A GROUP of legal practitioners in Abuja, led by Olukayode Ajulo, has applied to the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, to prosecute contempt of court charge against persons who have made attacks on the ‘integrity of Justices of the Supreme Court of Nigeria and other judicial officers’.
Speaking to journalists, yesterday, Ajulo said relying on the provisions of Rule 30 of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners, 2007, a lawyer, as an officer of the court, must do everything within the ambit of the law to protect the court. He added that he was pressing the charge for the public good.
He alleged that the persons culpable for the acts are the Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay; National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun; Gubernatorial Candidate of APC in the 2015 Akwa-Ibom State governorship election, Umana Okon Umana and State Chairman, APC, Akwa-Ibom State, Dr. Amadu Attai.
Others, he said, are: State Secretary, APC Akwa-Ibom, Chief Effiong Etuk; State Publicity Secretary, APC Akwa-Ibom State Mr. Ita Awak.
In a letter to the AGF, he condemned the reactions and comments of certain critics and senior members of the bar on recent judgments of the Supreme Court, decrying attacks on the integrity of judicial officers as disgraceful.
He noted that if urgent steps were not taken to forestall the recurrence of such actions, the integrity of administration of justice would be affected.
In the application to the AGF, he described the actions as punishable acts before the court of law, arguing that the critics face the charge of contemptex facie curiae, which could be hastened if the AGF accedes to the request by granting a fiat to prosecute them.
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