Senator Peter Nwaoboshi
The Federal High Court, Abuja on Wednesday, declined to hear an application brought by Sen. Peter Nwaoboshi for a stay of execution on the judgment delivered on April 3.
The judgment which was delivered by Justice Ahmed Mohammed had sacked Nwaoboshi as the senator-elect for Delta North Senatorial District of Delta.
Mr Ned Nwoko had filed the suit challenging the election of Nwaoboshi as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) in the Oct. 2 primaries of the party held in Delta.
The court had held that Nwaoboshi, a serving senator, was not the duly elected candidate of the PDP in the primary election.
The judge had subsequently ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to publish the name of Nwoko as PDP candidate, having established before the court that he scored the highest number of votes in the said primary election.
Mr Selekowei Larry, counsel to Nwaoboshi, however, approached the court on Wednesday praying the court for an order to stay the execution of the judgment.
Justice Mohammed in his ruling said that since defendants in the suit had appealed the subsisting case, he would transfer the motion together with the entire case file to the appellate court.
“This court has no further jurisdiction on the matter, in view of this, the first defendant’s (Nwaoboshi’s) motion filed before this court (for stay of execution) is hereby transmitted to the Court of Appeal.”
Larry told newsman that his application has been overtaken by events at the moment because the appeal had now been entered at the Court of Appeal.
“The effect of that is that everything about this case has now shifted to the Court of Appeal.
“The application has not been taken because this court now has no jurisdiction to entertain the matter since everything has now shifted to the Court of Appeal.
“The position remains the way it was before we came to court this morning.
The judgment of this court still stands but the execution of the judgment is what is not possible until the Court of Appeal says the appeal is worthless,” the lawyer said.
Nwoko, through his counsel, Mr Ahmed Raji (SAN), had dragged INEC, PDP and Nwaoboshi before the court praying for an order to stop INEC from publishing or further publishing the name of Nwaoboshi as the party’s candidate for Delta North senatorial district.
Nwoko had also asked for an order compelling the PDP to forward his name to INEC as the authentic candidate of the party for the senatorial district in the 2019 general election.
