A Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday, December 15, rejected an ex-parte application seeking to stop Aminu Tambuwal from continuing to function as Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The applicant, a member of the House of Representatives and a member of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, Abiodun Akinlade, had prayed the court to stop Tambuwal from parading himself as the Speaker, pending the determination of the suit challenging his continued stay in office.
Justice Ahmed Mohammed ruled that it would be “most unfair” to grant a restraining order sought through an ex parte application against Tambuwal who had engaged lawyers to defend him in the suit.
The aim of the fresh suit is to justify the PDP’s stance that the defection of Tambuwal from the PDP to the APC on October 28 was “illegal” and in breach of Section 68(1)(g) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
Akinlade’s suit was at first assigned to Justice Evoh Chukwu, but the judge on December 2, 2014,withdrew from the suit numbered, FHC/ABJ/9S/871/2014, following a petition written by Tambuwal asking the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta, to re-assign the case to another judge.
Tambuwal had expressed fear that Justice Chukwu was likely to be prejudiced against him (Tambuwal) in view of the judge’s previous pronouncement in a related case.
WhatsApp us