Supreme Court sacks Linda Ikpeazu from House of Reps
Written by Innocent Anaba
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
, orders Gozie Agbakoba to be sworn in

The Supreme Court has ordered that Mr Gozie Agbakoba be immediately sworn in as member representing Onitsha North/South (Anambra State) Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives.





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The apex court in unanimous judgment at the weekend in the appeal No SC/224/07, ordered Linda Ikpeazu who presently occupies the seat to immediately vacate same, for Agbakoba to be sworn in.

The apex court decision bring to end, a long-drawn legal battle between the two members of the Peoples Democratic Party from Onitsha as to who was the validly nominated candidate of PDP to contest the April 2007 general election for Onitsha North/South Federal Constituency.

Since the House of Representatives is already on vacation, it appears the order may not be complied with until the House resumes plenary early January, 2009.

It would be recalled that before the April 2007 elections Agbakoba won the PDP party primary election for the constituency and was consequently nominated by the party to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the PDP candidate. However, a few days to the election, his name was dropped and Ikpeazu’s name put in his place.

Aggrieved, Agbakoba had challenged the substitution of his name before the Federal High Court and presiding judge in the matter, Justice Adeyinka Faji held that the Federal High Court had jurisdiction to hear the case, but further held that the reason given by the party for the substitution was cogent and consequently dismissed the suit.

Agbakoba dissatisfied with the lower court’s decision, appealed against same at the Court of Appeal, Enugu, but before the appeal could be heard and rule on the matter, the April 2007 election had been conducted and PDP won the election.

When the matter came up for hearing, the panel of the Court of Appeal made up of Justice James Ogebe JCA (as he then was), Ja’afarau Mika’ilu and Jimi Olukayode Bada JJCA, held that the appeal had become academic with the conduct of the election and struck out Agbakoba’s appeal.

Gozie Agbakoba, appealed further to the Supreme Court. The apex court agreed with Agbakoba that his appeal was not an academic and instead of remitting the case to the Court of Appeal to hear same afresh, the court agreed with Agbakoba and assumed powers of the Court of Appeal to deal with the main appeal, which the Court of Appeal avoided.

The apex court in its judgment held that the reason given for Agbakoba’s substitution was not cogent and that the substitution was unlawful.

Following its earlier decision in Amaechi VS INEC the apex court held that Agbakoba must be deemed to have won the election and should be sworn in immediately. The panel is made up of Justice Ignatius Katsina-Alu, Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar, Justice Ibrahim Muhammad and Justice Francis Tabai.

http://odili.net/news/source/2008/dec/23/305.html