Demanding the removal of the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, protesters in Calabar, dumped an empty coffin in front of the tribunal.
Chaos rocked the streets of Calabar, the Cross Rivers state capital, on Wednesday, October 22, following a protest demanding the immediate suspension of the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa.
In a bid to drive home their point, the anti-Bulkachuwa protesters who were carrying placards and green leaves, dumped an empty coffin at the front of the tribunal.
According to a report on ThisDay, the protesters danced, sang and shouted anti-tribunal and anti-Bulkachuwa slogans around the casket.
They were expressing their displeasure at the manner in which the National/State Assemblies Election Petitions Tribunal (Panel 1) was deliberately constituted to ensure that the petitions against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidates never got justice. They went on chanting demands for justice and the cancellation of all 'illegalities'.
The presiding Primate and Archbishop of Africa, Dr. Barthsy Ojoi Enebiene, led the non-violent protest and said: "A tribunal was set to hear the grievance s of the aggrieved but only to discover that there is a political and judicial conspiracy against Cross River State.
The tribunal and those who constituted it know that a junior judge cannot sit as chairman over the senior. But we have a situation that only in Cross River State did that happen. It is a shame that the tribunal sat through for six months wasting the peoples’ resources and energy only to come to discover at the last day in their submission that they are incompetent. They discovered this only in two weeks and we are saying no to it and the injustice.
The diocese in pursuit of natural and democratic justice, protests against the 2015 Election Petition Tribunal for National and State Assemblies sitting in Calabar (Panel 1) on the grounds of massive bribery and corruption; abuse of democratic and judicial process; mutilation of justices and democratic system; judicial fraud, incompetence, grave error and gross irresponsibility; political/legal conspiracy, compromise and executive manipulations," the Archbishop stressed.
