The handlers of the Supreme Court website which used to be a channel for quick access to crucial information about the highest court of the land, had not been updating it for about the last three months of 2018, until it slipped into a total collapse in early 2019, The Punch reports.
Under the administration of the immediate-past Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen (retd.), the website wore a new look and was being regularly updated till late 2018.
At its peak, the website was providing access to the court’s weekly cause lists which lawyers, litigants and other interested members of the public could easily access from the comfort of their bedroom to know the appeals scheduled for hearing or judgment for the week.
During that time, the list of current justices of the court with their profiles could be easily accessible on the website.
The website, which used to give a glimpse of what the court was about, and some current developments about it to the external world, also had the court’s rules and procedures, as well as many statutes and links to relevant institutions uploaded on it.
The report also has it there were efforts to provide access to the previous judgments of the apex court on the website, as obtainable in other parts of the world, including South Africa, where the judgments of the apex court from 1999 are uploaded on its website.
Some previous judgments of the Nigerian Supreme Court had been uploaded online before the website collapsed in 2019.
The umpteenth attempt to access the Supreme Court’s website through its only known address, <http://supremecourt.gov.ng/>, even at about 3am on Wednesday, threw up the notice, stating, “SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA website loading……… © Copyright 2019 supremecourt.gov.ng. All rights reserved.”