Kano state chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Abbas has given the state’s Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Haruna Isa Dederi, 48 hours to withdraw the allegations that APC leaders are influencing the State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and the Justices of the Court of Appeal to sack Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party NNPP.
He threatened that the commissioner risk being dragged before the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) and institute legal action against Dederi should he fail to withdraw the defamatory statement.
Last Wednesday, Dederi on the Channels Television programme ‘Sunrise Daily’ made spurious allegations on the Justices of the Appeal Court over the petition against the March 18 victory of Governor Yusuf.
Abbas’s ultimatum and threats were contained in a petition to the Commissioner dated November 23rd titled, “Injurious, malicious and false statement against the judiciary and our party on a live television program and a voice note going round in the social media: Demand for retraction,” and made available to newsmen in Abuja on Sunday.
Abbas said Dederi had gone on national television to “maliciously and falsely allege that the decision of the Tribunal to deliver judgment via Zoom was because of interference.”
He also quoted the Commissioner to have maligned justices of the appellate court by saying; “According to information available to us, there was interference by forces that be. Some people have an interest in this country and can go to any extent to jeopardize things because of their political interest and that was what played out in the judgment.”
In the petition which Abbas copied the President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the Kano state chairman of the association, pointed out that Dederi made a voice recording in his capacity as the Attorney General of Kano State countering the statement issued by the Chief Registrar of the Court of Appeal in respect of the clerical error in the judgment.
According to him, “In the said voice note, you made innuendos suggesting that the Justices of the Court of Appeal were indeed compromised.
“From the above statements, it is clear for any discerning mind to infer that you were suggesting influence on the judges by our party leaders, which you know is far from the truth.”
