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Oshoma Decries Cases Of Conflicting Verdicts In Court Cases

  A legal practitioner, Mr Liborous Oshoma, has decried the rate conflicting verdicts in litigations and multiple filings on the same cases in courts across … Continue reading Oshoma Decries Cases Of Conflicting Verdicts In Court Cases


Liborous Oshomah
Liborous Oshoma

 

A legal practitioner, Mr Liborous Oshoma, has decried the rate conflicting verdicts in litigations and multiple filings on the same cases in courts across the country.

Oshoma described the rate as worrying on Wednesday during his appearance on Channels Television’s political daily programme, Sunrise Daily.

He said parts of the reasons were insincerity on the part of some lawyers and the alleged incapability of the judicial council.

“There are a lot of factors that contribute to all of these,” said Oshoma.

“Insincerity on the part of litigants and lawyers and the inability of judges to manage their cases, and the inability of the National Judicial Council (NJC) to reign in some of these senior lawyers.”

The lawyer’s comments followed a meeting between Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, and the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, in preparation for the 2019 general elections.

At the meeting, Professor Yakubu had informed Justice Onnoghen that there were more than 1000 court cases arising from the 2015 general elections.

He had also decried the spread of conflicting judgements by the court of coordinate jurisdiction on the same subject matter which he said was worrisome.

But Oshoma believes some politicians were delaying justice by approaching multiple courts to challenge judgement of a previous court of competent authority.

He, however, called for a mechanism in dealing with such issues before reassigning the files to the Chief Judge for consolidation.

“There are cases where judges can distinguish cases but in a situation where you have similar parties and all they are litigating is about positions, I think there should be a mechanism for consolidating,” the lawyer said.

“We have seen fantastic judges that will look at cases and once there is an application before them, that there is a system matter, they take time to look at those matters and reassign such files to the Chief Judge for consolidation,” he added.