{"id":62502,"date":"2025-03-10T12:10:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T12:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=62502"},"modified":"2025-03-10T12:10:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T12:10:11","slug":"protesters-storm-nba-hq-demand-benue-tribunals-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/03\/10\/protesters-storm-nba-hq-demand-benue-tribunals-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Protesters Storm NBA HQ, Demand Benue Tribunal\u2019s Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Emmanuel Ogbodo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A coalition of activists and concerned citizens on Monday besieged the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), headquarters in Abuja, protesting the controversial relocation of the Benue State Local Government Election Petition Tribunal to the Federal Capital Territory.<\/p>\n<p>Led by Dr. Alfred Gbaja and Comrade David Okpanachi, the protesters accused Benue State Chief Judge, Justice Maurice Ikpambese, of subverting the rule of law by moving the tribunal outside its jurisdiction, despite a Federal High Court order barring the relocation.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Ikpambese had cited security concerns as the reason for shifting tribunal sittings from Makurdi, Gboko, and Otukpo to Abuja.<\/p>\n<p>However, a Federal High Court in Makurdi on Friday restrained the tribunal from sitting outside Benue, pending further hearings.<\/p>\n<p>Chanting solidarity songs and carrying placards, the protesters condemned the move as illegal and warned that it could set a dangerous precedent for Nigeria\u2019s judiciary.<\/p>\n<p>Okpanachi insisted that the petitioners lacked legal standing since they did not participate in the elections, making their cases invalid under the Electoral Act.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJustice Ikpambese is deliberately violating the law, and the NBA must not be used to perpetuate illegality,\u201d Okpanachi declared, calling on lawyers to boycott the tribunal if it proceeds in Abuja.<\/p>\n<p>The demonstrators vowed to occupy the NBA headquarters and the National Judicial Council (NJC), until the tribunal is returned to Benue State, urging the NBA to defend judicial integrity and resist political interference.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Emmanuel Ogbodo A coalition of activists and concerned citizens on Monday besieged the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), headquarters in Abuja, protesting the controversial relocation of the Benue State Local Government Election Petition Tribunal to the Federal Capital Territory. Led by Dr. Alfred Gbaja and Comrade David Okpanachi, the protesters accused Benue State Chief Judge, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":62503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62504,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62502\/revisions\/62504"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}