A Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Bwari has fixed September 14 for hearing of a motion against the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mahmood Yakubu.
The motion seeks to commit Yakubu to prison over alleged disobedience of a court order.
The plaintiffs in the case are Otunba Ogidan and Mustapha Rabiu. The first respondent is Victor Oye, the national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, while the second respondent is Yakubu.
The plaintiffs allege that Oye and Yakubu flouted and ignored a court injunction of May 10, which ordered parties in the suit to maintain status quo ante bellum pending the determination of the substantive suit fixed for September 28.
Yakubu is alleged to have refused to recognise Edozie Njoku as the rightful national chairman of APGA and went ahead to publish names of governorship candidates which did not emanate from Njoku for APGA, for the November 11 off-cycle governorship polls in Imo, Kogi and Bayelsa.
INEC is also alleged to have continued to recognise Oye as the national chairman of APGA as against the court order.
The motion also says that Oye held a National Executive Council meeting of the party in disobedience to the court injunction which barred him from calling any meeting or holding any campaign or convention in the name of the party.
The judge, Mohammed Madugu, fixed the date for hearing after verifying from the court records that the motion was served on Yakubu on July 13.
However, a copy of the proof of service of the contempt proceedings on Oye could not be found in the court file.
The judge called the attention of the chief registrar to verify if the signature on the certified true copy was his, and he answered in the affirmative.
When the bailiff was called to produce the original copy of the proof of service, he admitted that he removed it from the file but did not state why he removed it.
The judge subsequently adjourned Oye’s matter to September 28 for further hearing.
