A
High Court sitting in Yola has thrown out an application filed by the
Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako, seeking to restrain the state
House of Assembly from commencing impeachment process against him until
the determination of the substantive suit.
Justice Ambrose Mamadi, who is the
acting Chief Judge of the state, said this while ruling on the
application filed by Kanu Agabi SAN, on behalf of Nyako on Thursday.
Mamadi in his ruling argued that the lawmakers did not breach any provisions of Section 188 of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
He added that the application was aimed
to pre-empt the legislators, who had 24 hours earlier instructed the
acting CJ to constitute a seven-man panel to investigate the 20 charges
of gross misconduct levelled against the governor and another six counts
of similar charges brought against the deputy governor.
Responding to the ruling counsel for
Nyako, Agabi who was represented in court by Mr. Ayo Akam, said it did
not affect the substantive suit.
It will be recalled that the state
lawmakers had two weeks ago ordered the Clerk of the state House of
Assembly to serve the impeachment notices on Nyako and his deputy.
When the clerk was finding it difficult
to serve them the impeachment notices, the state House of Assembly did
so through the media.
Nyako, in the eight-page impeachment notice, is accused of mismanagement of public funds.
However, the Adamawa State
Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Tahir Shehu, said, “The
ruling has cleared the coast for the lawmakers to continue with their
constitutional responsibilities of checkmating the activities of
government officials in the state.”
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