (PT.1454) 141@ RATIO 13, that: “Rules of court are meant to be obeyed. However, obedience to rules must not be slavish to the point that justice in a case is destroyed or thrown overboard … Therefore, if in the course of doing justice, some harm is done to some procedural rule which hurts the rule, the court should be happy that it took such line of action in pursuance of justice”.
So, there you have it, Mallam Justice Tanko … technicality simply means anything that prevents a court from deciding a case on the merits. More often than not, it’s some rule of court such as missing filing deadlines, not paying the appropriate filing fee, etc, upon which an otherwise good case may fall without reaching its merits. To mitigate against cases being thrown out on technicality requires due diligence on the part of the prosecutors or complainant or legislative corrections not breaking the rules in order to uphold a rule as the idiotic and conflicting judgements of Nigeria’s Supreme Court seems to suggest. Nigerian judges don’t know what letter and spirit of the law means.
Merriam-Webster dictionary defined it simply as “a small detail in a rule or law and especially one that forces an unwanted or unexpected result”.
It absolutely has nothing to do with the knowledge of technology of anything or machines that requires calling an expert witness to testify, as Tanko (mis)understood it to be.
Technicality
Is a Point of law or a small detail of a set of rules,as contrasted with the intent or purpose of rules.
Technical
Is having special and usually practical knowledge especially of a mechanical or scientific subject
So Nigeria now has a Fulani Illiterate as Chief Justice.
The term legal technicality is a casual or colloquial phrase referring to a technical aspect of law. … Some legal technicalities govern legal procedure, enable or restrict access to courts, and/or enable or limit the discretion of a court in handing down judgment.
This bumbling ignorant buffoon Tanko that you call your Chief Justice said it was the British that introduced technicality into their laws. Jesus Christ of Nazareth! The British introduced technicality? Which backward Sharia court did they excavate this being from?
We now look at the other aspect of what this disgraceful Sharia judge said.
I urge everybody to please see and listen to the footage of what Tanko said before the Senate in his effort to save face and get back at Senator Abaribe for highlighting his ignorance.
Isn’t it obvious that this Sharia CJN is ignorant of the duties or responsibilities of a Surety; He’s ignorant of the constitutional protections for an accused person; and most sadly – he’s clueless about the powers of the judiciary that he now heads and the laws that he’s going to apply as a CJN.
My reasons are legion, and here they are:
1 . When a Defendant fails to appear at his trial, such as in my case, the court does not automatically or summarily:
— Revoke the bail or;
— Issue an automatic order of forfeiture of the bond amount;
— Not to talk of even sending the Surety to jail, as the ignorant new CJN told the Senate.
2 . There is a procedure, enacted by laws of the Zoo, that the court must follow. First and foremost, the initial procedure is STRICTLY and clearly a CIVIL (not criminal) process; AND …
— It must be fully exhausted before the second phase (criminal) can ever be triggered.
— It’s all enumerated under the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA); which pertinent provisions I will ask the indulgence of our listeners to permit me to reproduce below, verbatim.
Here it is …
At Section 179 (1), ACJA states that and I quote: “Where it is proved to the satisfaction of the court by which a recognizance has been taken or, when the recognizance bond is for appearance before a court and it is proved to the satisfaction of the court that a recognizance has been forfeited, the court shall record the grounds of proof and may call on any person bound by the bond to pay the penalty thereof or to Show Cause why it should not be paid”.
Anybody reading this – layman or lawyer – can see from that the process must first start with a written (not oral) Order to Show Cause, and which must be served on the sureties.
It is only after crossing this phase that a proper civil proceedings on bond forfeiture can properly begin. And, if I might add, such proceedings is an arduous and painstaking process that can take several months, and understandably so because enormous property and liberty interests are implicated.
But suffice it to say that it’s in such proceeding that my Sureties will be opportune to Show Cause or explain why I failed to appear to take my trial.
So, before reaching the issue of forfeiture – the court must first dispose of the issue of the military operation and its legal impacts on all affected parties in this order –
1. The court itself and my criminal proceedings before it, including its powers of contempt when a Complainant, through its army, took an action that disrupted a matter before the court.
2. The Defendant, that is my humble self, including whether my duty to appear in court also includes a duty to remain in my house and be killed by a gang of soldiers that have declared me a terrorist as if I am another Abubakar Shekau or Osama Bin Ladin.
3. Those that forced the situation (that is the military operation) on the court. In other words, the court must consider whether it is right for the Complainant (Federal Republic of Nigeria) to, willy-nilly, send it’s army to kill me when it already had me in its court for trial and for offenses that are not even punishable by death.
