The Federal High Court Abuja has fixed March 20 to deliver judgement in a suit filed by a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Mr Ugochukwu Uchenwa, seeking to stop the conduct of elections and examinations on Saturdays.
Justice James Omotosho fixed the date after listening to counsel’s arguments for and against the suit on Wednesday.
The plaintiff, Uchenwa, who is an elder of the church, filed the suit because fixing elections and examinations on Saturdays violated his rights (and those of other members of the church) to freedom of worship.
He is asking the court to declare the fixing of elections and examinations on Saturdays unconstitutional.
In the alternative, the plaintiff is asking the court to order the defendants to allow him and other members of his church to vote or write examinations on any other day of the week, including Sundays.
Listed as defendants in the suit are the President, Attorney-General of the Federation, Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and Minister of Internal Affairs.
Others are the Joint Admission and Matriculation Examinations, JAMB, National Examination Council, NECO, West African Examination Council, WAEC, National Business and Technical Examination Board, Council of Legal Education, and Ministry of Education.
Counsel to the plaintiff, Benjamin Amaefule, told the court that his client was only seeking enforcement of his fundamental right to freedom of education and freedom to participate in elections.
Amaefule told the court that his client was seeking, among others, a declaration that the schedule of elections in Nigeria on Saturdays, the “Sabbath day,” was a violation of his fundamental right to freedom of worship.
“It is also a violation of conscience, profession, free practice of faith and the right to participate freely in the government of the applicant and that of entire members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Nigeria,” he said.
He maintained that fixing examinations and elections on the “Sabbath day of the Lord ” was also a violation of the right to freedom of education of the applicant and the members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church Nigeria.
The plaintiff asked the court for some relief, including a declaration that the action of the 5th to 8th respondents fixing examinations on Saturdays, a “Sabbath day of the Lord,” was unconstitutional.
