Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu
A Federal High Court in Abuja will today (Friday) hear and rule on
the application filed by the embattled Governor of Abia State, Okezie
Ikpeazu, seeking a stay of execution of the judgment of the court which
removed him from office on June 27.
If Ikpeazu loses, it will be yet another political battle in favour
of Mr. Uche Ogah who will be sworn in as the governor of Abia State.
The hearing will take place before Justice Okon Abang by 11am today.
It would be recalled Justice Abang had in his judgment delivered on June 27, sacked Ikpeazu
for allegedly disclosing false information in relation to his tax
clearance details to the Independent National Electoral Commission in
his form nominating him as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party
for the last year’s governorship election in the state.
The judge, also in the said judgment, ordered the governor’s rival
who was the first runner-up in the primary that produced Ikpeazu as the
candidate of the PDP, Mr. Uche Ogah, to takeover.
The judge held that Ikpeazu was not qualified to be PDP’s candidate
having disclosed false information to INEC in violation of his party’s
election guidelines and the Electoral Act and thereby ordered that Ogah
be sworn in as governor in Ikpeazu’s stead.
Following the judgement, INEC presented the Certificate of Return
to Ogah on Thursday in Abuja. However, in a bid to protect his office,
Ikpeazu rushed to an Abia State High Court in Osisioma who issued an
order, stopping the state Chief Judge or any other judge from
swearing-in Ogah, the governor-elect.
Shortly after Ikpeazu’s motion for stay of execution was mentioned
earlier on Monday, his lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) asked for an
adjournment of the case till Thursday to enable his team to complete the
filing of its reaction to Ogah’s counter-affidavit filed in opposition
to the motion.
But, Ogah’s lawyer, Dr. Alex Izinyon (SAN), urged the court to shun
the request for an adjournment, set aside the order of the Abia State
High Court in Osisioma restraining the Chief Judge of the state from
swearing in Ogah as governor, and reiterate the judgment of the court.
Izinyon argued that going ahead to obtain such an order from the
Abia High Court without bringing the order to the attention to Justice
Abang on Monday, Ikpeazu had resorted to self-help.
Izinyon asked the court to set aside the Abia State High Court’s
order and reiterate the judgment since Ikpeazu’s motion for stay of
execution had allegedly achieved essentially what the motion intended to
achieve.
In his counter-submission, Olanipekun urged the court to quash the
enrolled order which it issued on the strength of the judgment, arguing
that it ought not to have been issued without the parties being given a
time lag to exhaust their rights of appeal.
But in his ruling, Justice Abang refused to set aside the enrolled court order,
saying section 19 of the Sheriff and Civil Processes Act, relied on by
Olanipekun did not define processes to include the enrolled court order.
Describing Olanipekun’s application as for the voiding of the
court’s enrolled order as lacking in merit, Justice Abang said the court
had the power to enroll its order at any time after judgment had been
delivered.
But the judge said in his ruling on Monday, that he would after the
hearing of the application for stay of execution, determine whether he
could set aside the order made by the Abia State High Court.
He also said he would determine whether he could void the
certificate of return issued to Ogah and whether the provisions of
section 143(1) of the Electoral Act applied to the judgment of his court
in a pre-election case.
No comments:
Post a Comment