Appeal Court clears air on purported resignation of PEPC member

• A report had suggested that Justice Ugo resigned from the bench
• The report also suggested that he was asked to suppress evidence and dismiss cases that could have an impact on the election
• Chief Registrar of the Court of Appeal said that there was no iota of truth in the report
  

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The Court of Appeal has described as false, the report of the resignation of a member of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), Justice Justice Boloukuoromo Moses Ugo.

The Appellate Court described the report as false and misleading.

Chief Registrar of the Court, Malam Umar Mohammed Bangari, while dismissing the report, appealed to the general public to ignore the fake news in its entirety.

Bangari spoke with journalists on Thursday in Abuja while reacting to the widespread news on the purported resignation of the PEPC member.

The news of the purported resignation of Justice Ugo from the Bench, citing demands “to kneecap democracy”, broke earlier on Thursday on the internet.

The online report stated that Justice Ugo resigned from the bench, citing demands from the executive branch that he believed would destroy the country’s democracy.

In a statement, as reported by the online platform, Justice Ugo said that siding with the government on the petitions challenging the election of Bola Ahmed Tinubu would be the “death of Nigeria’s democracy” and that he could not in good conscience remain silent.

According to Justice Ugo’s purported statement, he was asked to “cripple the independence of the judiciary” by ruling in favour of a certain political candidate, whom he did not name but widely believed to be Bola Tinubu.

In addition to this, he was asked to suppress evidence and dismiss cases that could have an impact on the election.

But, the Chief Registrar of the Court of Appeal said that there was no iota of truth in the report.

The Chief Registrar explained that Justice Ugo is still on the panel of Justices of the Court handling the petitions by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Labour Party (LP) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

Bangari while faulting the report said that neither his office not the Information Department of the Court was contacted before dishing out the what he called false report.

The Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Gregory Obi, and PDP alongside Atiku Abubakar are currently challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.