HURIWA Implores Umahi To Respect Law, Step Aside

Mr. Dave Umahi has been asked to resign as governor of Ebonyi State by the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), in accordance with a federal high court ruling by honourable justice Inyang Ekwo.

It is unfortunate that a man who has served as governor of a state for more than seven years is publicly criticizing a judge of a competent court of law, which is one of the three arms of government (legislature, judiciary, and executive). For the former governor of Ebonyi State, Dave Umahi, to use unprintable words to describe a federal high court judge, and indeed one of Nigeria’s finest jurists, given his prodigious intellectual output as an author of outstanding legal books, is the pinnacle of executive rascality.

Umahi’s disrespectful attitude demonstrates the truth of what we previously stated: he, Umahi, lacks the temperament to be Nigeria’s president. If Mr. Umahi is elected President by mistake or accident, he will pocket the judiciary and install his puppets as judges to do his bidding.

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To say the least, his)Dave Umahi’s) unguarded utterances and calculated but unwarranted diatribe directed at Nigeria’s judiciary is disappointing. Even worse, INEC has yet to comply with and enforce the court’s decision. Why is INEC breaking the law as well? Why is a man whose authority as governor of Ebonyi State has been legally revoked still parading around as governor, and why are law enforcement agencies aiding and abetting illegality?

INEC, as a constitutionally created body, is bound by the decision of the competent court of law, as stated in section 6 of the 1999 constitution: “6. (1) The Federation’s judicial powers shall be vested in the courts to which this section relates, being courts established for the Federation.”

(2) The judicial powers of a State shall be vested in the courts referred to in this section, which are courts established for a State, subject to the provisions of this Constitution.

(3) The courts established by this Constitution for the Federation and for the States, as specified in subsections (5) (a) to (1) of this section, shall be the only superior courts of record in Nigeria, and each court shall have all the powers of a superior court of record, unless otherwise prescribed by the National Assembly or by the House of Assembly of a State.

(4) Nothing in this section’s preceding provisions shall be construed as prohibiting:-

(a) the National Assembly or any House of Assembly from establishing courts with subordinate jurisdiction to that of a High Court, other than those referred to in this section;

(b) the National Assembly or any House of Assembly that does not require it from abolishing any court that it has the authority to create or that it has established.

(5) This section is about:

a) the Nigerian Supreme Court;

a) the Court of Appeal; b) the Federal High Court; c) the Federal Court of Appeal; d) the Federal Court of Appeal; e) the Federal

d) the Federal Capital Territory’s High Court in Abuja;

e) a State’s High Court.”

The sad reality is that if Dave Umahi had been in the PDP and had lost his position to the APC, INEC would have followed the federal high court’s judgment because there is currently no superior ruling suspending the enforcement of that judgment.

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So, pending the outcome of the appeal filed by the former, Mr Dave Umahi, challenging the federal high court ruling, INEC should issue the certificate of return to the PDP nominees as directed by the court of law.

Remember that on Tuesday, a Federal High Court in Abuja fired Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State and his Deputy, Dr Eric Kelechi Igwe, for defecting from the Peoples Democratic Party to the All Progressive Congress.

Justice Inyang Ekwo ruled that the total of 393,042 votes Umahi received in the Ebonyi State governorship election on March 9, 2019, belonged to the PDP and thus could not be legally transferred to the APC.
Both Umahi and Igwe’s defections to the APC, the court noted, threw out not only the PDP, but also the votes that belonged to the party.
Umahi, on the other hand, claimed that the judgment that removed him and his deputy on Tuesday was bought.

This was stated by Umahi at a press conference held in Abakaliki on Tuesday.
“I am still the Governor of Ebonyi State, and there is no tension at all,” he stated. To begin with, there is no provision in the Constitution for a saboteur to depose a governor. A governor can leave office in one of three ways: death, resignation, or impeachment. There is no other provision in the Constitution that allows a saboteur to turn it inside out.

“We’ve heard rumors that he was determined to rule against all known laws and the constitution, first to embarrass the APC and then to embarrass the federal government,” says the source.