The Court of Appeal said on Thursday that the purported resignation of a member of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), Justice Boloukuoromo Moses Ugo by an online is 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 newsmen on Thursday in Abuja in reaction 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 today on the internet.
The online report stated that, Justice Ugo resigned from the bench, citing demands from the executive branch that he believes 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 the purported statement, the judge was asked to “cripple the independence of the judiciary” by ruling in favor of a certain political candidate, who was not named but is 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 news.
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 nor the Information department of the Court of Appeal was contacted before dishing out what he called false report.
The Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Gregory Obi and PDP’ alongside Atiku are challenging the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.