Appeal Court consolidates all appeals on Onnoghen

The Court of Appeal on Monday consolidated all the appeals of the suspended Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, to be heard on February 12.
The three-member panel, led by Justice Stephen Adah, gave the short ruling following a request by Mr Onnoghen’s Counsel, Chris Uche, to hear the three appeals since they are of the same matter.
Mr Adah said this is because the three appeals are pending before the court.
“The request of the appellant to adjourn this matter has been granted and thereby adjourned. The appeal (is) to be heard on February 12, since the three appeals (are) already pending before this court.
During the court session, Mr Uche said, “We have three appeal(s) appearing before this court from the code of conduct tribunal (CCT) and they are namely: CA/A/44C/2019,CA/A/63C/2019 and CA/A/70C/2019.
“All the three appeals are between the same appellant and the same respondent. They all arise from the same charge CCT/ABJ/01/2019 between the same party.

“We have written to this court by a letter dated January 30 requesting that the three appeals be taken the same day as all of them are arising from the same matter.
“My Lord, we are humbly applying for an adjournment for this present appeal to another date when the two sister appeal maybe listed and taken together. We are requesting this in order to save the court from writing different judgements,” on the same matter.
Responding, the respondent, Onyin Kole-Osho, said they would not oppose the request of the appellant (Mr Onnoghen).
“My lord, we are not opposed to the appeal being listed together.”
This paper had reported how the appeal court on January 30 dismissed a request brought by Mr Onnoghen, for a stay of proceedings in his trial at CCT.
The court, in its ruling said Mr Onnoghen’s request “was brought in a vacuum,” without a proper backing of legal provisions why it should have been granted.
Following the ruling, the court slated February 4 for hearing of the motions in the matter.

But Mr Onnoghen’s Monday request led to the adjournment till February 12, to hear all the appeals pending before the court.