Justice Taiwo Taiwo of a Federal High Court in Abuja has adjourned further hearing of two suits seeking the disqualification of APC candidates, Osagie Ize-Iyamu and Audu Ganiyu in Edo Election till September 3.
Justice Taiwo gave the adjournment at the instance of defence counsels who applied for adjournment to enable them react to issues raised in the suit.
When the matter came up for hearing, counsel to Ize-Iyamu, Mr. Roland Otaru (SAN) and APC’s lawyer, Ehiogie West-Idahosa, objected to hearing of the two suits by Justice Taiwo pending the determination of the petition before the Chief Judge.
The party 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, the party accused Justice Taiwo of being close to Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, and queried the judge’s decision to abridge the time for parties to file processes in the cases.
They drew the judge 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, counsel to the defendants applied for adjournment to enable them react to issues raised in the suit and for the plaintiffs to move a pending motion for the hearing of the case during vacation.
The plaintiff is seeking the disqualification of Osagie Ize-Iyamu and Audu Ganiyu on the grounds of alleged discrepancies in Ganiyu’s names.
