Posted by By Anayo Okoli on
AWKA - THE Federal High Court sitting in Enugu has ordered that the Chairman of Onitsha South local government council, Chief Basil Ejidike and eight persons be sent to prison for a period of three months if they (the 8 persons) refuse to vacate the office they hold at the Patent Medicine Dealers Union over contempt of court.
AWKA - THE Federal High Court sitting in Enugu has ordered that the Chairman of Onitsha South local government council, Chief Basil Ejidike and eight persons be sent to prison for a period of three months if they (the 8 persons) refuse to vacate the office they hold at the Patent Medicine Dealers Union over contempt of court.
The court said the election that produced them as union leaders was illegal. The eight persons are Chief Uwadiegwu Ejike, Ughalumba Chibuzor, Amaechi Nnaenu, Sunday Nwachukwu, Chinedu Asuzu, Obiora Okonkwo, Nze Lawrence Okpala and Jerome Obasi.
Justice Lewis Allagoa who gave the order noted that the affected people committed contempt of the court by disobeying a court order barring them from conducting any election.
The Incorporated Trustees of Proprietory Medicine Dealers Union, Onitsha had gone to court to stop the election of new executive following crisis in the union.
Handing down the order Justice Allagoa said : ' In all, I find that the applicant has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the contemnors on record are in flagrant disobedience of the order of this court and are hereby found liable for contempt of this honourable court.
'In the circumstance therefore, all the contemnors are hereby ordered to purge themselves of the contempt by renouncing that election in Vanguard Newspaper and vacate the purported offices they occupy as a result of the illegal election within seven (7) days from the date of this ruling and it is further ordered that in the event that the contemnors fail to purge themselves as stipulated, they will be sent to prison each one of them for a period of three months.