A House of Representatives member-elect, Christian Abah, whose election into the Ado/Okpokwu/Ogbadibo Federal Constituency in Benue State was nullified by an Abuja Federal High Court, has sought further redress at the Court of Appeal.
The News Agency of Nigeria recalls that Justice Adeniyi Ademola, the trial judge, had nullified Abah’s election for forging a 1985 Diploma certificate in Accounting from the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, Adamawa State.
The judge had ordered that Abah’s opponent, Hassan Saleh, should replace him.
Saleh was consequently sworn in to replace Abah at the inauguration of the 8th National Assembly on June 8.
Abah, through his counsel, Sunday Ameh (SAN), had approached the appellate court seeking to set aside the High Court judgment and stop Saleh’s swearing in as ordered by the court.
At Thursday’s sitting, Ameh told the court that the Independent National Electoral Commission refused to comply with the notice for stay of execution of the trial court judgment served on it.
He said: “The second respondent has taken steps to overreach the stay of execution of the Federal High Court’s judgment.
“We have a motion on notice, dated May 22, filed same day and the second respondent has served us with a counter-affidavit yesterday, June 17 at 5pm.
“The second respondent is not in court, so we need an adjournment to move our motion for stay of execution.”
Opposing Ameh’s submission, Dr. Alex Izinyon, Saleh’s counsel, urged the court to discountenance it, arguing that parties should argue the main appeal instead of motion for stay of judgment execution.
“Learned counsel should file his brief in order for the appeal to be argued when we respond,” Izinyon said.
Ruling on the submissions of counsel, the three-man panel of the Court of Appeal, led by Justice Yahaya Abubakar, urged them to go and seek amicable solution to the case.
Abubakar said: “We implore both counsel to go and talk man-to-man and seek areas of narrowing their disagreements so that the court can come in to sort out any grey areas.”
Abah, in the main appeal, urged the court to set aside the judgment on the grounds that the judgment was null and void because the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the suit.
The appellant also faulted the trial judge, arguing that there was no evidence before the lower court to support the findings that the appellant committed fraud and perjury.
He also prayed the Appeal Court to set aside the judgment on the grounds that it was delivered against the weight of evidence.
Abah added that the documents relied upon by the court were discredited by the documents submitted by the appellant.
He, therefore, urged the court to remit the case back to the Federal High Court for fresh trial by another judge other than Ademola.
The appellant further contended that the trial judge erred in law when he went ahead to decide on the matter in spite of being aware of a pending appeal before the Supreme Court.
Apart from the appeal pending before the Supreme Court, his counsel argued that there was an application for stay of proceeding pending before the trial judge.
Ameh also faulted Justice Ademola’s decision of refusing to convert the originating summons with which the plaintiff filed the case to a writ of summons.
Justice Abubakar adjourned the case until September 21 for hearing.
NAN.
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