By Austin Ogwuda
Ngozi Okolie’s appeal moved from Asaba to Abuja, hearing date also shifted to August 28
The appeal lodged by the member representing Aniocha/Oshimili Federal consistency in the National Assembly Rt Hon Ngozi Okolie in the Court of Appeal, Asaba Judicial Division has been moved to Abuja, The Town Hall Media can authoritatively report.
The hearing which was earlier scheduled to commence today, Thursday, the 24th of August will now be heard in Abuja from Monday next week, 28th of August
2023.
Efforts by this Reporter to get clarification as to why the case was moved to Abuja were unsuccessful as at the time of this report.
Lead counsel to Ngozi Okolie, the Appellant, Chike Onyemenam, Senior Advocate of Nigeria SAN in the Appeal contained in 13 pages stated among others :
*That out of the 22 Witnesses listed by Ndudi Elumelu as his Witnesses, 20 were abandoned; and the remaining two who testified did not lead any evidence at all about the Petition or to complain that Hon. Ngozi Okolie was not qualified to contest the Election.
*That the The Petitioners’ only two Witnesses simply tendered over 100 Documents they were ordered to produce and left without giving oral evidence to explain what the Documents were about.
*That Petitioners did not testify or lead evidence; contrary to subsisting Supreme Court Judgments that where a Petitioner fails to lead oral evidence, the Petition is deemed abandoned as the Tribunal cannot examine Documents alone.
The Asaba Elections Petition Tribunal in its judgment sacked Ngozi Okolie as member representing Aniocha Oshimili Federal consistency on the ground that he was not properly sponsored by his party, the Labour Party, LP.
National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party LP, Obiora Ifoh, however had on the 25th of July 2023 issued a press statement condemning the Lower Court judgment.
Ifoh stated that:
“The issue of nomination of candidates as well as membership are internal affairs of the party beyond the jurisdiction of courts.
“It is only a political party that can determine who its members are and who their flag bearer for an election should be.
“The courts have in a plethora of cases held that the court has no jurisdiction to intervene in the internal affairs of a political party.
