The All Progressive Congress (APC) has objected to Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja hearing two suits seeking the disqualification of its candidates in the September 19 Edo State governorship election.
Both suit, marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/758/2020 and FHC/ABJ/CS/839/2020 filed by Momoh Abdulrazak and Charles Udeh are querying the qualification of the APC candidates Osagie Ize-Iyamu and Audu Ganiyu on grounds of alleged discrepancies in Ganiyu’s names.
But, the APC in a petition to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, signed by its National Secretary, John Akpanudoedehe, wants the cases to be taken from Justice Taiwo.
In the petition dated August 20,/2020 the party accused Justice Taiwo of being close to the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, and queried the judge’s decision to abridge the time for parties to file processes in the cases.
At the mention of one of the cases on Monday, lawyer to Ize-Iyamu, Roland Otaru (SAN) and APC’s lawyer, Ehiogie West-Idahosa drew the judge’s attention to the petition and asked him to suspend proceedings pending when the Chief Judge acts on the petition.
Justice Taiwo told the lawyers to leave the petition for the CJ to handle since the issue was administrative. He added that the new practice direction of the court did not permit him to simply withdraw from the cases at the mention of a petition.
Upon the insistence by Otaru that he must stay proceedings to await the outcome of the petition, Justice Taiwo drew the lawyer’s attention to a recent directive by the National Judicial Council (NJC) that, in pre-election cases, a judge against whom a petition is written, shall not halt proceedings until otherwise directed by the council.
On realising that they were heading nowhere, lawyers to the defendants applied for an adjournment to enable them to react to issues raised in the suit and for the plaintiffs to move a pending motion for the hearing of the case during vacation.
Justice Taiwo then adjourned till September 3 for hearing.
The petition reads: “We wish to humbly apply for the transfer of the above-listed cases before the Federal High Court No.9, Abuja presided over by Justice Taiwo Taiwo as a vacation judge to any other of the Federal High Court in the Federal Capital Territory.
“We are constrained to make this application for the following reasons;
“The party has found out that Hon. Justice Taiwo Taiwo has a very close relationship with Governor Nyesolme Wike of Rivers State and their affinity is now common knowledge to the public.
“The Governor of Rivers ‘State, Nyesom ‘Wike is the Chairman of the Campaign Council of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the Governorship election scheduled for Edo State on 19th September 2020
“The said Governor Wike has openly boasted that he would do everything to ensure that PDP wins Edo State and this includes securing favourable court orders to disqualify the All Progressives Congress Governorship candidate of the said election.
“About 8th August 2020. a meeting was held at the house of Senator Clifford Ordia, who is Senator on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at Usugbenu Irrua in Esan Central Local Government Area of Edo State by the leaders of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and at the said meeting, Senator Clifford Ordia told the leaders of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that he had received a call from Governor Wike of Rivers State informing them that they should be rest assured that APC would have no candidate for the September Governorship election as some of the pre-election matters have been assigned to his friend, Justice Taiwo Taiwo, who is one of the vacation judges sitting in Abuja.
“The All Progressives Congress got the information referred in paragraph 6 above from some of the members of the Peoples Democratic Party, who were forced to decamp from All Progressives Congress recently by Governor Obaseki of Edo State, but are still sympathetic to the All Progressives Congress.
“On 10th August 2020, when Suit No: FHC/ABJ/CS/758/2020 came up for mention, the learned judge suo motu (on his own) abridged the time allowed by law for the defendants to respond, even when some of the defendants have not been served with the originating processes, by fixing the matter for 24th August 2020, for hearing and that all responses must be filed before then.
“At the time the learned judge made the said order, a motion on notice to abridge time was pending before the court which had not been served on all parties.
“Even when the honourable court granted an ex-parte order for substituted service of the processes in Suit N0: FHC/ABJ/CS/839/2020, the story all over Edo State is that the APC candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu had been disqualified by Justice Taiwo Taiwo.
“The All Progressives Congress is worried that they have no chance of getting justice before Justice Taiwo Taiwo on account of his said affinity to Governor Wike and the anxiety demonstrated by abridging the time for defendants to file processes even when the motion on notice to do so was still pending and some defendants had not been served with originating processes.
“The party has no confidence that it would get justice before Justice Taiwo Taiwo and would therefore humbly request that the said matters be transferred to any other vacation judge in the Federal Capital Territory.”
