*Holds “The Attempt To Say The Notice Of Appeal Was Filed In Error Is Futile And Does Not Convince This Court At All”
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The High Court of Imo State sitting in the Orlu Judicial Division has set aside as a nullity the Certified True Copy of a judgment in a suit against the Governor of Imo State, holding that the certified document is not the judgment that was delivered and read in open court, and finding that the record book of the court was doctored.
The ruling was delivered on Tuesday, 21 July 2026 by Hon. Justice S.I. Okpara in Motion No. HOR/317M/2025, arising from Suit No. HOR/98/2019, Hon. Chief Athanasius Uche Ogoh v. The Governor of Imo State, the Attorney-General of Imo State and the Commissioner for Land, Survey and Urban Planning, Imo State.
The Plaintiff/Applicant filed the motion on 20 November 2025 seeking two orders: first, an order setting aside the document purporting to be the Certified True Copy of the judgment delivered on 24 June 2025 in the suit; and second, an order directing Hon. Justice M.E. Nwagboso (Rtd) to produce the actual judgment delivered and read in open court on that date.
Eight grounds were stated on the face of the motion paper. It was supported by a seventeen paragraph affidavit sworn by the Applicant with seven exhibits marked A to G, and a further affidavit of five paragraphs with three exhibits marked H, I and J.
The Defendants/Respondents filed a counter affidavit of ten paragraphs sworn by Mr Bruno Nwachukwu, a litigation officer in the office of the 2nd Defendant/Respondent, with two exhibits, and a second counter affidavit of ten paragraphs on 31 March 2026 by the same deponent.
FACTS
The Applicant’s case was that on 24 June 2025 Hon. Justice M.E. Nwagboso delivered a considered judgment in Suit No. HOR/98/2019 in which His Lordship found and entered judgment for him against the Defendants/Respondents, but that the Certified True Copy issued to him on 23 July 2025 was entirely different from the judgment read.
As the ruling records the complaint, in the judgment delivered and read in open court on 24 June 2025 the Applicant won the case and all his reliefs were granted, but in the Certified True Copy issued to him on 23 July 2025, his case was dismissed.
To prove it, he relied on exhibit A, the certified cause list of the court for 24 June 2025; on exhibits E, F, G and H, being affidavits of facts sworn by four legal practitioners present in court when the judgment was delivered — Chief Remy Chukwujieze Ogu, a senior legal practitioner, Agbodike Celestine Chinedu, Esq., Chief C.I. Asika Ilobi, Esq., and F.N. Ojinka, Esq. — and on a Certified True Copy of the notice of appeal filed by the Defendants/Respondents on 26 June 2025, two days after judgment.
ARGUMENT
Learned counsel for the Applicant, M.A. Njemanze, SAN, submitted that the Certified True Copy is a nullity and ought to be set aside because it is not the judgment delivered and read in open court, which was in the Applicant’s favour. He buttressed the point by submitting that the Defendants/Respondents could not have appealed against a judgment which was in their favour, and that the notice and grounds of appeal filed on 26 June 2025 clearly showed that they had lost.
For the Defendants/Respondents, the case in both counter affidavits was that the judgment delivered and read in open court on 24 June 2025 is as contained in the Certified True Copy issued on 23 July 2025. On the appeal, they contended that it had been filed in error, their counsel having been unable, on account of illness, to instruct the litigation officer not to file a notice and grounds of appeal prepared in anticipation of the judgment going against them.
The learned State counsel, Mrs V.E. Ekemgba, argued that the court is functus officio and lacks jurisdiction to entertain the motion; that the motion constitutes an abuse of process, the Applicant having also filed an appeal on 23 September 2025 against the judgment as contained in the Certified True Copy; and that the Certified True Copy was in fact the judgment delivered in open court.
