The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Thursday descended vigorously on Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court Abuja over his decision on June 27, 2016, evacuating the Abia State Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, affirming that his judgment was one-sided and turned the law on its head.
In a consistent judgment, which went on for six hours, the five judges of the court held that Justice Abang went past his dispatch as a judge, was one-sided and flipped around the law.
The Appeal Court judges further held that the matter was unfriendly, disputable and argumentative and ought not have been started with a beginning summons.
In the perspective of the Appeal Court judges, the best possible method of initiation of the case ought to have been through a writ of summons.
The court held that Justice Abang failed in law and occasioned an unnatural birth cycle of equity against the representative when he declined to give reasonable hearing.
The court further held that the judge pre-judged the matter when he touched on the substantive issues at the preparatory stage without listening to the litigant.
The judges who heard the case were Ibrahim Shatta Bdliya, Philomena Buwa Ekpe, Morenikeji Ogunwumiju, Abubakar Datti Yahaya and Saidu Tanko Huseni.
Equity Abang has in the last couple of months procured a notoriety for his dubious decisions that have cocked eyebrows and strengthened the view of guile in the Nigerian legal.
Other than his questionable decision on the Okezie Ikpeazu versus Samson Ogah case, he has allowed a progression of requests that have added to the disarray over the initiative emergency in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
A few prisoners of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) have additionally fingered him as one of the to-go-to judges who promptly gives long confinement requests to the commission amid its examination of prominent defilement cases.
Abang likewise declined to recuse himself from a defilement trial including the previous National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Olisa Metuh, after the last blamed him for inclination and being his schoolmate at the Nigerian Law School somewhere around 1987 and 1988, a case Abang denied.
Equity Ogunwumiju, who conveyed the lead judgment yesterday in one of the advances, held that Justice Abang "submitted grave brutality against one of the mainstays of equity" identifying with reasonable hearing.
She assist held that Justice Abang assaulted vote based system in his request that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ought to issue a declaration of come back to Dr. Samson Ogah when there was no proof of phony or guiltiness against the appealing party.
As per the court, the judgment given by Justice Abang was terribly wrong, since it depended on insufficiency of duty receipts that couldn't be gone to on the appealing party (Ikpeazu).
Equity Ogunwumiju held: "In the wake of perusing through the judgment a few times, I was flabbergasted at how the trial judge touched base at his decision of prevarication against the appealing party when there was no proof of fraud. His discoveries are absurd.
"The judge more likely than not sat in his chambers, singularly surveyed and registered the duties of the litigant and arrived at the conclusion that he didn't pay the required charges.
"Courts are not permitted to theorize, as the trial judge did in the moment case. In one broadness, the trial judge talked from the two sides of his mouth when he guaranteed that he construct his discoveries with respect to supply of false data and in another expansiveness he arrived at the conclusion that the appealing party conferred prevarication notwithstanding when there was no charge of imitation and no affirmation that he didn't pay charge."
Equity Ogunwumiju likewise held that the trial judge turned the leader of the law topsy turvy in his decision that it was the litigant that ought to hold up under the weight of confirmation of a charge made by Ogah.
She held: "with deference, we can't help contradicting him since the individual makes the assertion of misrepresentation that must demonstrate it.
"The court blundered when he imported the expression, 'as and when due' into the PDP 2014 rules. The judge would not have imported the expression into his discoveries if a duplicate of the PDP rules had been appended to the starting summons. The judge disregarded the gathering's rules."
The court held that the offended party did not display the gathering rules which the trial judge depended on.
"From whatever point one takes a gander at the judgment of the trial court, the choice of the court is terribly wrong," she held.
She assist held that the deficiencies of the expense receipts of the litigant who scored the most elevated votes at the decision couldn't be gone to on him, including that "doing as such will add up to an assault of vote based system".
Equity Ogunwumiju further held that in spite of the fact that the distortion of assessment archives or duty avoidance are criminal offenses for which a hopeful looking for open office could be addressed, it could just frame a premise for preclusion where the individual had been indicted.
"Every one of the issues about duty goes to no issue in light of the fact that the second respondent (Ikpeazu) was a government worker and his expense deducted from source.
"The inquiry is not that the second respondent (Ikpeazu) did not pay his duty, but rather that the reports given to him by the expense office was false. I don't imagine that the scholarly trial judge was on the whole correct to have found that it was the second respondent that gave false data.
"The circumstance would have been distinctive in the event that he had a private business, from which he acquires income, however made false expense installment claims.
"There are nothing stupendously unpredictable with the expense freedom receipts put together by the second respondent. Why might the second respondent be reprimanded for the assessment recording arrangement of the duty office?
"Without the realities of adulterating the archives to give undue preferred standpoint, the apparent anomalies are of no minute," she said.
The court said Justice Abang set the law on its head when it coordinated INEC to issue a new declaration of come back to Ogah.
While maintaining the offer, the court honored N100,000 cost against Ogah.
The Appeal Court further held that Justice Abang wasn't right to have accepted locale on a movement for stay of execution of his prior judgment conveyed on June 27, even after the advances against the judgments had been entered.
