By Maduabuchi Nmeribeh/Kano
Civil Society Organizations (CSO) under the auspices of the Citizen for Development and Education (CDE) and the Organization for community Civic Engagement (OCCEN), on Thursday, accused a Kano Federal High Court judge, Justice Simon Amobeda, of trying to truncate democracy through his judgements targeted at stopping Saturday’s Local Government elections in Kano state.
Justice Amobeda had sacked the chairman of Kano State Independent Electoral Commission and other Commissioners of the Commission in his ruling that they are card-carrying members of a political party.
Addressing journalists at Kano NUJ Press Centre on Thursday, leaders of the CSOs, Ambassador Ibrahim Waiya and Abdulrazak Alkali, insisted that the judgements of Justice Amobeda are not only capable of truncating democracy, but can also cause socio-political unrest in Kano.
Acccording to Waiya who spoke on behalf of the CSOs, “Justice Amobeda should be held responsible if violence erupt before or during the scheduled state local government elections for granting orders that go against the interest of the government and people in the state.
” Justice Amobeda has excelled in granting various orders at his court that disrespect state institutions, the religion and culture of Kano people.
“Since justice Amobeda come to Kano, we have been following instances and happening in his honorable court, more than 30 orders have been issued at his court all against Kano people, Kano state government and public interest.
“We understand that justice Amobeda is billed to issue a judgment today regarding the conduct of this election, but he deliberately and intensionally decided not to do it and shifted it to tomorrow because he understand that another high court has slated tomorrow to give its judgement, so why is this happening ?
“Why is he so particular aimed to truncate any development of Kano ?, We are peace advocates, we are peace promoters, and we hate anything that has a tendency of jeopardizing peace that we are enjoying in our state.
“Tomorrow, we may have two different judgments, one is positive, one is negative OR one is negative, one is positive, we know Kano is very volatile, and this is the state that has more than 20 million people, if he issue another order tomorrow it may likely course cious, or violence in the state.
“And it is on this note, we are trying to inform him about the tendency and implications of whatever he is trying to do, and to caution him that if anything happened tomorrow because of his judgment, he is going to be responsible for that.”
He said, “civil society organizations will follow-up to ensure that no anybody was used to create breach of laws and order in the state.”
He urged president Bola Ahmed Tinubu and President of the Federal High Court to intervene and deal with the situation and transfer the Judge out of the state.