A Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday granted temporary injunction stopping PDP lawmakers from reconvening the House of Representatives from recess.
The issued an interim order of injunction stopping the House from reconvening until Friday when a motion ex-parte lodged before it by the embattled Speaker of the House, Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, will be heard.
The court was was presided by Justice Ahmed Mohammed.
The court order the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, its Chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’Azu and five other defendants in the matter, to appear before the court on that date to show cause why the reliefs being sought by the Speaker should not be granted.
The court ordered all the parties to maintain status quo pending the hearing and determination of the motion before it, saying the order was necessary so as to preserve the ‘Res’ of the matter brought before it by the Speaker and his new party, the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Moving the application yesterday, counsel to the plaintiffs, Mr. Sunday Ameh, SAN, told the court that despite the pendency of a substantive suit filed by his clients last Friday, the defendants were still plotting to remove Tambuwal as Speaker of the House.
According to him, the PDP had summoned all its members at the House of Representatives, including the Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, with a view to persuading them to reconvene the House for the purpose of discussing Tambuwal’s removal as speaker and member of the House.
He contended that Order 5 Rules 18(1) (2) and (3) of the House Standing Rules empowers the Speaker to reconvene the House by directing the Clerk to notify members, saying it will be unlawful, unconstitutional, null and void for the PDP to move to reconvene the House without the approval of the Speaker.
Aside PDP and Mu’Azu, other defendants in the suit, which has the APC as the 2nd plaintiff, are the House of Representatives, the Deputy Speaker of the House, the IGP, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and the Attorney General of the Federation.
Specifically, the plaintiffs had in their motion ex-parte, prayed the court to abort moves by the PDP and its Chairman, to illegally and unconstitutionally reconvene the sitting of the House.
Tambuwal, in the motion filed through the chambers of Mr. Jubril Okutepa, SAN, told the court that since the day he defected to APC, the PDP has continued to perfect strategies with a view to not only ensuring his removal as the speaker, but to also declare his seat as a member of the House vacant.
Alleging that the defendants, “have the propensity to act with impunity and in total disregard for due process “, Tambuwal insisted that only a quick intervention of the court could stop the “evil plot” against him.
Besides, he alleged that the defendants, “in further demonstration of their unconstitutional conduct”, connived with the Acting Inspector General of Police, Sulaiman Abba, and withdrew all the security details attached to him as the Speaker of the House, a development he said has exposed him to bodily harm.
Therefore, the plaintiffs prayed the court among others for “an order of interim injunction restraining the Defendants/Respondents herein either by themselves or agents, proxies or otherwise howsoever from taking any steps or further steps to abrogate or diminish or take away or interfere with or infringe the 1st plaintiff’s rights and privileges as the Hon Speaker and as a member of the 3rd Defendant/ Respondent pending the hearing and determination of the motion for interlocutory injunction before this court.”
