Abia crisis: A'court to decide Ikpeazu, Ogah's gov suit Aug. 9
Ade Adesomoju, Abuja
The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal on Tuesday directed the Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, and his arch rival, Uche Ogah, not to take further steps with respect to the June 27 judgment of the Federal High Court in Abuja which removed Ikpeazu and ordered Ogah to be sworn in.
The five-man bench of the Court of Appeal headed by Justiceý Helen Ogunwumiju, directed that parties to the case should not take further steps until the appeal court's judgment on the case was delivered.
"Parties should remain as they were before today(Tuesday) to allow an expeditious hearing of the various complaints before this court," Justice Ogunwumiju ruled.
She gave the directive after both Ikpeazu's counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), and Ogah's lawyer, Dr. Alex Izinyon (SAN), gave the appeal court undertaking to allow their respective applications seeking various interlocutory injunctions to abide by the final outcome of the appeal.
Justice Ogunwumiju said the directive made by the court was important to avoid a misinterpretation of its ruling.
She said the ruling of the court was for parties to remain as they were before Tuesday and should not be misconstrued as implying that the court had issued an order for stay of execution of the Federal High Court's judgment.
The court fixed August 9 for the hearing of all the appeals, which include those filed by Ikpeazu, Friday Nwosu, Obasi Ekeagbala, Alex Otti, and the Peoples Democratic Party.
The appeal was filed by Ikpeazu to challenge two judgments of Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court in Abuja delivered on June 27 removing him from office.
Justice Abang had in his judgments delivered on June 27 sacked Ikpeazu for allegedly disclosing false information in relation to his tax clearance details to INEC in his form nominating him as the candidate of the PDP for last year's governorship election in the state.
The judge, also in the said judgment, ordered the governor's rival who was the first runner-up in the primary that produced Ikpeazu as the candidate of the PDP, Mr. Uche Ogah, to take over.
The judge held that Ikpeazu was not qualified to be PDP's candidate having disclosed false information to INEC in violation of his party's Article 14(a) of the PDP Electoral Guidelines and Section 141 of the Electoral Act.
The court held in both judgments that Ikpeazu was not qualified to be PDP's candidate having falsely claimed on oath that he had met all necessary qualifications to be PDP's candidate.
The Court of Appeal also on Tuesday fixed August 8 for the hearing of an application by Otti to be made a party in the case.
Otti, who was the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, is seeking to be made the governor after the judgment by the Federal High Court, Abuja sacking Ikpeazu on the grounds that he gave false information in his tax claims to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
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