4. Then, the court shall now turn its attention to the sureties and consider whether it is right for them to forfeit their bonds when my failure to appear was neither my fault, nor their fault but the fault of the same Federal government that is seeking to profit from its own wrong.
This where the legal doctrine of “causation” applies, or simply out – “What was it that caused my failure to appear for my trial. Was it volitional on my part or was it compelled by a SUPERVENING or intervening force greater than me”?
Another legal maxim lawyers use to describe my unique situation is expressed in Latin and that is: “novus actus interveniens”. In plain English, it means an intervening or a supervening act that caused an unexpected situation to arise. As applied to me therefore, the military operation is the “novus actus interveniens”, and there’s a plethora of cases that have made it applicable to Nigeria. Some of them are:
UYO V. ATTORNEY-GENERAL, BENDEL STATE (1986) 1 NWLR (PT.17) 418;
OGUNTOLU V. THE STATE (1996) 2 NWLR (PT.432) 503;
IDOWU V. THE STATE (2000) 7 SC (PT.11) 50; (2000) 12 NWLR (PT.680) 48;
AHMED V. THE STATE (2001) 18 NWLR (PT.746) 622;
AIGUOREGHIAN V. THE STATE (2004) 3 NWLR (PT.860) 367 at 414.
I advise CJN Tanko to read these cases.
Now, it is ONLY after exhaustion of above proceedings that the next phase can be triggered, as provided in Section 170(2) ACJA which states, and I quote: “Where sufficient cause is not shown and the penalty is not paid, the court may proceed to recover the penalty from a person bound, or from his estate if he is dead, in the manner laid down in this Act for the recovery of fines”.
Anybody familiar with the arcane rules on ‘recovery of fines’ will agree that they bear some legal safeguards for sureties. In other words, it will take long before the question of any of them going to prison can ever arise.
Again, CJN Tanko is dead wrong.
Now returning to the black letters of the preceding provisions, attention needs to be drawn to the use of the word ‘may’, which simply means that the court is not bound to take the matter beyond this level.
Instead, the court is free to exercise sound discretion and hold harmless the sureties and their principal (that is: my humble self, Nnamdi Kanu). But in the event that the court insists on recovery of the bond money, the next phase below (prison) may kick in.
Section 179(4) ACJA) provides that “When the penalty is not paid and cannot be recovered in the manner provided in this Act, the person bound shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months.”
As anybody can see, it is the above section that a whole Chief Justice of a nation has gone rogue on and proceeded to jump many hoops to start proclaiming that “my sureties will be sent to prison”. This is wrong and bizarre.
Still, prison is long in coming because there’s a further provision that gives powers to the court to let everybody go scot-free. It’s in Section 180 ACJA which provides that “The court may at any time cancel or mitigate the forfeiture, on the person liable under the recognizance applying and giving security to the satisfaction of the court, for the future performance of the condition of the recognizance and paying, or giving security for the payment of the costs incurred in respect of the forfeiture or on such other conditions as the court may consider just”.
So, as you can see from above, the court has the unfettered discretion to cancel or mitigate the bond, which means that no surety, including Abaribe, gets to go to prison, after all or even get to losing a cent.
Better yet, should the court insist on calling a civil default of the bond, Abaribe and the others have an immediate right of appeal as provided under Section 186 ACJA, which states that “An order of forfeiture made under this Act shall be subject to appeal”.
I don’t think that, while on appeal, any of the sureties will be headed to jail. And one would postulate that the right of appeal extends not only to the Court of Appeal but also to the Supreme Court.
In addition to the foregoing, there are other statutory safeguards.
Order 26, Rule C of the Federal High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, which regulates proceedings on Orders to Show Cause, provides that:
“An order to show cause shall specify a day when cause is to be shown, to be called the return-day to the order, which shall ordinarily be not less than three days after service.
“A person served with an order to show cause may, before the return-day, produce evidence to contradict the evidence used in obtaining the order, or setting forth other facts on which he relies to induce the Court to discharge or vary such order.
“On the return-day, if the person served does not appear and it appears to the Court that the service on all proper parties has not been duly effected, the Court may enlarge the time and direct further service or make such other order as seems just.
“If the person served appears, or the Court is satisfied that service has been duly effected, the Court may proceed with the matter.
“The Court may either discharge the order or make the same absolute, or adjourn the consideration thereof, or permit further evidence to be produced in support of or against the order, and may modify the terms of the order so as to meet the merits of the case”.
A plain reading of the foregoing will show that the process specified therein has not even started. It must begin and be followed to the letters of the law before anybody can talk of the sureties losing their money or their liberty. And in the course of this whole process, the court must ensure that the principle of fair hearing mandated by their Nigerian Constitution is followed, in spirit and letters.
