C. IDIGBE, JSC (Delivering the Leading Judgment): The threshold questions in this appeal are whether
(a) the appellant, Senator Franklin Oritsemueyiwa Atake, was on the 2nd day of April, 1982, in contempt of the court presided over by Chief Judge of the Federal High Court (Anyaegbunam, C.J.)? and
(b) the procedure adopted by the learned Chief Judge in committing him to prison until he purged his contempt is erroneous in law?
In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to recount the facts which gave rise to what I shall refer to in this judgment simply as the "Atake contempt proceedings". On the 25th February, 1982, at the close of arguments of counsel in an application for interlocutory injunction arising in a suit filed - in the Federal High Court 4th February, 1981 - by Senator Atake against the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (hereinafter referred to simply as "the President") and the Attorney-General of the Federation of Nigeria, in which he sought, inter ali…