Ex-PDP govs.
The
Peoples Democratic Party has moved to serve hearing notices on the
governors who defected to the All Progressives Congress at their liaison
offices in Abuja in a bid to accelerate proceedings in a suit in which
it asked an Abuja Federal High Court to remove them from office.
The suit filed by PDP against the
governors – Alhaji Murtala Nyako (Adamawa); Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers);
Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto); Rabiu Kwakwanso (Kano); and Abdulfatai Ahmed
(Kwara) – has been stalled repeatedly as a result of a dispute over the
address of the national secretariat of the APC.
The governors’ grouse was that the PDP
did not serve the hearing notice at the address stipulated in the order
which directed them to appear before the court.
However, the PDP explained that the
defected governors’ new political party, the APC, had moved from the
address mentioned in the court order – No. 6 Guinea Bissau Street, Wuse
Zone 6 – to a new location – No. 40 Blantyre Street, Wuse 2, where it
served the hearing notice.
The five governors are insisting that
they cannot be served at an address that was not authorised by the
court, and their lawyers, including Yusuf Ali, SAN, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN,
Awa Kalu, SAN, John Bayeshia, SAN and Akin Olujinmi, SAN, have
challenged what they described as ‘wrongful’ service of the hearing
notice.
However, in a bid to resolve the impasse
and make progress in the case, the PDP counsel, Dr. Alex Izinyon, SAN,
at the continuation of hearing in the matter on Wednesday, informed the
court that PDP had filed a new application on March 17 to seek the leave
of the court to serve the hearing notice on the governors at their
liaison offices in Abuja.
“We want to serve them now at their liaison office.
“The essence (of the application) is that we want to tell that this is what we want to do,” Izinyon said.
Explaining the decision to serve the
defected governors at their liaison offices, he said, “We don’t want to
follow them to the new address because they can say they are no longer
there.
“So we said let’s look for an address that is permanent.
“This is a matter of constitutional
importance and we have been here for three months – we cannot continue
following them from pillar to post.
“I hope the liaison offices will still be there on the next adjourned date.”
With the defected governors’ lawyers
arguing that they were not empowered to receive service on behalf of
their clients, Justice Kolawole adjourned to April 7 to hear all pending
applications, including the defendants’ motion against the service of
the hearing notice.
The confusion over the address of the
national secretariat of the APC became a major issue in the suit after
the governors and their lawyers failed to appear before the court when
proceedings in the suit commenced on January 27.
Following the governors’ absence,
Justice Kolawole fixed February 6 for hearing and ordered that a
hearing notice to that effect should be served on them.
The judge directed that the hearing
notice should be pasted at the national secretariat of the APC as a
means of substituted service on the five governors, in addition to its
advertisement in two national dailies
No comments:
Post a Comment