Atiku, Obi Appeals raise concern over S’Court cases… 

Senior lawyers have raised concerns that ongoing cases at the Supreme Court will suffer delay during the 60-day period that the presidential election appeal will last.

This is because of shortage of justices at the apex court following non-replacement of retired justices.

The Supreme Court is constitutionally required to have a full complement of 21 justices. But currently, there are only 11 justices.

The latest to bow out of the Supreme Court is Justice Amina Augie, who turned 70 on September 3.

Following their failure to upturn the February 25 election victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Atiku Abubakar and his  Labour Party (LP) counterpart Peter Obi are set to appeal their judicial losses.

They have tomorrow as deadline, 14 days after the September 6 judgment by the PEPC to file their appeals at the Supreme Court.

A panel of seven justices  of the Supreme Court will be constituted to hear the appeal, with this, there will be only four justices available to handle cases at the apex court because those engaged in the petitions will be busy with the matter for the 60-day constitutionally prescribed period.

The four justices will be inadequate to function because a minimum of five justices are required to seat on cases at the apex court.

A lawyer, Festus Ogun noted that the 11 justices are inadequate to form two panels of the court, which may precipitate a crisis.

The volume of work before the justices was made known last November, by Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Olukayode Ariwoola, who said there were  6,884 pending cases.

In June, the National Judicial Council (NJC) declared 10 additional slots on the Supreme Court bench vacant and called on interested applicants to apply.