A Federal High Court in Abuja will on Monday, April 18, commence hearing on the case of the impeachment of the speaker of the Kogi state House of Assembly, Momoh Lawal.
The defendants – five members of the state assembly – who opposed Lawal’s leadership will appear before Justice Nnamdi Dimgba over a leave granted by the court to Lawal and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to serve the lawmakers and security agencies Ex-parte motion on the matter.
The five lawmaker are: Umar Imam, Friday Sani, Lawi AT Ahmed, Hon. Bello Abdullahi and John Abah.
Also joined in the matter are: the attorney general of the federation, the inspector general of police, the director general of the Department of State Services and the commandant of the National Security and Civil Defence Corps.
At the court sitting on Wednesday, March 23, Dimgba granted an application by the plaintiff for a substituted service on the defendants.
The plaintiffs had earlier sought a court order to abridge the time for the defendant to file an appearance for the suit.
They also sought an order for the substitution of service stating that the defendants were evading service.
The judge in his ruling ordered that the defendants be served of the court’s order through newspaper publications rather than courier.
He also reduced the time of appearance and filling of the defence to seven days excluding public holidays and vacation period.
Lawal was impeached as the speaker of the Kogi state House of Assembly on Tuesday, February 16, 2015 alongside his deputy, Aliyu Aku and minority leader, Hassan Bello.
Following his impeachment, he was replaced Godwin Osiyi and James Eneche as the new minority leader.
The impeachment was carried out with the help of some security operatives.
On Tuesday, April 12, the National Assembly summoned the attorney general of the federation, Abubakar Malami to appear before the committee on judiciary over his role in the crisis that rocked the state’s Assembly.
Malami was said to have given an order to the inspector general of police, Solomon Arase to reopen the assembly which has been on lock-down for proceedings.
The federal lawmakers also constituted a 22-member Ad-hoc committee led by the majority leader to investigate the crisis in Kogi House of Assembly.
SOURCE: www.thenaij.com
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