A Federal High Court in Abuja has reserved ruling till June 5 to decide whether it has jurisdiction in a suit filed by the Peoples Democratic Party faction of the Ekiti State House of Assembly challenging the planned impeachment of Governor Ayo Fayose.
Lawyer to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Ekiti State House of Assembly had challenged the jurisdiction of the court to hear the suit on the grounds that it is an abuse of court process.
At the resumed hearing of the suit, the All Progressives Congress (APC) questioned the jurisdiction of the court to hear the suit because a similar suit had been filled in another court as such it would amount to an abuse of court processes.
However, the lawyer to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who opposed the application, asked the court to alternatively transfer the case to the Ekiti State division of the Federal High Court so that all the parties can have their day in court.
When asked if the case would not be futile because the seventh assembly is winding down already, Counsel to APC, Terrence Vembe, said that the legislators are free to go ahead with the case.
“We are concerned with what is going on in court here. I’m not in Ekiti, I’ve not been there for a very long time. I only know about what is going on in the court.
“The legislators are very free as air to go ahead with what they are doing (because) in the first place they are not under any obligation to obey an order of a court that does not have jurisdiction.”
However, Counsel to the PDP, Ahmed Raji, was of the view that once the new parliament comes in they may have to reconsider their stance as to whether or not to go on with the matter.
“The whole idea is to forestall an illegal impeachment, an unconstitutional impeachment, an unlawful one for that matter.
“If that threat is no longer there, the rightful thing to do is to discontinue the suit,” he said.
For now, observers are watching the outcome of this and similar suits which bothered on the impeachment of Governor Ayo Fayose.
