EX- JUDGE CAUTIONS POLITICIANS AGAINST FRIVOLOUS PETITIONS

AHEAD of the April polls, a retired judge of the Lagos State High Court, Justice Sunday Oladokun Ishola, has urged politicians in the country to desist from writing frivolous petitions in order to move the country forward.

Justice Ishola gave this admonition on Sunday at a send-forth dinner organised by a committee of friends to mark his retirement from the Bench.

He urged politicians to learn to accept defeat like their counterparts in some advanced countries.

According to him, since it is a known fact that when two parties are in court, one of the parties is bound to win, adding that a situation whereby every decision made by the court is appealed against will amount to waste of time.

'I will advise our politicians to learn to accept defeat. They should know that when two parties are in court for a reason, definitely, one must win. In Nigeria if you loose, you call a press conference telling the world the judge does not like your face or is biased and so on. This attitude is repulsive,' he said.

The retired judge described by his friends as a complete gentleman and very diligent judge, said where there may be petitions, it should be limited to a rare situation of when parties are not satisfied with the decision of the judge and not when lawyers are trying to save their face from their clients.

'Some of these petitions are filed by lawyers just to save their face from their clients. They just want to tell their clients that they have done a very good job because as Nigerians we never accept defeat. This is not done in some advanced countries.'

Justice Ishola, who said he did not have any regret serving on the Bench for almost 10 years, also commended the state government for taking care of the Judiciary.? 'Lagos State government has been very good to the Judiciary. To a large extent, we are satisfied with the way we are being treated by both the state government and the Federal Government. So, I don't have any regret being a judge.'