Facts emerged over the weekend on why the Presidency is against the continued stay in power of the Abia State Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu.
Sources said the position of Ikpeazu on the Grazing Bill is one of the issues that have pitted him against the Presidency.
So also has the issue of the suit against the qualification of President Muhammadu Buhari to stand for election over his none presentation of certificates surfaced in the political equation in Abia State.
The suit was last week withdrawn by Nnamdi Nwokocha-Ahaiwe, an Abuja-based lawyer, who had initially vowed to pursue it to its logical conclusion.
Nwokocha-Ahaiwe is not only an indigene of the state, but also in the employ of the State Government.
He is said to head one of the agencies in the State.
Therefore, there is said to be the belief in the Presidency that for an employee of the government be seeking to remove the President from office, Ikpeazu must have been aware.
In the thick of all this, an agreement was also said to have been reached by the Presidency with a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Samson Uchechukwu Ogah, who came second in the party’s primaries that produced Ikpeazu as governor in December 2014, that should he be helped to clinch the governor’s seat, he would not only deal with Nwokocha-Ahaiwe, but also defect to the ruling party at the federal level, the All Progressives Congress.
But intelligence reports had allegedly reached Ikpeazu, who, according to sources, immediately asked Nwokocha-Ahaiwe to withdraw the case because of the likely consequences it could have on him.
He withdrew the case last week.
But the intervention appeared to have come late as those alleged to be behind the removal plot had already swung into action.
Recall that Nwokocha-Ahaiwe had last Thursday withdrawn the suit seeking an order from a Federal High Court in Abuja to declare President Buhari not qualified to contest last year’s presidential election for allegedly not possessing the requisite educational qualification.
The plaintiff had alleged that Buhari was not qualified to contest the 2015 presidential election – which he won – as he did not sit for the Cambridge West African School Certificate in 1961 as he claimed.
The application was filed on June 27.
However, at the resumed sitting on Thursday, the presiding Judge, Justice Adeniyi Ademola, struck out the case in a short ruling following the plaintiff’s notice of discontinuance of the case.
Nwokocha-Ahaaiwe declared his intention to withdraw the suit, though failed to adduce any reason behind the decision.
Trending
- Mohbah: Why he rejected his son, his hair was shaved before I saw his corpse — Father
- Change must begin with the leader, by Hassan Gimba
- YABATECH secures N1.5b grant for girls’ education, skills partnership
- Fubara’s matured jungle and Edan that cannot die, by Festus Adedayo
- President Tinubu needs to check the wheels of governance, by Taiwo Adisa
- SERAP sues 36 governors, Wike ‘over failure to account for trillions of FAAC allocations’
- FAAN gives more details on access gate fees, e-tags
- Alia, at birthday dinner, promises flyover in Otukpo