ENUGU— THE Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu yesterday dismissed an application by Senator Ikechukwu Abana seeking to set aside the judgment of the court which declared Chief Ben Obi winner of the Anambra Central Senatorial District election of May last year. But Abana declared yesterday that the judgement of the Appeal Court had not brought the matter to an end, as there were several outstanding court orders on the same matter. He asked Obi not to rejoice because he would not vacate his seat until all pending cases were decided.
Abana had asked the court to set aside the judgment delivered by a panel headed by Justice Ayo Salami on the grounds that it had no powers to rehear the case after a previous panel led by Justice Okwuchukwu Opene had heard and reserved judgment in the case. He also contended that the Salami panel did not give him fair hearing and had unjustifiably refused all his entreaties and applications to ensure that he was allowed to state his case.
However, in a unanimous ruling read by Justice Ola Adeleke, the court held that the Salami panel had acted within the rules of the court to rehear and decide the matter stressing that the Opene panel had not written any judgment before it was changed.
It further held that in line with the principle that a court has no powers to review or set aside its own decision or that of a court of concurrent jurisdiction, the current panel of the court headed by Justice James Ogebe had no powers to set aside the judgment of the previous panel. The court also dismissed Abana’s claims that he was not given fair hearing by the Salami panel holding that he was given ample opportunity to state his case, which he however failed to do.
It therefore dismissed the application for lack of merit and awarded N10, 000 costs against the applicant (Abana). "This application is clearly misconceived and unmeritorious and is accordingly dismissed with N10,000 against the applicant", the court declared.
Reacting to the court ruling, Senator Abana said he would file a stay of its execution due to other applications and appeals on the matter pending before the Appeal Court and the Federal High court Abuja. He said he would also initiate criminal proceedings against Chief Obi for allegedly forging and parading the result of the election, adding that he has already petitioned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seeking to prevent it from issuing certificate of election to Obi since the commission was a party in all the pending cases.
"We have so many orders of court outstanding. It is unfortunate that the judges did not look into the breaches of the Salami panel. The panel said it will reserve ruling on the Abana vs Obi appeal pending hearing of the Flint Obiekwe vs Obi case but the case of Obiekwe was not heard before the Salami panel delivered its judgment. We are coming up with a stay of execution of the judgment by the Appeal Court. We have about three other cases in the Appeal Court and the Federal High Court Abuja," he said.
