Godwin Tsa, Abuja
The Abuja division of the Court of Appeal on Monday put off the scheduled hearing in the appeal by the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole.
Although the matter was scheduled for hearing today, a panel of three Justices led by Justice Stephen Adah sat to hear other pending cases with a promise that another panel will hear the appeal by Oshiomhole.
But that was not to be as a female official of the court announced that the court had elected to hear Oshiomole’s appeal on a later date to be communicated to parties later.
Oshiomhole and his supporters, who had been in court about 8 am, are currently meeting with their team of lawyers on what next steps to take.
As he exited the courtroom, with his supporters, Oshiomhole told journalists that he would await the court’s decision in the case.
Oshiomhole’s appeal is against an earlier judgment of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) which among others, restrained him from acting as the national chairman of the APC.
Justice Danlami Senchi of an Abuja High Court had in an interlocutory ruling on March 4, 2020, ordered among others, that Oshiomhole should desist from parading himself as the APC chairman.
The order was sequel to an application of interlocutory injunction asking the court to suspend Mr Oshiomhole, having been suspended as a member of the APC by the party in Edo State.
However, Oshiomhole through his lawyer, Mr Damian Dodo SAN, had same day approached the appellate court to reverse the suspension order placed on him by the lower court.
Accordingly, the court fixed March 16 to commence hearing in Oshiomhole’s case against his suspension.
He specifically asked the Court of Appeal to set aside the suspension order of Justice Senchi and restore his position as national chairman of the APC.
In his appeal predicated on four grounds Oshiomhole argued that the judge erred in law and arrived at a wrong conclusion which occasioned a miscarriage of justice when the court placed him on suspension at an interlocutory stage of a suit instituted against him by some aggrieved members of the party.
Oshiomhole also argued that the High Court further erred in law when it decided that he, in the performance of his duties as APC national chairman, would interfere in the court action filed against him by the aggrieved members.
He argued that the issue of duties as APC national chairman is a matter which arose from substantive issues for determination which he claimed ought not to have been determined at the interlocutory stage of the main matter.
The suspended national chairman further submitted that the trial judge erred in law and arrived at a wrong conclusion which occasioned a miscarriage of justice when after ordering the filing of pleadings, immediately set down motion for interlocutory injunction for hearing in the absence of pleadings.
He further faulted the suspension order against him on the grounds that the trial court determined the motion for interlocutory injunction without recourse to triable issues that ought to have been discerned from pleadings.
Respondents in the appeal are: APC national vice chairman (Northeast) Mustapha Saliu; Edo State APC chairman, Hon. Anselm Ojezua, Alhaji Sani Gomna, Mr Oshawo Stephen, Mr. Fani Wabulari and Mr. Princewill Ejogharado.