The Anambra Central Senatorial candidate, Chief Victor Umeh, has appealed the Awka Federal High Court judgement disqualifying him from contesting the February 25 poll. In this interview with THERAZORNEWS CREW, Umeh said the judgement would not stand as according to him, the High Court judge,Justice H. A Nganjiwa , stood the law on its head in the circumstances to please Senator Uche Ekwunife of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP)
What informed your challenging the Federal High Court judgment that disqualified you?
Well, there are two principal errors in the judgement. One, was that those who took me to court, that is PDP and Uche Ekwunife had no locus to challenge my nomination in the Labor Party .The law is firmly settled that only aspirants that participated in the party’s primary have the locus standi to challenge the outcome of the primary election for any reason whatsoever. It is not open to members of the party that didn’t take part in the the primaries to institute any action; not to talk of non-members of the party and in this case PDP and Uche Ekwunife.
If you don’t have locus standi to bring an action, the court has no jurisdiction to hear your matter and it is firmly settled. The other one is that the suit was statute bared because they filed it out of time .
Their complaint was that INEC published my name on the 20th of September 2022 and that was when they became aware that I am the candidate of the Labour Party. So counting fourteen days from 25th of September would have been 3rd of October for you to file within time .
They filed on the 5th of October; then we raised preliminary objections against it that the plaintiff had no locus standi to challenge the nominations in the Labour Party and this is because they are not members of the party; both PDP and Uche Ekwunife.
These were the two points of preliminary objections. Now when we filed preliminary objection , the matter was adjourned; and when it was called up for the counsel to Uche Ekwunife and the PDP to move his matter, he said he was relying on the originating summons that he filed on the 30th of September. That brought a row in the courtroom and all other parties objected because everybody had 5th of October on the process they served to all the parties.
With that controversy, the matter was adjourned to 8th December and the judge didn’t allow anything to happen that day. He said everybody should adopt their briefs and knowing that the matter appeared frivolous both in terms of locus standi and being filed out of time, the counsel accepted to go and adopt their briefs .
The judge adjourned the matter to the 26th of January for judgement. But before that 8th of December, I had sensed a hand of mischief on the part of the judge so I made sure that I obtained a Certified True Copy of the receipt with which the suit was filed – it is called online remitta because if you go there you can’t alter it . When you make payments the online remitta would be generated . It will bear the names of the parties, the amount paid and the date . So I applied and the court had to issue it to me and it was discovered that they paid for the filing on the 6th of October and any lawyer will tell you it is settled law that the date of payment is the date of filing and you can’t change it .
You can’t file one month ago and come and pay later one month after and say you filed one month ago . The day you paid is the date you filed and the Supreme Court had resolved that long ago .Every lawyer knows that to be so and apart from that we also discovered that the affidavit in support of the originating summons that they claimed that it was filed on the 30th of September was deposed to by one Victor Okpoko on the 5th of October.
So if you filed the originating summons on the 30th of October why was it not accompanied by the affidavit in support of it ? This is because two of them must come together and you must file them together.So that date on it was 5th of October .So it clearly showed that they filed the originating summons on the 5th of October.
But this judge overruled the preliminary objections on both grounds and said that they had locus to challenge the outcome of the primary election of the Labour Party. This is a gross miscarriage of justice because even judgements of a superior court, that is the Appeal Court, in a matter on the issue of locus standi was presented to him but he overlooked them and dismissed them .
A High Court Judge spurning a judgement delivered by the Appeal Court. The judgement delivered on the 29th of November in Porthacourt Division, the issue of locus standi was exhaustively dealt with. PDP took the Action Democratic Party to court challenging their primaries. Of course the Court of Appeal in Porthacourt on a very sound judgement by Hon Justice Gabriel Kolawole said you cannot challenge it unless you are an aspirant in the primary election of that party and in that case PDP was not an aspirant in the primaries conducted by by the Action Democratic Party and dismissed the appeal brought by the PDP because the party had no locus.
It was also tendered before Justice Nganjiwa but he overlooked it and said that the PDP and Uche Ekwunife had locus . It was a shock because about one month or so, earlier the same Justice Nganjiwa had dismissed the the YPP and Ifeanyi Ubah”s suit challenging the nomination of Chris Azubogu as the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA.
He said that the YPP and Ifeanyi Ubah had no locus standi to challenge the primary of another party and dismissed the suit and described them as meddlesome interlopers. So one will now ask what changed in the law in his own court ?Tgato the situation we are now facing.
And on the 26th of January he was due to deliver his judgement and he said that the judgement was not ready. He moved into the next day Friday and assumed jurisdiction and over ruled us on those two points of the preliminary objection and delivered judgement and went on a frolic talking about membership: that I was a member of APGA when I contested the primaries of the Labour Party even when my letter of resignation was before him addressed to the ward chairman of APGA in my ward and acknowledged by the ward chairman, he overlooked it .He said I ought to have informed the National leadership of APGA.
But the rule is that you must notify your ward chairman and that is where the register is. The membership register is at the ward. So you could see a man who was desperate to deliver a preconceived result and if you look at the order he made against me you may think that I am a criminal.
He ordered me not to parade myself as candidate of the Labour Party. He ordered INEC to delist my name as candidate of Labour Party, he ordered INEC to to remove the Labour Party logo from the ballot paper of Anambra Central Senatorial District. He also awarded damages which he said it was examplary damages of N2 million against me as if I did something. So the whole judgement was bizarre and perversed in all ramifications.
