Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State has won
the first appeal delivered by the Court of Appeal
in Abuja with respect to removing him from
office.
The embattled Abia State Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu,
who has been at loggerheads with Uche Ogah over
irregularities leading to the governorship election in
the state, has won the first appeal delivered by the
Court of Appeal sitting today in Abuja with respect
to the judgments of the Federal High Court in
Abuja on June 27, removing him from office.
According to a report by Punch Newspaper,
Ikpeazu’s appeal was with respect to the ruling
delivered by Justice Okon Abang of the Federal
High Court in Abuja on July 8, in which the judge
insisted that he had jurisdiction to hear a motion
for stay of execution of his earlier judgments
delivered on June 27 even after the appeals
against the judgments had been entered.
A five-man bench led by Justice Helen
Ogunwumiju, unanimously agreed in their judgment
that Justice Abang errornously assumed jurisdiction
to hear the motion and adjourned it till a later
date.
Reading the lead judgement today in the federal
capital, Abuja, Justice Philomina Ekpe, held that
what Justice Abang ought to have done in line with
time-honoured doctrine of “stari decisis” was to
have transferred the motion to the Court of Appeal
for determination.
She also held that the Justice Abang wrongly
interpreted the provisions of Order 4(10) and (11)
of the Court of Appeal rules when he held that the
said provisions were only applicable to an
interlocutory ruling of the lower court and when a
final judgment in a suit had been delivered, adding
that Justice Abang lacked jurisdictions to interpret
the provisions of the Court of Appeal being the
rules of a superior court.
Meanwhile, Justice Ogunwumiju, in her
contribution, held that the trial judge “deliberately
stood the law on its head” by justifying his
jurisdiction to hear the motion when appeal has
been entered.
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