Fire Guts Supreme Court Building

A fire outbreak on Monday morning occurred at the Supreme Court of Nigeria at Three Arms Zone in Abuja, destroying some parts of the federal institution.

The mysterious fire burnt down the offices of some justices and forced some occupants of the building to scamper for safety.

The Public Relations Officer for the Court, Festus Akande, who spoke to Channels Television on Telephone said the cause of the fire was electrical from one of the Chambers of the Justices and was put out with the use of fire extinguishers.

Akande added that the stories making the rounds on social media that there are casualties are “fake news”.

A source who chose to remain anonymous said the fire started around 6 am.

It was gathered that the cleaners on duty and some of the workers who resumed early for work detected the fire and raised the alarm.

The workers were said to have used the fire extinguishers in the building to combat the fire.

As of the time of filing this report, three justices’ office, including that of Justice Mohammed Saulawa, have already been razed completely, and the fire is still spreading.

This sad incident comes days after the 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and his counterpart in the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, filed their cases at the apex court, seeking a nullification of the Presidential Election Petition Court’s judgement.

Naija News recalls that the presidential tribunal on the 6th of September, 2023 upheld the declaration of Bola Tinubu as the winner of the 2023 presidential election.

Atiku, in the Notice of Appeal, predicated on 35 grounds, insisted that the tribunal, in the judgment delivered by Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, committed grave error and miscarriage of justice in its findings and conclusion in the petition challenging the declaration of Tinubu as President by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The Notice of Appeal just filed by Atiku’s lead counsel, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, is praying the Supreme Court to set aside the whole findings and conclusions of the Tribunal on the grounds that they did not represent the true picture of the grounds of his petition.

Among others, the former Vice President maintained that the Tribunal erred in law when it failed to nullify the presidential election held on February 25, 2023, on the grounds of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022, when by evidence before the tribunal, INEC conducted the election based on grave and gross misrepresentation contrary to the principles of the Electoral Act 2022 and based on the “doctrine of legitimate expectation”.

Also, Obi filed an appeal at the Supreme Court against the judgement of the Election Petition Tribunal, which upheld the victory of President Tinubu.

The 73-page notes of appeal filed last week Tuesday insisted that the tribunal, in the judgment delivered by Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, committed a grave error and miscarriage of justice in its findings and conclusion in the petition challenging the declaration of Tinubu as President by INEC.