We are happy that the Court of Appeal, even the Court of Appeal in Awka Division has delivered another judgement on the 5th of January on the case of YPP against the PDP and Hon Okwudili Ezenwanne where the YPP went to court to challenge the party’s primary.The court below agreed that the suit was filed out of time and then struck it out then descended into an error by saying that YPP had locus to challenge the primary of the party relying on one clause in the Electoral Act.
The other party went on appeal, that is YPP went on appeal on that ground of locus standi. Even though the suit had been struck out , they still wanted to develop the law and went on appeal against that decision and the Court of Appeal on the 5th of January delivered its judgement and took that issue with which the the judge said YPP had locus standi and took them to the cleaners and restated that nobody outside the aspirant in the primary has locus to challenge it and it is a very justified judgement.
It took all argument and made it clear that YPP had no locus to challenge the primary of PDP. The Court of Appeal Makurdi Division in another judgement where PDP challenged the primary and candidate of APC , the matter came to the Court of Appeal Makurdi Division, the Justices that delivered the judgement said that if APC did not conduct any primary, at all, PDP had no locus to challenge the primary or the manner of their nomination but only members of the party have the right to complain and only those who took part in the primaries.
Look at the three judgements of the Court of Appeal in separate Divisions yet this man Nkajiwa decided to approbate and reprobate.
In YPP and Ifeanyi Ubah again he knew the law but in PDP and Uche Ekwunife against Victor Umeh and Labor Party he forgot the Law .
So this is Nigeria for you and that is why we are working hard to to see that a new leadership comes into place in this country. Nigeria needs a clear break from the mess it is going through today other wise , we would remain in this problems forever.
Somebody took an oath of office as a Judge cannot do this type of thing to change colour the way it suits you and nothing happens to you.
So these are the reasons why we approached the Court of Appeal with these judgements that that I have told you written by the Courtof Appeal of separate Divisions and the Court of Appeal is one court and any judgement delivered by one Court of Appeal persuades all Divisions of Court of Appeal.
So on what bases will Uche Ekwunife and the PDP run to the streets to celebrate that the judgement was a well considered judgement? So that it is and we have appealed against the judgement that is Labour Party and myself.We have also filed notice of Appeal, we filed motion for stay of the execution of the judgement and within days Iam sure that the Court of Appeal knowing that election is by the corner will be able to handle the matter and do justice to it and that is where we are.
What do you think may have informed this suit and judgement against you and your party?
Uche Ekwunife knows that she will not win and she is going to loose the election. She has been at the National Assembly for 12 years with very poor performance in terms of the core functions of a lawmaker. When you go there you will see that she performed badly. The National Assembly has the core functions assigned by the constitution, making laws for the good governance of the country, this one can be made through sponsoring of bills that when they are passed they become an Act of National Assetmbly and therefore law .
The National Assembly approves budgets and the expenditure estimates by the Federal government which the President presents to the National Assembly, which the NASS gives approval for any kobo belonging to Nigerians spent by the executive arm of government at the National level.
The National Assembly is also given oversight functions and powers to look at what government is doing in all spheres and at all levels including the implementation of the the budget and execute oversight functions.The National Assembly can remove the President and Vice President when any of them is guilty of gross misconduct. The National Assembly gives the Senate extra powers of confirming all appointments that the President is going to make like ministers , service Chiefs , Heads of judiciary, Heads of Statutory Boards and there members as well as Commissions.
You must bring their nominations to the Senate and the Senate will screen them and approve them before the President can make those appointments . These are the the things in the constitution and there is nothing like Constituency Projects in the Constitution.So if you want to access him or her as a lawmaker you go through the constitution which is based on the this line of analysis.
But here they tell people that they built houses for widows and all that and these are not the functions of lawmakers. You see that they have failed and in the public domain they are dismissed.
Because our people watched what I did in my 17 months at the Senate and how I performed at the National Assembly and at plenary looking at critical issues in compliance with the Construction at the Federal Character provisions of the Constitution.
I challenged a lot and got a lot stopped. I sponsored bills and motions and in fact in 2018 I sponsored the best motions at the National Assembly and I was very vibrant and canvassing for things that affected our people, fighting for their rights with every amount of passion.
I also contributed in many National issues in debates with informed knowledge and experience that our people were very happy that every week at least twice I made contributions at the floor of the Senate and beyond.
So that is it and so she( Ekwunife) is dismissed and everywhere as some one who is not serious at the National Assembly. How can you be in the Senate and the Senate will consider a request from the President to borrow 22.79 Billion dollars for infrastructure development across Nigeria and the projects were sited in five geopolitical zones and no one project was sited in the South-East and they were there and the Senate passed it ?
That is what disqualifies all of them from seeking reelection both in the lower and upper Chambers . At the Senate they first passed it , I was in America and I issued a statement from there condemning the action and expressed dismay that our representatives were there in the Senate and this type of thing came and they allowed it to pass
22. 79 billion dollars shared by six geopolitical zones will give you about 3.2 billion dollars or there about per zone and that is about N2.4 trillion and the South-East zone lost such money because of docile and uncommitted people that we have at the National Assembly.
And people tell us that they are doing Constituency Projects. When I was in the Senate I opposed the confirmation of the appointment of the EFCC members because the South-East was not represented, the South South was not represented.
Out of six members , South West had two nominees, North Central had one nominee , North West one nominee, , South -ast and South South no nominee.
I opposed it and successfully stopped the confirmation. I forced the Senate to a close door session and the truth was told and everyone agreed with me . We went back to plenary and the Senate President read the decision of the close door session and sent the list back to the President.