THE AMICI CURIAE
In the course of hearing, the court invited Chief M.I. Ahamba, SAN, leader of the Body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Imo State Chapter, and Chief Chris Ihentuge, Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Owerri Branch, to address it as amici curiae. Chief Ahamba filed a written address on 9 June 2026, and both appeared and addressed the court on 11 June 2026.
Chief Ahamba, SAN, argued that the motion does not ask the court to determine the correctness or otherwise of the judgment, but to set it aside as a nullity for not being the judgment read in open court. He accepted that the court lacks the vires to inquire into the correctness of the judgment, while submitting that it has jurisdiction to set it aside on the ground of nullity.
He informed the court that, following the invitation to address it, he applied for the Certified True Copy of His Lordship’s handwritten record in order to ascertain the summary of the judgment in the record book, and that what the Registrar issued to him clearly shows that the record book in respect of the judgment was doctored, because a piece of typewritten paper was used to cover completely the portion where His Lordship had recorded the summary of the judgment in long hand.
Chief Chris Ihentuge adopted that argument and added that the appeal filed on 26 June 2025 is extensive and exhaustive, and could only have been filed by a legal practitioner who listened to the judgment, rather than one prepared in anticipation of an outcome inferred from the body language of the judge, as the Respondents’ deponent claimed.
DECISION OF THE COURT
Resolving the motion, the High Court held:
On the limits of its own jurisdiction. The court affirmed that it lacks jurisdiction to inquire into or determine the correctness or otherwise of the judgment of Hon. Justice M.E. Nwagboso, having so held in Motion Nos. HOR/262M/2025, HOR/275M/2025 and HOR/267M/2025, all in Suit No. HOR/35/2025, Emmanuel Odidika & 3 Ors v. Governor of Imo State & 3 Ors. It held, however, that the motion before it does not seek any such determination; prayer (a) asks only that the Certified True Copy be set aside on the ground that it is not the judgment delivered and read in open court.
On the affidavit evidence. The court held that the Applicant had produced affidavits from four legal practitioners who had matters listed on the certified cause list for that day and were physically present when the judgment was delivered and read, all of whom deposed that the Applicant won. The Defendants/Respondents produced no evidence from any other legal practitioner present in court that day, not even from their own counsel, Osita Chukwuemeka, Esq., who was in court, to counter or controvert affidavit evidence the court described as unequivocal and unanimous.
On the notice of appeal. Having read the Certified True Copy, the court noted that it clearly states that the Applicant’s case was dismissed, meaning that the Defendants/Respondents won. It held it rather curious that the same Defendants/Respondents, whose counsel was in court on the day, would proceed to file on 26 June 2025 a detailed notice and grounds of appeal — comprising six grounds with numerous particulars — against a judgment they say was in their favour. The court held that the attempt by the litigation officer to explain the appeal as filed in error is futile and does not convince the court at all, a position made worse by the failure of the Respondents’ own counsel to swear an affidavit debunking the Applicant’s evidence.
On the record book. Acting on the submissions of the amicus curiae, the court critically examined the record book in which His Lordship usually recorded in long hand the summary of each judgment delivered and read by him in open court, and discovered that the portion recording the summary of the judgment in Suit No. HOR/98/2019 delivered on 24 June 2025 was completely covered with a typewritten paper. The court held that this feature in the record book is strange, and not the usual practice of His Lordship or of other superior courts.
On abuse of process. The court held that the motion is not an abuse of process notwithstanding the appeal filed by the Applicant on 23 September 2025. It held that it is not the mere filing of a process that constitutes an abuse, relying on Ikokwu v. Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (2017) LPELR-50682 (CA), where the Court of Appeal held that abuse of process would only arise where the subject matter and the parties in two or more proceedings are the same and are simultaneously pursued or maintained, and on FUTO v. AMCON (2024) LPELR-63036 (SC). Abuse of process, the court held, is the intention or act of using a process of court to the irritation or vexation of a party and not for the proper administration of justice, citing Ogboru v. Uduaghan (2013) 13 NWLR (Pt. 1370) 33, R-Benkay Nig Ltd v. Cadbury Nig Ltd (2012) LPELR-7820 (SC) and Ogar & Ors v. Igbe & Ors (2019) LPELR-48998 (SC).
