From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
A suit seeking to compel President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately sack the Chief of Army Staff, General Faruk Yahaya, has received the backing of the Abuja division of the Federal High Court.
The suit is a follow-up to the judgment that convicted and sentenced him to prison for contempt.
A High Court in Niger State had, in a ruling it delivered on November 30, ordered that the army chief be remanded at the prison in Minna.
Justice Halima Ibrahim Abdulmalik, who gave the ruling, ordered that General Yahaya be remanded alongside the Commandant, Training and Doctrine Command, Minna, Major General Stevenson Olugbenga Olabanji, for wilfully disobeying an order it made on October 12, 2022.
In the fresh action, a Constitutional lawyer, Mr. Jideobi Johnmary, had approached the High Court, asking it to determine; “Whether having regard to the provision of Section 287(3) of the amended 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria possessed the constitutional powers to appoint as the Chief of Army Staff, a man who had been convicted and serving jail term as a result of the sentence imposed on him by a court of competent jurisdiction, following his conviction for the crime of contempt of court?
Aside from General Yahaha, also cited as second and third defendants in the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/2236/2022, are President Buhari and the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN.
In a 17-paragraph affidavit that was deposed to by a Litigation Secretary, Christopher Simon, the plaintiff argued that the conviction of the first defendant remained extant and subsisting, since it has neither been suspended, stayed, vacated nor upturned on appeal. He maintained that the 1999 Constitution, as amended, prohibits convicts from holding public positions.
The plaintiff insisted that President Buhari has no constitutional vires to appoint a convict serving a jail term in a correctional centre to serve as the chief of army staff of the Nigerian Army. However, no date has been fixed for the suit to be heard.