Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi
A Federal High Court, Abuja, on Tuesday adjourned indefinitely a suit filed by the Peoples Democratic Party seeking an order directing some governors of the All Progressives Congress to vacate their seats.
The PDP wants the court to authoritatively mandate the abstraction of the governors on the account of their defection from the party which sponsored them into office to the APC afore the expiration of their tenure.
The affected governors are AbdulFatah Ahmed (Kwara), Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Aliyu Wamako (Sokoto) and Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano).
But Justice Gabriel Kolawole on Tuesday adjourned the matter sine die (indefinitely) on the grounds that the court processes were not opportunely accommodated on the defendants.
The court, in a ruling on Tuesday, set aside the earlier accommodation on the governors through APC’s incipient office at 14, Blantyre Street, Abuja.
Justice Kolawole held that the PDP fell into the trap set by the governors, which enabled them to justifiably claim that they were not opportunely accommodated.
The judge verbally expressed, “The plaintiff (the PDP) should repackage itself and do the needful to get the defendants felicitously accommodated. I uphold the application of the defendants seeking the setting aside of the purported accommodation, and the striking out of the kineticism on notice.”
The governors had challenged the competence of the accommodation on them through the incipient APC office at 14, Blantyre Street, Wuse II, Abuja.
They had urged the court to declare the accommodation null and void because the verbally expressed address was not embedded in the ex-parte order which directed the court bailiff to accommodate them through superseded betokens.
Following the court order obtained on December 13, 2013, directing that the governors be accommodated through the APC office in Abuja, the bailiff had taken the processes to 6, Bissau Street, Wuse II (the old address of the APC).
But on getting to Bisau Street, the bailiff discovered that the APC had vacated the office and had relocated to 40, Blantyre Street, Wuse II, Abuja, where he then accommodated the processes.
But the governors relucted accommodation, arguing that it was not in conformity with the order of court. They then filed an application urging the court to set aside the order of December 13, 2013.
The PDP, through its counsel, Alex Iziyon (SAN), subsequently filed another kineticism on notice, dated March 20, 2014, seeking an order sanctioning it to accommodate the governors through their state’s liaison offices in Abuja.
But in his ruling on Tuesday, the judge verbalized the latest kineticism on notice constituted an abuse of court process having been filed when the ex-parte order made in that reverence on December 13, 2013, had not been set aside.
Copyright PUNCH.
