Posted by By Ise-Oluwa Ige on
ABUJA - A Federal high court sitting in Abuja, last Friday, dismissed a request by the serving Abia Governor, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu to stop the legal move by five ex-councilors in the state....
ABUJA - A Federal high court sitting in Abuja, last Friday, dismissed a request by the serving Abia Governor, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu to stop the legal move by five ex-councilors in the state to jail him over his alleged failure to comply with court's order restraining him from reducing the tenure of office of local council chairmen and councilors in the state from three years to two.
According to the presiding judge in the case, Justice Stephen Adah, 'it is a serious matter to flout the order of court and still come before the court to ask for any order.
'The applicant (Gov Kalu and the state attorney-general) being in contempt of the court cannot come before it to ask for any order. If the allegation of disobedience to the order of the court is not thrashed out, the court will be turning the table of justice up-side down.
'Until the issue of contempt is cleared, the court cannot grant the application of the applicant. The applicant is hereby ordered to come before the court to show why he disobeyed then order of the court. Governor Kalu was early this year restrained by the court from reducing the tenure of council chairmen and councilors in his state following an application by some of the serving councilors in Abia.
Although Kalu agreed to comply with the order, he however breached it by dissolving all the local councils in the state while a suit on the move to dissolve the local councils was still pending in court. Following the disobedience to the court order, five councillors in the state commenced the committal proceedings against the governor and his attorney-general for breaching the court order by dissolving the local councils in the state and setting up a caretaker committee to run the affairs of the councils.