Appeal Court orders Enugu CJ to fast-track APC’s council poll suit

The appellate court gave the order yesterday on the appeal filed by APC challenging the ruling of an Enugu State High Court, which struck out names of Ikeje Asogwa, a former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the PDP from a suit challenging the caretaker committees. APC had appealed the ruling of Justice Romanus Odugu of Enugu State High Court on the grounds that if the names of Asogwa and the PDP, the beneficiaries of the caretaker committee, were removed, there would be nobody to be sued. Delivering judgment, the three-man panel of the Appeal Court, comprising Justices Ignatius Agube, Joseph Tur and A. Femi, held that the State High Court committed a miscarriage of justice by striking out the names of respondents in the suit before it. The justices said the ruling of the lower court was wrong and it aside the ruling. The court ordered that the case file be remitted to the Chief Judge to determine the legality of the caretaker committees on the originating summons filed. Following the expiration of the tenure of elected council chairmen on January 5, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi constituted a two-man caretaker committee to run the affairs of the 17 local government areas, pending the conduct of local government elections. In the motion on notice before the State High Court, the APC members were seeking an order to set aside the appointment of the caretaker committees. They insisted that the appointments contravened the Constitution and should be upturned while council elections should be conducted forthwith.]]>