Ex Imo State Speaker, Godfrey Dikeocha Reacts To Agabi’s Utterance On Supreme Court Judgement, Says It’s Professional Misconduct

…Calls him ambulance chaser in legal profession

Former Minister of Justice, Kanu Agabi has come under critism over his comment on the Supreme Court judgement of January,14 validating Senator Hope Uzodinma as the governor of Imo State where he said that the apex court should reverse the judgement.

In a reaction to his comment, former speaker of the Imo State Assembly, Godfrey Dikeocha noted that Agabi’s utterance are made without prejudice to the subsistence of the case before the Supreme Court.

According to Dikeocha “it is mind boggling how a so-called Senior Advocate of Nigeria would leave the venue of his case and take to press to argue his spurious matter.

“This is the highest level of professional misconduct by a very senior counsel; this is even worse by the words he used on the justices of the highest court of the land; what makes him think he is more knowledgeable, just and non corrupt than seven Supreme Court justices”.Dikeocha asked .

“This is shameful, a lawyer is adjudged not to be sentimentally attached to a client’s case as Agabi has done here.

“Agabi’s usual style as in this instance is what is known as ambulance chasing in the legal profession; he is playing to the gallery to attract cases to himself, after all his shenanigan in Atiku’s case what did he achieve after the huge resources he accrued to himself after posing as being capable.?

“Arguing professionally? Now,may I ask Agabi with due respect, under which section of the law or rule of court is he bringing this his nebulous application to review a statute-barred case that the highest court in the land has effectively disposed of and become Functus Officio.?

“Did he advert his mind to Order 8 Rule16 of the Supreme Court rules 2014 that prohibits the Supreme Court from reviewing its judgement once delivered except to correct clerical mistakes?

“Is our justice system no longer according to law; has the 60 days window allowed by law on adjudication of electoral disputes not expired? Did he not look at the electoral Act and S285 of the 1999 constitution? Assuming without conceding that he notices a lacuna in the judgement delivered by reverred Justice Kekere Ekun (same mould of Niki Tobi & C Oputa), hhould his venue of appeal on the lacuna not be at the National Assembly to seek an amendment of the law?

“Is Agabi’s mindset now the law or the Nigerian law is as codified? Let him not because of lure of lucre lose his professional standing as a reputable lawyer.

“If Agabi were to be advocating for general equitable and conscionable society, what does he have to say on the declaration of a candidate as governor by a corrupt INEC Returning Officer when it was obvious he didn’t meet the constitutional requirement for declaration as governor.

“What has Agabi said about the unjust judgements delivered by the lower tribunals when they didn’t consider the obvious fact of a candidate not fulfilling the requirements of the law and was declared governor?

” How could a court of justice refuse to do a little arithmetic of calculation to determine if a returned candidate met a requirement of the grundnorm of Nigeria? Instead, the funny tribunals were busy questioning the suitability of a witness that’s a statistician giving evidence on a simple mathematical issue.

“All of us that were called to the bar including the judges studied Mathematics at one level or the other and could solve a little mathematical problem that doesn’t bother on Further Mathematics.

Dikeocha further stressed that “asking the Supreme Court to review the concluded Imo case amounts to reinventing the wheel of legal justice in Nigeria .

“This wilderness adventure if allowed would throw up a plethora of applications for reviews of concluded Supreme Court cases that were even handled by late justices of the Supreme Court from the days of justices Adetokunbo Ademola, Fatai Williams, Orojo, Chukwudifu Oputa, NikiTobi etc etc. Let’s not start what we can’t finish and allow the sleeping dogs to be,” Dikeocha stated.