Supreme Court upholds Edozie Njoku as APGA National Chairman

The Supreme Court has upheld Edozie Njoku as the National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

A five-member panel of the Supreme Court, led by Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, said on Friday that it made a mistake in a judgement it delivered in 2021, where the court erroneously wrote the name of Victor Oye as APGA national chairman.

In its ruling on Friday, delivered by Mohammed Lawal, the Supreme Court restated its power to review its judgement and correct such an “accidental error,” when its attention was drawn to it.

Consequently, Mr Lawal ordered the removal of Mr Oye’s name as the national chairman of APGA.

Friday’s ruling was a result of a request by Mr Njoku to have the error corrected.

In the request filed by Mr Njoku’s lawyer, Chike Onyemenam, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), the APGA chairman prayed the Supreme Court to correct the typographical error in its judgement, which he argued wrongly gave APGA’s headship to Mr Oye.

Background

Mr Njoku explained that the Supreme Court had in a letter it wrote to him on 19 January, addressed him as the National Chairman of APGA, and asked him to approach it by way of an application to regularise the erroneous judgement.

The applicant relying on Order 8 Rule 16 of the Supreme Court Rules, urged the court to correct the typographical error in the lead verdict it delivered on 14 October, 2021, in an appeal that was presided over by Mary Peter-Odili, now a retired justice of the Supreme Court.

Specifically, Mr Njoku asked the Supreme Court to correct an accidental slip at Page 13, lines 3 to 4 of its judgment, where instead of writing the name of ‘Edozie Njoku’ who was unlawfully removed from his position as duly elected National Chairman of APGA at a national convention of the party in Owerri in 2019.

He said Mr Oye’s name was mistakenly inserted in the substantive suit which led to the appeal.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the Nigeria Police Force had arraigned Mr Njoku before a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, alleging that he forged a judgement of the Supreme Court.

The police accused Mr Njoku of presenting the alleged forged judgement as authentic with intent mislead the public and bring the judiciary into disrepute.

But when Mr Njoku was arraigned, he pleaded not guilty to the charge.

He thereafter approached the Supreme Court to prove his innocence.