On inherent jurisdiction. The court held that it has inherent power to set aside any of its proceedings or court process, or that of a court of coordinate jurisdiction, that is a nullity — particularly where, as here, the Applicant has presented sufficient evidence clearly indicating that the record book of the court was doctored and that the Certified True Copy issued on 23 July 2025 is not the judgment delivered and read in open court on 24 June 2025. It relied on Obimonure v. Erinosho & Anor (1966) LPELR 2530 (SC), where the Supreme Court held that a person affected by an order which can properly be described as a nullity is entitled ex debito justitiae to have it set aside under the inherent jurisdiction of the court that made the order, without necessarily appealing against it, appeal being for the determination of the correctness or otherwise of a judgment.
ORDERS
The court held that it had no difficulty in agreeing with the Applicant that the Certified True Copy issued on 23 July 2025 is not the judgment delivered and read by Hon. Justice M.E. Nwagboso on 24 June 2025, and ruled that the said Certified True Copy, exhibit B or exhibit 1, is a nullity.
Prayer (a) succeeded, and it was ordered that the Certified True Copy issued on 23 July 2025 be set aside for being a nullity.
Prayer (b) was held not grantable, Hon. Justice M.E. Nwagboso being neither a party in Suit No. HOR/98/2019 nor a party in the motion, and was struck out. No order was made as to costs.
The court thanked Chief M.I. Ahamba, SAN, and Chief Chris Ihentuge for offering their time, knowledge and wealth of experience at the Bar as amici curiae.
APPEARANCES
M.A. Njemanze, SAN, with O.J. Odoemena and B.A. Abaku for the Plaintiff/Applicant. Mrs V.E. Ekemgba, Director, for the Defendants/Respondents. Chief M.I. Ahamba, SAN, with E.M. Ichie, Esq., as amicus curiae. The parties were absent.
WHAT IT MEANS IN LAW
The ruling rests on a distinction that will carry beyond Orlu: between a judgment that is wrong and a document that is not a judgment at all. A court of coordinate jurisdiction cannot sit on appeal over a brother judge, and Justice Okpara said so at the outset, citing his own earlier rulings in the Odidika motions. What he held he could do is different in kind. Where the instrument before the court is not what it purports to be, the inherent jurisdiction to set aside a nullity is engaged, and Obimonure supplies the authority: a party faced with a nullity need not appeal, because there is nothing valid to appeal against.
That matters practically because of the office a Certified True Copy performs. It is the operative instrument of a judgment — what is served, enforced, executed and appealed against. If the certified text can differ in result from what was pronounced in open court, delivery in court ceases to be the decisive judicial act, and no party can know the outcome of a case until the registry produces paper.
The evidential route is equally instructive for practitioners. The Applicant did not seek to prove the content of the judgment by assertion. He produced the certified cause list to establish who was in court, four affidavits from practitioners who heard the judgment delivered, and, most tellingly, the Respondents’ own six-ground notice of appeal filed two days later. The court treated the unrebutted affidavits together with that appeal as displacing the certified text, and drew a clear adverse inference from the silence of the Respondents’ own counsel, who was present on the day and swore nothing.
What the ruling does not do, and could not do, is reach the judge. Prayer (b) failed on the elementary ground that a person who is not a party cannot be commanded in proceedings to which he is a stranger. Two questions therefore remain live. The first is remedial: the judgment of 24 June 2025 exists, but its authentic text is still not in circulation, which has direct consequences for the appeals filed on both sides. The second is disciplinary a judicial finding that a court’s record book was doctored is a finding about conduct, and it belongs to the National Judicial Council and, potentially, to prosecuting authorities rather than to the Orlu Judicial Division.
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