Court bars Buhari s minister from holding public office

The FCT High Court sitting in Abuja has stopped former Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Pauline Tallen, from holding public office in Nigeria.

Pauline Tallen

Recall that the Federal High Court in Yola, the Adamawa State capital, had nullified the candidacy of Aishatu Dahiru (popularly known as Binani) as the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in the last general election.

In her reaction to the judgement, Tallen, a chieftain of the APC and former deputy governor of Plateau State, said the ruling “represented the marginalisation of women in Nigerian politics.”

The NBA president Yakubu Maikyau (SAN) had demanded an apology from Tallen over her comments, threatening to sue.

Tallen failed to apologize for her comments.

Delivering judgement on the case on Monday, December 18, the court described Tallen’s statement as “unconstitutional, careless, reckless, disparaging.”

The High Court condemned Tallen’s comments against the judiciary concerning a decision of the Federal High Court in Adamawa State last year.

The court said the former minister’s call to disobey the judgement of the court was “contemptuous of the Federal High Court of Nigeria.”

However, the court gave Tallen an option of escaping the consequences of her reckless comments if she apologised in two national dailies within 30 days.

The court also granted among other reliefs an injunction restraining Dame Pauline Tallen (the defendant) from holding any public office in Nigeria, “unless she purges herself of the ignoble conduct by publishing a personally signed apology letter to Nigerians and the Judiciary on a full page of the Punch and Guardian newspapers”.

The Court ordered that the injunction restraining the defendant from holding any public office in Nigeria “shall become perpetual if she fails to abide by the order directing her to publish an apology letter within 30 days”.