Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court, Abuja, has set September 29 as the date to hear a motion by the Osun State government.
The motion challenges the court’s jurisdiction to hear a suit regarding withheld local government funds.
At the resumed hearing, the state government insisted that since the court’s vacation ended on September 16, the case should be “transferred back to Osogbo.”
The state government’s lead counsel, Musibau Adetunbi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), based the jurisdictional challenge on two grounds.
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First, he argued that the authorization for the case to be heard in Abuja during the court’s vacation “had been overtaken on the ground that the vacation has come to an end.”
Second, he “challenged the validity of a purported letter from the office of the Chief Judge of the court mandating Justice Emeka Nwite to substantively determine the suit in Abuja.”
Adetunbi contended that the letter was signed by a “person who claimed to be Personal Assistant to the Personal Assistant of the Chief Judge,” a person he called “a busy body” and “a person unknown to law to sign such a sensitive document.”
He pleaded with the court to determine the letter’s validity first, “insisting that the integrity of the letter is in doubt.”
The counsel for the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Muritala Abdulrasheed, SAN, and the Accountant General of the Federation, Tajudeen Oladoja, SAN, opposed the application.
They alleged it was “a ploy to delay the expeditious hearing of the matter” because the tenure of the elected APC chairmen and councilors “will come to an end on October 22,” which would make the case “academic if not expeditiously heard.”
After hearing arguments from all parties, Justice Nwite “fixed September 29 to hear the application by the Osun state government and any other that borders on the jurisdiction first before proceeding to any other one.”
Earlier, the judge had struck out the name of the AGF from the suit after the state government’s counsel said another matter against the AGF is “pending before the Supreme Court.”
The suit, filed by Osun State Attorney General, Oluwole Jimi-Bada, aims to stop the CBN and the AGF from “opening, operating, or maintaining local government accounts” for the APC chairmen and councillors elected in October 2022.
The state government asserts that these officials “have been sacked or removed from office by a subsisting judgment of the Federal High Court” and affirmed by the Court of Appeal.
Specifically, the suit is seeking to stop the disbursement of allocations to the “sacked APC Chairmen and Councillors.”
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