- The judge must have been convinced without any external influence before making the order
Nkem Okoro, Esq, an Abuja-based legal practitioner, has condemned social media attacks on Justice Sylvanus Chinedu Oriji of the FCT High Court for his decision on the #EndBadGovernance Protest.
On July 31, Justice Oriji barred participants in the #EndBadGovernance Protest from marching on the streets of the FCT and instead directed them to use the Moshood Abiola Stadium, also known as the National Stadium.
However, in an interview with Daily Trust, Okoro said he was shocked to read the insinuations linking the judge with FCT Minister Nyesom Wike over his decision.
He said the judge is one of the finest judges in the FCT with a merit-based adjudication style which is worthy of emulation on the bench.
“Incidentally the judge is the admin vacation judge hence any matter that comes before him during vacation, he has the right to assign either to himself or other vacation judges and if he assigned that matter to himself, he determined it on merit,” he said.
Okoro said for the particular application having been argued by two senior advocates of Nigeria, the judge must have been convinced without any external influence before making the order.
“If the lawyers could convince them (judges) on the interim injunction, it is always at their (judges) discretion to grant such applications.
“I am sure he probed them before giving the order and I am sure that every reasonable Nigerian knows that that application was granted on the exigencies of the moment and so nobody will question it.”
The lawyer said the judge had been doing his work well long before the appointment of Wike as FCT Minister, adding that he once enjoyed some favourable order from him even when he never met him.