Justice Inyang Edem Ekwo of the Federal Excessive Courtroom in Abuja has struck out a swimsuit instituted by a Coalition of Northern Teams looking for the exit of Igbos within the South East out of Nigeria.
The swimsuit by the group of elders and politicians from the North, led by Nastura Shariff, Balarabe Rufa’i, Abdul-Aziz Sulaiman and Aminu Adam was thrown out by the Decide following the persistent absence of the plaintiffs in court docket to ascertain their case.
When the matter got here up, not one of the plaintiffs was in court docket and so they weren’t represented by attorneys.
Justice Ekwo, after going by the case file, found that the Northern teams haven’t been coming to court docket since 2022 until date and had no authorized illustration.
In a short ruling, the Decide held that from all indications, the plaintiffs have deserted their very own swimsuit.
Justice Ekwo subsequently struck out the case for need of diligent prosecution.
The Northern group had filed the case asking the court docket to compel the Senate President and Speaker of the Home of Representatives to hasten the exit of the southeastern area out of Nigeria.
They pleaded that this needs to be performed earlier than the conclusion of the modification of Nigeria’s 1999 Structure.
The secession request was contained within the swimsuit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/538/2021 instituted by the group of elders and politicians from the North.
Within the swimsuit, they stated permitting the Igbo to exit Nigeria would finish violence and destruction within the South-East.
In addition they defined that this could cease the repeat of the 1967-1970 Civil Conflict in Nigeria that led to wanton destruction of lives and property.
The teams additionally stated this could put an finish to the agitations by members of the Indigenous Individuals of Biafra, IPOB, led by Nnamdi Kanu.
They prayed for, amongst others, a declaration that mixed impact of the provisions of Part 4 of the Nigerian Structure and Articles 1, 2, and 20 (1) of the African Constitution on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act 2004, “is empowered to set in movement a framework for a referendum to permit the south-eastern area of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to determine on their bid for self-determination.”
In addition they urged the court docket to order the second, third and fourth defendants (the Senate President, the Speaker of the Home of Representatives and the Nationwide Meeting) “to supply a framework that may pave means for the self-determination of the south-eastern states in order to depart the geographical entity referred to as Nigeria earlier than any additional step is taken to additional amend the structure of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
“The structure of the Federal Republic of Nigeria might be additional amended at any time after the query of self-determination will need to have been resolved by Nigerians,” the plaintiffs stated.