What this whole saga will eventually boil down to is this: my sureties, pursuant to valid service of the Order to Show Cause, will finally be endowed with the first and golden opportunity to put Nigerian Army on trial. The whole world will hear the full circumstances surrounding the unlawful murderous invasion of my house by a battalion of Fulani Islamic soldiers accompanied by Nigeria Airforce. The conspiratorial role Nnia Nwodo, Okezie Ikpeazu, Dave Umahi, Willie Obiano in planning my assassination will be laid bare in public. Justice Binta Nyako is aware of the damage she would cause to Nigeria should she decide to go after Abaribe and the rest of my sureties.
At issue will be a full and adversarial evidentiary airing of the lethal military operations at my compound. It can be expected therefore that the Chief of Army Staff and other officers in the ‘command and control’ structure will be summoned to testify under penalty of perjury. It won’t be a pretty sight.
In the end, the court will be tasked to make findings of facts and conclusions of law, conceivably sustaining the proposition that the military invasion is a supervening event and therefore the lone proximate cause of my nonappearance.
No doubt, this is a highly effective affirmative defense Abaribe and his co-sureties are entitled to in a situation like this. So, as everyone can see, neither Abaribe nor any of the other two sureties is headed to prison.
Nigeria now has a Chief Justice that knows nothing about Common Law which means that Nigerian judiciary knows nothing. How therefore can we blame Trump for calling some countries in Africa shit-hole.
A Chief Justice that lacks basic grasp of the law. Such things don’t happen in real countries. It happens only in a Zoo.
This is the worst form of judicial and legislative baditry and lawlessness showcased for the world to see and CJN Tanko is the Chief Bandit. Even a Supreme Court Judge is telling us from the bench that ancient legal code of conduct of trial should be abandoned because in his primitive, untutored African mind, only a pronouncement or judgement after a full trial should be considered as justice.
SENATOR ABARIBE DUG A SMALL HOLE AND THE WEASEL CRAWLED IN AND RUINED NIGERIAN JUDICIARY……
Let us revisit the disregard for precedent being exhibited by the supreme court and CJN Tanko which is an invitation to anarchy and I am going do this by looking at what transpired between Tanko’s confirmation at the floor of the senate.
Question: Why should the absence of a Judge in a case (for one day only) subvert Justice? Why did the Court depart from it’s Judgement in Wike Vs Dakuku (2015) per Kekere-Ekun JSC in Adeleke Vs Oyetola (2019)?
~~Sen Enyinnaya Abaribe
Answer: “Permit me distinguished senators to ask what a technicality is? It is something which is technical. By definition, it is something that is not usual and may sometimes defy all the norms known to a normal thing. Now, we have technicalities in our laws and this is because these laws we have inherited were from the British.
“The British people centuries ago introduced what is known as technicalities in their laws. Now, if something is technical, it is giving leeway for double interpretation. It may be interpreted in one way by Mr. A and another way by Mr. B. [Which British people?]
“Now, if something which is technical comes before the court,what we do in trial courts is to ask people who are experts in that field to come and testify. We rely on their testimony because they are experts in that field. [you mean a case requiring expert witness is now a technical case?]
“Ask me anything about an aeroplane, I don’t know; ask me to drive an aeroplane (sic)” from a Chief Justice responding to a simple question on technicality.
Therefore, it is something that has to do with the perception or the way you will be able to achieve the goals you want to achieve.”
~~ Justice Ibrahim Tanko (Nigerian Acting CJN) at the Senate Chambers for his
This is getting out of hand. I thought it was all a joke. The question borders on simple Rudiments of the Law. Very embarrassing answer.
Senator Abaribe set a trap which CJN Tanko walked into and ensnared himself and dragged the reputation of the judiciary down with him. This global embarrassment shouldn’t have had Tanko attended basic law school. Let me conclude by quoting a learned commentator who wrote:
“There’s a sense in which the CJN exposed the jurisprudential hollowness of the current Supreme Court by his response. If anything highlighted the decline of legal scholarship in our country today, the confirmation hearing of the CJN did. The inter-disciplinary starkness of law in its application is clear, by the evidence presented at the confirmation hearing; and it is even sad that the stark evidence presented itself at the highest level. But, it wasn’t the case in the past. Bairamian J elucidated what today constitutes the competence or the grounds on which a court assumes jurisdiction in Madukolu v Nkemdilim (1960) and he did so without reference to a previous judicial authority. Bairamian J was simply brilliant.
In all of this, what beggars belief is the hollow understanding of jurisprudence exhibited by our highest judicial officer! Sad. Nigeria has failed completely.”
I can only pray for BIAFRA Restoration.
