Court strikes out Umahi’s application for stay of execution, as battle shifts to Appeal Court

Federal High Court in Abuja, Monday, struck out the application for a stay of execution on the order sacking him from office as Governor of Ebonyi State, along with his deputy, Kelechi Igwe.

Presiding judge, Justice Inyang Eden Ekwo struck out the application by Umahi, and his deputy, Igwe, seeking to stop the execution of the judgment of the court that removed them from office on account of their unlawful defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC), in November 2020.

Justice Ekwo in his ruling on Tuesday, March 8 ordered that both Umahi and his deputy, Igwe should cease to perform the functions of Governor and Deputy, respectively, of Ebonyi State.

However Umahi returned to the same court to file an application for a stay of execution on the ruling.

The judge threw out the suit upon confirmation that a valid appeal had been entered at the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, challenging the March 8 ruling.

After several minutes of arguments by Chukwuma Machukwu Umeh SAN, counsel to the governor and the deputy as well as Chief James Ogwu Onoja SAN for PDP, the attention of the court was drawn to the substantive appeal already pending at the Court of Appeal.

Ume thereafter applied for withdrawal of the application to enable his clients to focus and concentrate on the substantive appeal.

The request was not opposed by the PDP counsel prompting Justice Ekwo in a brief ruling to strike out the suit.

Justice Ekwo ordered Governor Umahi and his deputy to shift their legal battle against the judgment that sacked them to the appellate court.

A similar decision was invoked in another application for judgment stay by the sacked 16 lawmakers of the Ebonyi State House of Assembly.

Justice Inyang Ekwo, had in his March 8 ruling held that having defected from the PDP, under which platform they came into power, Umahi and his deputy were deemed to have resigned from the office and, hence, no longer entitled to be called governor and deputy governor.

The judge said it was constitutionally wrong for a candidate elected into an office on a platform of a political party to defect to another political while still in office.

He said the votes gotten by Umahi and Igwe on March 9, 2019, were PDP votes and not for the APC.

Consequently, Ekwo ordered the lawmakers to vacate their positions with immediate effect.

For the 16 lawamakers, in a separate ruling, Justice Ekwo submitted that they cannot not transfer the mandate received from the ballot to another political party after abandoning the political party twhichhat had sponsored them.

Justice Ekwo held that the defendants who were elected into the House of Assembly on the platform of the PDP could not justify their defection when there was no division in the PDP.

It held that section 109(1) (g) of the 1999 constitution was purposely created to ensure that defectors were not allowed to retain their seats in the house, unless such defectors are able to justify their action.

The court held that the case PDP brought against them succeeded.

He restrained them from further parading themselves or acting as members of Ebonyi State Assembly.

The court also made an order of mandatory injunction compelling the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to accept from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a list of its candidates to replace the sacked lawmakers, as well as to issue certificates of return to them.

In the alternative, the court directed INEC to conduct a fresh election in Ebonyi state to fill up the vacant positions within 90 days.

It would be recalled that Umahi had, barely 24 hours after a Federal High Court of the FCT sitting in Abuja had sacked him from office as Ebonyi State Governor, along with his deputy, Eric Kelechi Igwe, formally filed a notice of appeal against the Tuesday ruling.

According to a notice appeal filed in Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/920/2021 on March 9, Umahi, and his deputy stated that the Federal High Court erred in his ruling and they, therefore, disagreed with the entire judgment which ordered their sack for defecting to the All Progressive Congress (APC) from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The appeal had Umahi and his deputy Igwe, as appellants, also had the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Progressives Congress (APC), and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as respondents.

They listed eight grounds of appeal against the lower court’s judgment.

In the appeal document, Umahi and his deputy argued that the trial court was virtually setting aside the Supreme Court’s decision in the case involving the Attorney General of the Federation and former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, to the effect that there is no constitutional provisions prohibiting president or vice and invariably the governor and or deputy governor from defecting to another political party.

They averred that the trial court erred in law when it relied on sections 68 and 109 of the constitution in holding that, having defected from the PDP to the APC, he offended the provisions of the constitution and must vacate his office.

They further submitted that there is no provision in the constitution that states that a governor or deputy governor will vacate his office if he defects from his political party to another political party.

They, therefore, asked the appellate court to set aside the judgement of the Federal High Court.

A Federal High Court in Abuja, presided over by Hon. Justice Inyang Ekwo, had, Tuesday, ordered the vacation from office of Governor David Umahi and his deputy, Kelechi Igwe, along with the 17 members of the State House of Assembly over their unjustified defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Umahi and his deputy, had in November 2020 defected to the APC and were joined by the 16 lawmakers on November 17, 2020.