Deputy Governor of Zamfara State, Mahdi Aliyu Mohammed has drawn the attention of the general public and people of good will to the flagrant breach of the law by the State House of Assembly which scheduled a sitting this Thursday to proceed with his impeachment proceedings.
In a statement made available to AFRICA PRIME NEWS, the Deputy Governor recalled that a Federal High Court had granted an order directing the maintenance of the status quo ante on the 19th day of July 2021.
The Court Order, he said, was served on the Chief Judge of Zamfara State, Zamfara State House of Assembly, and the Governor of Zamfara State, but the Speaker and the House of Assembly have now embarked on steps and actions, to over-reach the pending suit, disobey the order of the court and render the effect of the suit nugatory .
Notwithstanding the service of the said Court Order, Mahdi emphasized, Mr Emmanuel C. Ukala SAN and Distinguished Life Bencher wrote a letter to the Honourable Speaker of the Zamfara State House of Assembly drawing the attention of the Speaker and the House of Assembly to the Court Order and the Suit no. FHC/ABJ/CS/650/2021: PDP vs. INEC & 5 Others challenging the vires of the Zamfara State House of Assembly, as presently constituted, to commence impeachment or any other proceedings against him elected on the platform of the PDP.
“I am of the honest view that the action will be improper, indecorous, in appropriate and unlawful as it constitutes disobedience to court order and will be tantamount to a flagrant breach of the law as enunciated in a host of Supreme Court Cases such as the Supreme Court cases of Vaswani v Savallakh [1972] (PART 2) ALL NLR 438 and Ojukwu v Governor of Lagos State [1983] 2 NWLR (PART 10) 106 and Mohammed v. Olawunmi [1993] 4 NWLR (PART 287) 254,
‘These cases have laid down the principle which has become time honoured and a settled law beyond peradventure that where there is pending application pursuant to an appeal before a court, no action aimed at or capable of foisting on the court a fait accompli and render it decision nugatory should be taken or entertain. In fact, the parties should not engage itself in speculation by concluding or assuming that the application before the Court will fail because an action before a court is the civilised way of enforcement and maintenance of legal rightls and a person that take that course of action should not be silenced or forced to abandon or renounce his right to complain”, he said.
The Deputy Governor therefore appealed to people of goodwill to impress upon the Lawmakers on the need to obey the subsisting order of the court and respect the judicial process to exercise restraint and await the outcome.