N423bn probe: El-Rufai reports judge to CJ, alleges bias

A former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has filed a petition against Justice Rilwan M. Aikawa, the judge presiding over his case against the Kaduna State House of Assembly at the Federal High Court, Kaduna.

El-Rufai, in the petition filed to the Federal High Court, Abuja by his counsel, Abdulhakeem Mustapha (SAN), alleged bias, injustice and denial to fair hearing.

Recall that El-Rufai had in June 2024, filed a fundamental rights case at the court, challenging the report by the House which accused him and some government officials of misappropriating N423 billion on the grounds that the House did not give him a fair hearing during its sitting.

He then asked the court to declare the Assembly’s report as null and void.

El-Rufai in his petition to the Chief Judge of the Abuja Federal High Court through his counsel prayed that the matter should be transferred to another judge in the interest of justice.

The petition read, “The Applicant herein filed this captioned suit to enforce his Fundamental Human Rights to fair hearing against the Respondents on the 26th day of June, 2024 at the Federal High Court, Kaduna Division. Upon filing the same, the matter was assigned to Honourable Justice R.M. Aikawa, who fixed the same for hearing on the 8th day of July, 2024.

“When this matter was called on the 8th of July 2024, S.S. Umoru, Esq appeared for the Applicant while Sani Katu, SAN appeared for the 1 Respondent. Sule Shuaibu, SAN, the Honourable Attorney-General of Kaduna State, appeared in person for the 2nd Respondent. While our Umoru, Esq. informed the court that they had been served with the processes from the 2nd Respondent and were still within time to respond to the same, the Learned Silk for the 1st Respondent informed the Court that they had not filed any processes and that they were out of time to do so by one day. He said their processes were being filed. By the agreement of all counsel on record, the Honourable Court adjourned the matter to the 17th day of July, 2024.

“On the said 17th of July, 2024, our principal, A.U. Mustapha, SAN appeared in Court with S.S. Umoru Esq. and Habib Dauda, Esq having arrived from Lagos a day earlier, but we were informed that the Court would not sit. As a result, he proceeded back to Lagos.

“On the night of the 17th July 2024, we got the information in the news that the matter was fixed for the 18th of July 2024. In view of this extremely short time, we caused a letter of adjournment to be written and filed in court. The said letter was filed and served on the court and all the counsel in the matter. We also copied your Lordship. The said letter is hereby annexed.

“The letter of adjournment notwithstanding, the Honourable Court went ahead and proceeded to hear the matter wherein the Respondents adopted their processes and adumbrated further on the same. The action of the Presiding Judge to hear the matter without the attendance and appearance of the Applicant smacks of extreme bias, injustice, and denial of fair hearing against the Applicant for a lot of reasons.”

The petition noted that the Applicant was not put on notice for the proceedings of 18th of July, 2024 as expressly explained in the letter of adjournment saying, “We only got a whiff of the hearing on the night of 17th of July which is an extremely short time for us to appear in Court. Service of hearing notice in a matter is sacrosanct and our courts have held severally that every party must be put on notice before his case can be heard and this was done without putting the Applicants counsel on notice.”

“The Applicant was not given an opportunity to respond to the 1st Respondent’s counter affidavit and written address. The 1st Respondent filed his processes out of time and followed the same up with an application for extension of time. Thus, it is elementary that the Applicant’s time to respond to the processes would begin to count upon the grant of the Application for extension of time. The Application for extension of time was moved and granted on the 18th of July 2024.

“By virtue of Order 11 Rule 7 of the Fundamental Human Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules 2009, the Applicant has five days to respond to the counter affidavit and written address but the court went ahead and heard the matter the very day the application for extension of time was moved and granted, thereby expressly shutting out the Applicant from responding to the processes,” the petition added.