The Federal High Court in Abuja, on Thursday, joined the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and two lawyers, as interested parties in the lawsuit by the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefieleto secure his right to run for president in 2023.
The judge, Ahmed Mohammed, dismissed the objection of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), one of the two defendants originally sued by Emefiele, to grant PDP permission to join as a party in the case.
Emefiele had filed his lawsuit praying for an order preventing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and AGF from disqualifying him from running for the presidential ticket of any political party of his choice before the 2023 general election.
Subsequently, the PDP and two lawyers, John Aikpokpo-Martins and Olakunle Ebun, applied to be included as interested parties in the lawsuit. Mr. Aikpokpo-Martins and Edun applied to join the lawsuit on behalf of a non-governmental organization: Save Nigeria Our Fatherland.
The AGF opposed the requests. But the plaintiff, Mr. Emefiele and the INEC were neutral.
However, in ruling on the requests, the judge dismissed the AGF’s objection and granted the PDP’s request. He ruled out that the AGF had no right to oppose the requests.
“The plaintiff who should oppose the accumulation has granted it. Accumulation requests are hereby granted,” Mohammed said.
The judge subsequently ordered Mr. Emefiele’s attorney, Mike Ozekhome, Senior Advocate for Nigeria (SAN), to file and serve amended court documents on the defendants to reflect the new parties to the lawsuit.
Messrs. Dipo Okpeseyi and Sabastin Hon represented the AGF and the PDP, respectively.
why we join the suit
One of the newly inducted respondents, Mr. Aikpokpo-Martins, first vice president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), told PREMIUM TIMES that he was joining the lawsuit in the interest of Nigerians.
Citing the case of Nduka Edede v. AGF in relation to the controversial Section 84 (12) of the Electoral Act 2022 that was determined by the Federal High Court in Umuahia, Abia State, Mr. Aikpokpo-Martins said that the “ The interest of the Nigerians was not adequately defended in the lawsuit by the AGF, which was the only defendant.
“In order to prevent what happened in the recent AGF lawsuit in the Umuahia Federal High Court, we have joined this case to ensure that it is not compromised,” Mr. Aikpokpo-Martins explained.
Mr. Malami, after receiving the news of the outcome of Judge Evelyn Anyadike’s decision in Umuahia, promised to enforce the verdict immediately.
Section 84 (12) prohibits political appointees from voting as delegates to the conventions or congresses of any political party to compete for elective office.
Bottom
This newspaper reported that Emefiele, who filed the main lawsuit on May 5, argued that no law exempts him from participating in the primaries of any political party as CBN’s incumbent governor.
“The plaintiff is legally competent to contest the primary elections of any political party while serving as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, to the extent that he gives 30 days advance notice of his resignation, withdraws from the services of the CBN as its Governor in accordance with the provisions of articles 167 and 318 of the constitution,” said the plaintiff’s lawyer.
CBN’s governor has been under pressure to step down since information about his presidential ambition was leaked to the public earlier this year.
In February, a PREMIUM TIMES editorial called on Emefiele to resign and pursue his political ambitions, if he had any, or publicly distance himself from groups clamoring for him to run in the upcoming presidential election scheduled for February 25. .
Emefiele spoke for the first time on Saturday about his reported plan to run for president in the 2023 election.
He spoke after reports that a group had bought N100 million worth of All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential nomination and expression of interest forms for him.
He said that while he had yet to make up his mind to run in the presidential election, if he heeded the call to run for president, he would use his “hard-earned savings from more than 35 years of banking leadership to purchase my own nomination forms.”
In his lawsuit confirming his political ambition, Mr. Emefiele sued the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Attorney General of the Federation and asked the court to prevent them from forcing him to resign as governor of CBN to run for the charge in 2023.
His lawyer, Mr. Ozekhome, expressed fears that the INEC and the AGF are making “frantic efforts to disqualify” Mr. Emefiele “from participating in the presidential primaries scheduled for June 3, 2022, for not giving up his position before the primaries of the parties. ”