Gowon urges Nigerians to accept Supreme Court’s decision on election petitions

Former Head of State, Yakubu Gowon, has appealed to Nigerians to abide by whatever the decisions of the Supreme Court may be on the disputes arising from the last general elections.

Mr Gowon’s appeal comes amidst criticisms trailing some controversial judgements of the Supreme Court concerning the Senate President Ahmad Lawan and Godswill Akpabio, senator-elect and former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs.

There are a plethora of petitions challenging the outcome of Nigeria’s 2023 general elections.

Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s president-elect, declared as the winner of the 25 February presidential election, faces at least five petitions challenging his victory at the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja.

Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, who were presidential candidates of the PDP and LP, respectively, have urged the court to nullify Mr Tinubu’s victory, citing alleged noncompliance with the electoral law among other irregularities during the election.

Mr Gowon urged Nigerians to allow the Supreme Court to adjudicate on the electoral disputes before it at the 15th Annual Lecture of PUNUKA Attorneys and Solicitors on Thursday.

This year’s edition of the annual programme was styled to be a commemoration of the 100th birth anniversary of the founder of the law firm and former Justice of the Supreme Court justice, Chukwunweike Idigbe, who passed on about four decades ago.

“As we move forward as a nation, let us not forget the role that the judiciary plays in nation-building.

“As such, we need to allow the apex court, their deliberations and come up with their deliberations and come up with their decisions, and we must accept their decisions as final in order to maintain the sanctity of the judiciary,” Mr Gowon, 88, said.

Mr Gowon was Nigeria’s head of state between 1966 and 1975 when the country fought a bitter Civil War.

‘Idigbe unsung hero of democracy’

Mr Gowon extolled the deceased jurist’s virtues of integrity and hard work.

“Justice Idigbe was one of the finest jurists that ever sat on the Supreme Court bench,” the former Head of State recalled.

He said Mr Idigbe embodied the ideals of courage, service, justice and fairness.

Speaking in the same vein, the chairman of the occasion, Adegboyega Awomolo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) said Mr Idigbe was a man of “immense knowledge of the law and integrity.”

The minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola (SAN), commended the Idigbe family for keeping their father’s beautiful legacy alive.

Mr Fashola urged Nigerians to allow the judiciary to carry out its obligations “according to law.”

In an interview with journalists, Anthony Idigbe, a son of the deceased jurist and Senior Party of the law firm, recalled his father’s judicial philosophy of “substantial justice” rather than technicalities.

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The late Mr Idigbe studied law at King’s College, University of Cambridge and won the much-coveted Forster-Campbell Prize in Criminal Law in 1946.

He was one of the four Nigerians to pass the Cambridge University Law examination with honours.

In 1947, Mr Idigbe returned to Nigeria and was called to the Nigerian Bar.

He was appointed a judge of the Eastern Nigeria High Court, and in 1964, he was elevated to the position of Justice of the Supreme Court.

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From 1964 to 1967, he served concurrently as the Chief Justice of the newly created Mid-Western region before he ceased to be a Nigerian judge as a result of the Civil War.

In 1975, he was reappointed as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

Mr Idigbe died in 1983 at 59, while on the bench of the Supreme Court.