Equity Ekpe, who read the lead judgment, held that what Justice Abang should have done in accordance with the time respected tenet of "stari decisis" was to have exchanged the movement to the Court of Appeal for determination.
The redrafting court, along these lines, decided for Ikpeazu on his allure testing Justice Abang's decision to hear the application for a stay of execution of his judgment when he was properly educated that the requests had been entered.
Equity Ekpe held: "The lower court (Justice Abang) has made a complete summersault of the whole suit. Once an advance is gone into, there is nothing left for the trial court to settle upon.
"All the trial court should do was to transmit the record of procedures to the redrafting court.
“But it deliberately chose to do
otherwise. This is against Order 4 Rules 10 and 11 of the Court of
Appeal Rules 2011. The lower court acted ultra vires.”
Justice Abang had insisted that he had
jurisdiction to hear a motion for stay of execution of his earlier
judgment delivered on June 27, even after the appeals against the
judgments had been entered at the Appeal Court.
In her contributing judgment, Justice
Ogunwumiju held that Justice Abang “deliberately stood the law on its
head” when he erroneously assumed jurisdiction to hear the motion and
adjourned it till a later date.
She further held that Justice Abang
lacked jurisdiction to interpret the provisions of the Court of Appeal
being the rules of a superior court.
The hearing of all the appeals filed by
Ikpeazu, which lasted till 5 p.m. yesterday, witnessed some drama
including the attempt by the Ali Modu Sherrif faction of the PDP to come
in, but was rebuffed by the court.
Justice Abang had on June 27, ordered
Ikpeazu to immediately vacate the governorship seat and directed INEC to
issue a certificate of return to Ogah who came second in the PDP
primary conducted in Abia State on December 8, 2014.
Justice Abang said he was satisfied that
Ikpeazu perjured by giving false information in his tax receipts in the
Form CF001 and documents accompanying it, which he submitted to both
PDP and the INEC.
After the Appeal Court ruling, the Abia
State governor and his counterpart in Delta State, Senator Ifeanyi
Okowa, yesterday welcomed the verdict of the Appeal Court in Abuja,
which upturned the removal of Ikpeazu by a Federal High Court, saying
that it was “wonderful” news.
Addressing journalists at the Government
House, Umuahia, the capital of Abia, after praying in the chapel,
Ikpeazu said that the verdict of the appellate court once again
demonstrated that the people of Abia freely gave him their mandate in
the 2015 governorship election.
“Our mandate once again has been
affirmed by the Court of Appeal in Abuja. This to us is a victory for
the common people of Abia State that voted massively for us in 2015
general election,” he said.
Though the long drawn legal tussle over
his mandate appeared to have taken its toll on governance, Ikpeazu
assured the people that with the favourable Appeal Court ruling, “we’ve
been reinvigorated to continue our service to the people of Abia without
let”.
While expressing his thanks to God for
seeing him through his tribulations, Ikpeazu equally lauded the
judiciary that stood as the last hope of the common man.
“Without the judiciary of this country,
what would have been the fate of the son of a poor teacher who became
governor at the mercy of God and Abia people?” he asked.
According to him, without the
steadfastness of the judiciary, it would have been very difficult for
ordinary people like him to aspire to be anything, much less becoming
the governor of Abia State, given the penchant of the rich and mighty to
trample on the weak and poor.
The Abia governor also asked the
Nigerian media to rise up to the task of “firming up our democracy and
making sure that all arms of government work in consonance to promote
the ideals of democracy”.
Ikpeazu had emerged from the government
house chapel where he had gone to pray and give thanks to God after
receiving the news about his victory at the court.
Shortly after the governor’s session
with journalists, members of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) arrived at the governor’s lodge and congratulated
the victorious governor.
The BoT Chairman, Senator Wahid Jubrin,
who led the team, comprising Professor Jerry Gana, Senator Ibrahim
Mantu, Senator Stella Omu, Hajia Zainab Maina, Alhaji Adamu Ciroma, and
Air Commodore Dan Suleiman (rtd), said they were in Abia for the burial
of Chief Ojo Maduekwe.
Jubrin said they were on their way to
Maduekwe’s country home when they heard about the Appeal Court verdict,
adding that PDP did not make any mistake in choosing Ikpeazu to be its
standard-bearer in the 2015 governorship poll, adding that he was
confident that the Abia governor would deliver on his election promises
to the people of the state.
Also, Okowa congratulated Ikpeazu on his
victory at the Appeal Court. The governor, in a statement by his Chief
Press Secretary, Mr. Charles Ehiedu Aniagwu, said the victory of Ikpeazu
at the Appeal Court was a true test of the rule of law and commended
the unanimous judgment of the court by not allowing political
opportunists to take over power through the back door.
He also thanked the justices for holding on to justice and fairness in their judgment.
He noted that the judgment had once more restored the hope, faith and confidence of Nigerians on the country’s judicial system.
The Delta governor further called on the
dramatis personae in the Abia governorship debacle to end the
unnecessary legal battles to enable its government focus on bringing
democratic dividends to the people of the state.
Source: Thisday
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