BREAKING NEWS: ABIA STATE GOVERNOR, DR OKEZIE IKPEAZU WINS AT APPEAL COURT.

Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu has won the first
appeal delivered by the Court of Appeal in Abuja against
the ruling which removed him from office.
In June, a Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja, annulled
the election of Ikpeazu.
According to the court, Ikpeazu was guilty of tax evasion
and was therefore unqualified to have contested the 2015
governorship election in the state.
It ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission
to issue a certificate of return to Samson Ogah, a member
of the Peoples Democratic Party, who contested the
governorship ticket with the governor.
The court also ordered the governor to vacate office
immediately, and hand over to Ogah, who came second
in the PDP governorship primaries in Abia.
Following that ruling, Ikpeazu appealed the case.
An Abia State High Court also stopped the Chief Judge of
the state or any other judge in the state from inaugurating
Samson Uche Ogah as Abia state Governor.
Ikpeazu’s appeal follows 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.
The Justice Helen Ogunwumiju-led five-man bench
collectively agreed in their judgment that Justice Abang
wrongly assumed jurisdiction to hear the motion and
adjourned it till a later date.
Justice Philomina Ekpe, who read the lead judgment, held
that what Justice Abang ought to have done in line with
time-honoured doctrine of “stari decisis” was to have
passed the motion to the Court of Appeal for
determination.
Justice Ekpe 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.
She also added that Justice Abang lacked jurisdictions to
interpret the provisions of the Court of Appeal being the
rules of a Superior Court.