A federal high court in Abuja on
Wednesday ordered Ibrahim Idris, inspector-general of police (IGP), to produce
Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC), in court on August 14.
Stephen Pam,a judge, gave the
order after Adegboyega Awomolo, counsel to Yakubu, told the court that he did
not know where his client was.
On August 1, the court had issued
a bench warrant for the arrest of Yakubu for “flagrant disobedience of court
orders”.
According to Pam, the bench
warrant issued for the arrest of Yakubu has not been vacated and still
subsists.
”The I-G is hereby ordered to
enforce it by bringing him to court on the next adjourned date,” he held.
He adjourned the matter until
August 14 for continuation of committal proceedings.
Earlier, Awomolo told the court
that he had written a letter to Adamu Abdu-Kafarati, chief judge of the federal
high court, asking that the matter be transferred to another judge.
Awomolo also told the court that
he had filed three appeals in respect to three different rulings delivered by
Pam on the matter.
He asked the court for an
adjournment to allow the chief judge reassign the matter to another judge.
Gordy Uche, counsel to Ejike
Oguebego, the plaintiff, however, opposed the application for an adjournment on
the grounds that there was no basis for adjournment.
Uche told the court that although
Awomolo had written to seek the disqualification of the judge, the letter was
not copied to him or the judge as he was only just informing the court.
He submitted that the judge could
not act on the letter since there had been no directive from the chief judge
for him to act on the letter.
Uche also argued that it was a
special court constituted with a fiat to hear the contempt charge within a
specific timeline.
According to him, “as at today,
the fiat has not been withdrawn and in spite of Awomolo’s letter, there has
been no order from the chief judge directing Justice Pam to stop sitting on the
matter.’’
The contempt charges were brought
against the INEC chairman by Oguebego for his refusal to recognise him as
chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Anambra.
This was in compliance with a
supreme court judgment of December 2014.
Pam had, on July 5 and July 10,
ordered Yakubu to appear in court and show cause why he should not be sent to
prison for contempt of court.
Following his failure to appear
in court on both occasions, the judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest.
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