Chief Judge assigns suit on Buhari's health to judge

Justice Abdukadir Ab­du-Kafarati of the Fed­eral High Court has been assigned the suit on the health status of ailing President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Jus­tice Ibrahim Ndahi Auta, assigned the suit compel­ling the Senate Presi-dent Bukola Saraki to appoint a medical panel to determine the health status of Buhari to the judge.

A Nigerian, Mr. Toyin Dawodu, based in the United States of America (USA) had on June 28, 2017 filed the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/508/2017, seeking the order of the court to compel Saraki to raise the panel and end the coun-try’s endless wait for Buhari.

Buhari has been in Lon­don where he is recuperat­ing from an undisclosed ailment for the past 70 days.

When the Acting Presi­dent Yemi Osinbajo visited him last week, he returned with the cheering news that the Presi-dent was in high spirits and would soon re­turn to the coun-try.

The respondents in the suit are Saraki, the Federal Execu-tive Council (FEC), and the Attorney-General of the Feder-ation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN).

Dawodu’s lawyer, Mr. Frank Tietie, confirmed that Justice Auta has as­signed the case to Justice Abdu-Kafarati.

It was however learnt that the case many not be heard until after the ongo­ing annual judges’ vaca­tion.

According to Tietie, the case has been assigned to Court 2 of the Federal High Court in Abuja, headed by Justice Ab-du-Kafarati.

He said that no date has been fixed for the hearing of the case.

Dawodu in the suit urged the court to declare that Saraki was empow­ered by the constitution to set up the medical panel to determine Buhari’s health status “without first be-ing a resolution of the FEC.”

Section 144 of the Nige­rian Constitution provides that such medical panel should be appointed by the Senate President fol­lowing a resolution passed by two-thirds ma-jority of the members of Executive Council of the Federation.