By Haruna Salami
The Taraba State Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Barr. Ibrahim Tukur El-Sudi, has accused some party stakeholders of using the judiciary to destabilise the party in the state.
El-Sudi, who spoke to journalists in Abuja, particularly accused a former senator in the state, of influencing a Federal High Court judge to give injunctions in favour of his camp.
The chairman said though the chapter is fully prepared to participate in the upcoming national convention of the party, the recent exparte motion granted in favour of the former senator’s camp, may put the Taraba chapter in disarray.
He said the Taraba chapter of the APC had appealed the judgement of Justice Simon Amobeda in which he nullified the congress that returned him as the chairman, but instead of the judge to fix a date for the determination or rejection of the appeal, he allegedly did not entertain the case.
“By procedure, when the records of proceedings have not been transmitted to you, you have to file your notice of appeal in the same court that gave the judgment. And any application you want to make you have to do it in that same court.
“So on the 1st of March he delivered judgment against us, restraining us from parading ourselves as the duly elected persons in the congress and that the congress was a nullity and that there should be a repeat of that congress.
“Just as those that took us to court have the right under the law to challenge whatever action is taken by the court, we equally have the right under the law to challenge his judgment in a higher court. So on the 4th of March 2022, we filed our notice of appeal and then a motion for stay of execution; an injunction to restrain the court from executing his judgment before him.
“What baffles us is we filed this motion on the 4th of March with notice of appeal but instead of him to give us a date and hear our motion because we knew the congress was going to take place on the 26th and there was need for him to take judicial action whether to accept or refuse and for us to now go to the higher court. He now blatantly refused to give us any date.
“On the 10th of March, our opponents filed an exparte motion seeking for him to restrain us from participating in the convention. And then under a motion on notice, he quickly granted them their relief. Restraining us from participating in the convention or parading ourselves as executives of APC in Taraba state and then he adjourned the matter to 31 of March,” El- Sudi said.
The chairman added that once a judge delivers judgement in a case, the judge ceases to take any further action in the same case.
“But this judge gave judgment and went ahead to give an interim injunction which was filed later than the file for stay of execution of his earlier judgement,” he said.
According to him, the judge’s insinuations that his camp disobeyed his court order was not tenable.
“We did not disobey any court order, we followed procedure by filing notice of appeal and then motion for stay of execution. Is that not a legal action and once you do that there are a plethora of decided cases both at the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal that say the moment you file these notices you are not in contempt of court. And that can be seen in the case of Doma versus Ogiri which was reported in 1997 One Nigerian Weekly Law reported that part 481 at page 322 the Court of Appeal clearly says that somebody who is not happy with a judgment and file up appeals against that judgment and files a stay cannot be held for contempt of court”, he added.
He called on the national structures of the party to wade into the crisis and save the Taraba chapter from implosion ahead of 2023 elections which the party under his leadership is poised to win overwhelmingly.
Efforts to get Senator to react to the allegation were fruitless. He did not pick calls made to his mobile phone number and did not reply to a WhatsApp message
