An Abuja Federal High Court has ordered substituted service on five governors who defected from the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, to the All Progressives Congress, APC.
The governors are Murtala Nyako (Adamawa); Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers); Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto); Rabiu Kwakwanso (Kano); and Abdulfatai Ahmed (Kwara).
At the resumed hearing of the case yesterday, the court fixed April 7, 2014 to hear applications filed by five governors who had challenged the validity of the hearing notices served on them by the PDP.
The court will on that day also hear all pending applications including that of the defecting governors challenging services on their liaison offices in Abuja.
In the hearing notice, they were summoned to appear before the court to respond to the suit filed by the PDP in its bid to remove them from office.
Justice Gabriel Kolawole fixed April 7 to hear the governors’ motion against the service of the hearing notice and an application filed by the PDP to regularize the service.
The governors’ grouse was that the PDP did not serve the hearing notice at the address stipulated in the order which directed them to appear before the court.
However, the PDP explained that the defected governors’ new political party, the APC had relocated from the address mentioned in the court order.
The confusion over the address of the national secretariat of the APC became a major issue in the suit after the governors and their lawyers failed to appear before the court when proceedings in the suit commenced on January 27, 2014.
Following the governors’ absence, Justice Kolawole fixed yesterday for hearing and ordered that a hearing notice to that effect be served on them.
The judge directed that the hearing notice should be pasted at the national secretariat of the APC by way of substituted service on the five governors, in addition to its advertisement in two national dailies.
In another development, President Jonathan and the Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, Mohammed Adoke, SAN, yesterday asked a Federal High Court, Abuja to strike out a suit filed by sacked Justice Gladys Olotu to challenge her dismissal from office.
Justice Olotu, a former judge of the Abuja FHC who was dismissed by the President on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council, had approached the court in a bid to set aside her compulsory retirement.
She sued President Jonathan and the AGF alongside the NJC, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, and the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta.
But, in a notice of preliminary objection filed by their counsel, Taiwo Abidogun, the President and the AGF asked the court headed by Justice Adeniyi Ademola to dismiss the suit.
They argued that the court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the matter. The President and the AGF noted that “the substantive matter relates to and is connected with the employment of the applicant, an erstwhile employee of the Federal Government of Nigeria.”
They insisted that the suit should not have been filed at the FHC as section 254 (c) of the constitution vested jurisdiction on employment matters on the National Industrial Court.
Justice Ademola yesterday fixed April 28 to hear the suit.
Justice Olotu was relieved of her duties after the NJC found her guilty of gross misconduct following investigations into petitions that were brought against her.
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