The counsel to Prince Sule-Iko Sami, Usman Hajji, has decried the attitudes of respondents in filing their processes out of time which caused adjournment of the matter to April 15.
The Federal High Court in Birnin Kebbi had earlier fixed April 11 to commence hearing of witnesses on a case challenging the validity of Sen. Bala Na’Allah’s candidacy for Kebbi South Senatorial District.
Sami has challenged Na’Allah validity at the All Progressives Congress primaries conducted in October 2018.
Justice Sunday Onu on Friday adjourned the matter to April 15.
This followed the application seeking for an extension of time to enable first and second respondents, Sanusi Samaila and Ebenezer Ogolina, to present their processes before the court.
The adjournment was also to allow Ogolina and third respondent, Adeyemo Ifeoluwa, to move their motions on preliminary objections.
Shortly after the proceeding, Counsel to the plaintiff, Hajji, said the matter was filed on November 1, 2018 in Abuja division and the dependents were all served with the processes on the first week of November 2018.
He said they failed to file in their replies until now when the matter had only 14 days to expire.
Haji said: “I view this as a deliberate attempt in order to frustrate the speediness of the trial because they didn’t file anything until now.
“They are applying for an extension of time to regularise their processes before the court and file their statement of defence.
“We are constrained because we are the ones that filed the action; we have to reply to them on point of law.”
Earlier, the second respondent, Samaila, explained that his client was not able to file the necessary document in time until then.
Samaila said: “We filed an application on April 10 for an extension of time within which to file our necessary papers and it was served on the plaintiff counsel now.
“On that ground, the hearing of witnesses cannot go on until the application was heard by the court.
“When our application was heard, they objected to it which took us hours with objection upon objection and later the court granted our application.
“Hence they (plaintiff) have to respond to it as statement of defense.”
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