The supreme court has fixed 17th of May, this year to deliver judgment in a suit the Cross River state government filed to challenge the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Walter Onnoghen, by president Muhammadu Buhari.
A seven-man panel of justices of the apex court, led by Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour, adjourned to determine the legal propriety of the action president Buhari took against Mr. Onnoghen.
President Buhari had on the basis of an ex-parte order issued by Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, in Abuja, ordered Mr. Onnoghen, who is facing corruption charge, to step aside, even as he swore in the next most senior jurist on the Supreme Court bench, Justice Tanko Muhammad, to take over as the acting CJN.
However, dissatisfied with the action, Cross
River State invoked section 22 of the Supreme Court act, which conferred the
apex court with original jurisdiction to sit as a court of first instance on
disputes between any state of the federation and the federal government.
