The former Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs Pauline Tallen, has approached the Court of Appeal in Abuja to set aside the judgment of an FCT high court which barred her from holding public office.
Before now, Justice Peter Kekemeke of the FCT High Court had barred Tallen in a case filed against her by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) over her alleged “disparaging” comment against an earlier court judgment.
Tallen was given an option of publishing a personally signed apology letter to the NBA, the judiciary and Nigerians in one full page each of two national dailies, the Guardian and the Punch, within 30 days from the date of its judgment, failing which the order becomes perpetual.
However, Tallen, through her lawyer, JK Gadzama SAN, has formulated 13 grounds of appeal against the trial court’s decision.
The former Deputy Governor of Plateau and one-time Minister of State, Science and Technology also prayed the appellate court to among other reliefs, dismiss the suit and set aside the decision of the court below.
In the new appeal,
Tallen prayed the Court of Appeal to set aside the said judgment, arguing that the ruling was tantamount to a miscarriage of justice.
She argued that the trial court erred in law in its decision against her preliminary objection on the competence of the respondent’s affidavit, locus standi, and propriety of the suit, in spite of the credible evidence submitted, was a miscarriage of justice.
Tallen, as the serving Minister of Women Affairs and a stalwart of the APC, while reacting to the judgment at a public function, allegedly described it as a Kangaroo judgment, whose aim was the marginalisation of women in Nigerian politics.
She alleged that many women, like Binani, who was the only female aspirant in the Adamawa APC governorship primary, were not treated fairly during the primaries for the 2023 general elections.
Led by its President, Yakubu Maikyau, SAN, the NBA did not take the former minister’s comments lightly and sought an apology from her but to no avail.
The NBA then wrote her a letter, dated 14 November, 2022, demanding a withdrawal of the alleged disparaging comments and tendering of an unreserved and public apology to the court, which Tallen never responded to hence the institution of the suit against her in the law court.
