Barely six months after condemning the Supreme Court and castigating its current cohort as delivering judgments based on a confused mindset rather than evidence and law, a former head of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Olisa Agbakoba, on Monday, berated media outlets for allowing legal debates on the controversies surrounding President Bola Tinubu’s certificate from the Chicago State University on their platforms.
In a post on his X account, formerly Twitter, the senior lawyer said the disclosure by the U.S. institution that it did not issue the certificate Mr Tinubu filed to run for president was dangerously heating Nigeria’s polity, urging the NBA to gag lawyers from discussing the matter until the Supreme Court has taken a final decision.
Mr Agbakoba’s comments, which have thrown him the collective outrage of Nigerians, marked a sharp contrast from his criticism of the court for its controversial decisions earlier this year.
“I’ve lost a bit of confidence in what the courts have been doing lately,” Mr Agbakoba said in March. “There was a time you could say, on the facts and the law, this is the likely outcome. Today you cannot because there’s been all kinds of silly decisions.”
Mr Agbakoba was speaking on the grave injustice that most Nigerians felt the court perpetrated when it suddenly awarded the senatorial ticket for Yobe North to Ahmad Lawan, who was then serving as Senate President but who did not participate at all in the senatorial primary because he was seeking the presidential ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
The decision was also criticised by the United States and the European Union, who said it strengthened the public’s lack of confidence in the nation’s judiciary.
Mr Agbakoba returned to Twitter on Monday with a different estimation of the court that appeared geared towards giving Mr Tinubu a respite over a matter that has set the country on the edge over the past two months.
“I call out all media that tolerate this nonsense of adjudicating the CSU matter on TV and newspapers,” said Mr Agbakoba.
The lawyer also urged the president of the NBA to publicly denounce legal practitioners violating professional ethics by using the media as a court of law.
“I urge the president of the Nigerian Bar Association to call out lawyers that breach rules of ethics by turning the media into a Court of Law,” he stated.
Many Nigerians, especially on social media, have questioned the legality of Mr Tinubu’s university certificate after details of his certificate were publicised last week.
This followed Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar’s petition before an Illinois court in the United States of America. Mr Abubakar sought access to the president’s academic records as evidence at the Supreme Court, where he headed after the tribunal upheld Mr Tinubu’s victory.
The president’s certificate saga has since resulted in controversies, as many, including legal practitioners and critics of the president, publicly analysed the academic record and its implication on the country’s image.
But Mr Agbakoba said he was ashamed to see lawyers on television debating the virtues or shortcomings of the Chicago State University case, calling it “unhelpful.”
“The cacophony of discordant voices on Tinubu/Atiku over the certificate matter is completely out of hand. This utter nonsense from armchair lawyers is heating up Nigeria dangerously,” the senior lawyer said.
“Please, can we keep our opinions and views to ourselves, awaiting a decision of the Supreme Court?” he added.
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