Ugochukwu Iwuchukwu
The Court of Appeal sitting in Port Harcourt has dismissed an application by the Conscience of Ogoni People which had sought to set aside the judgment of Ogoni Civil Disturbances Tribunal that led to the execution of environmental rights activist Ken Saro Wiwa in Nov. 1995.
Justice Cordelia Jumbo-ofo of the Appellant Court while delivering judgment on the matter said the applicant and National Coordinator of the Conscience of Ogoni People Gani Topba did not have the locus standing to appear in the matter.
Justice Cordelia Jumbo-ofo said the applicant Gani Togba did not state the damages or injuries it suffered by their death of Ken Saro Wiwa.
The Appeal Court, however, affirmed the judgment of Justice Lima Abdullahi of the Federal High and dismissed the application filed by Conscience of Ogoni People due to lack of merit.
In the meantime, the National Coordinator of Conscience of Ogoni People Gani Topba said they will appeal the judgment at the Supreme Court.
Gani Topba during a press conference in Port Harcourt said the Supreme Court will hear the merits of their case.
He insisted that the environmental right activities Ken Saro-Wiwa and others were unjustly killed by the Federal Government in November 1995.
”We are heading to the Supreme Court, you know in a country when the right of the minority can be denied at every level, already I know what the judgment today will look like because I predicted what will happen”.
”You know the judgment at this court was reserved the first time, kept after three months nothing happened, it reserved again, this is also after three months and you know the constitution ban that within three months reserving judgment, you must deliver that judgment”.
”But as the case may be, I have hope in the Supreme Court of the Federal Republic of Nigeria that they will do justice to it. Because if you don’t look at the law and make right where things are done wrong and you don’t put it rightly, you allow that to repeat itself because the person is from minority”.
”You cannot look at human right issues and strike them out on technical ground. You must look at the merit of that application. Was Saro Wiwa killed wrongly? Yes. So if its yes, the judgment must be set aside” he said.
He added that the Conscious of Ogoni People will continue its push to exonerate Ken Saro-Wiwa and others of the charges the Federal Government used to convict them in 1995.
