The Supreme Court of Nigeria has handed the executive and the legislative arms of government a 48-hour ultimatum to resolve their differences over the Fourth Alteration to the 1999 Constitution Bill, ordering them to return to it after harmonising their respective positions with the report of their out-of-court settlement on May 27.
The apex court reached this decision following an application filed by the National Assembly, through its counsel, Adegboyega Awomolo, seeking re-listing of the case before the expiration of the current National Assembly on June 5.
He had prayed the court to discharge its order of interlocutory injunction made on May 7 for the maintenance of status quo by parties and restraining the National Assembly from overriding the president’s veto of the amendments.
However, the Supreme Court noted on Monday that the issues in contention were simple and could be reconciled by the parties without the court’s intervention.
Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Mahmud Mohammed, who presided over the proceedings, issued the deadline following an application by Bayo Ojo, who is the counsel to the Federal Government. Ojo had sought to amend the originating summons in the application which he filed on behalf of the Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, by seeking to substitute the AGF with the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as the plaintiff.
But the National Assembly’s counsel opposed the application on the ground that it was “incurably defective”. He argued that the proper party in the suit was the President of Nigeria, who was not before the court and, therefore, urged the court to strike out the suit.
In his response, Ojo argued that Awomolo’s application, dated May 20, and brought to court on Monday, was to deal with the inherent defectiveness of his originating summons.
The CJN, however, disagreed with Ojo, saying that even if the AGF was replaced with the President, the originating process would still be defective since the supporting affidavit was not sworn to by the president.
He advised the Federal Government’s counsel to withdraw the originating summons and come back with a fresh suit which he did accordingly, but the originating summons was struck out by the court.
However, Awomolo’s refusal to give a written undertaking on behalf of the National Assembly on the maintenance of status quo ante as earlier ordered by the court on May 7, made the court to direct the parties to go back and reconcile and report their out-of-court settlement on Wednesday.
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