Court Stops Taraba Lawmakers from Screening Commissioners

 It was a battle of wits between the judiciary and the legislature in Taraba State Tuesday as the state House of Assembly cleared a list of prospective commissioners sent to it by the acting Governor, Alhaji Garba Umar.
As the assembly was clearing the nominees, the state High Court was restraining the speaker and the lawmakers from taking any step towards screening and confirming them.
But in an apparently bid to beat the court injunction, the lawmakers started sitting earlier than usual and before the court could give its ruling, they had approved the list of commissioners.
The court made the order following an ex-parte application filed on behalf of the recuperating governor, Mr. Danbaba Suntai, by a team of lawyers led by Dr. Alex Izinyon (SAN), seeking an interim injunction to restrain the assembly from tampering with the subject matter of the dispute pending at the Court of Appeal.

Izinyon had argued that should the lawmakers be allowed to clear the prospective commissioners, the res of his pending case would be destroyed and rendered nugatory.
He drew the attention of Justice Ali Adenyangtso to a publication of the  list submitted by the acting governor. Ruling on the  application, Justice Adenyangtso acceded to Suntai's request and pulled the brakes on the confirmation process by the lawmakers.

Suntai had gone to court seeking a restoration of his powers as governor after returning from a protracted medical sojourn abroad following his involvement in a plane crash in Yola, the Adamawa state capital, last year.
But the lawmakers refused to let him assume office, causing him to file an action in court.

However, in an apparent bid to sidestep the decision of the court, the assembly yesterday cleared the list of  commissioner-nominees amid drama.
The  acting governor  had on Monday submitted the names of six people as prospective commissioners  to replace the six commissioners  that were sacked in July over the mismanagement of the N400 million fund released to the state by the federal government for flood victims.

The lawmakers, who had foiled an attempt to stall the screening in view of the court injunction, cleared the nominees at a session presided over by the  Speaker,  Hon. Josiah Sabo Kente.
However, there was drama in the assembly as the assembly foiled an attempt to stall the screening by some elements who had secured a court injunction to restrain the legislature from screening the nominees.

The assembly, which normally begins sitting by 10.a.m, did so yesterday  much earlier and by the time the injunction was brought to the assembly, the screening had already been concluded.
Reacting to the injunction on the assembly, the speaker denied knowledge of it, saying neither him nor the assembly has been served.

But former Deputy Speaker, Hon. Abel Peter Diah, who was seen in the assembly but refrained from attending the sitting, told journalists that the injunction was served on the assembly restraining it from screening the nominees and held that it was illegal for the lawmakers to have gone ahead to do so.

November 13, 2013