A chief magistrate court in Abuja has terminated the
criminal suit filed against Umo Eno, governorship candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) in Akwa Ibom state.
At the court session on Friday, Emmanuel Iyanna, the
presiding chief magistrate, said following an affidavit of urgency filed by the
defendant(Eno) on Monday, and which was granted on Tuesday, “the matter is
hereby terminated”.
BACKGROUND
Iyanna issued an arrest warrant on December 23 after convicting the governorship candidate on charges bordering on “cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property”.
The complainant in the suit marked CR/94/2022 is one Edet
Godwin Etim.
Although Eno’s campaign organisation denied knowledge of the
suit, it later filed an application seeking to vacate the order on the grounds
of not being served the hearing notice.
During the hearing, the warrant of arrest was vacated.
The chief magistrate also set aside the entire proceedings
and judgment.
CHIEF JUDGE QUERIES
CHIEF MAGISTRATE
Eno, through his legal team led by Samuel Ikpo, had sent a
petition against the chief magistrate over the “issuance of irregular and
illegal warrant of arrest”.
A letter dated January 10 and signed by Oluseyi Amose on
behalf of the chief judge notified the chief magistrate of the petition against
him.
The letter stated that the petitioners have “called for
disciplinary action to be taken” against the magistrate.
CASE TERMINATED
At the resumed hearing on Friday, Saatsaha Yenge, a lawyer,
announced legal representation for the complainant.
However, the defendant was not represented in court.
Yenge said: “We received the notice by pasting that this
matter will be coming up for hearing of the defendant applicant’s motion filed
on January 9.”
“We responded by filing a counter affidavit on January 12,”
he continued.
“The applicant is not
in court. It appears that they are not interested in moving their motion.
“We made attempts to serve our counter affidavits on the
applicant but we discovered that the address provided is a business centre. We
hoped they would be in court so that we could serve them. This court is not a
place for dumping processes.
“We urge the court to
strike out their application for want of diligent prosecution.”
Delivering his ruling, the chief magistrate said the
complainant’s respondent was absent when the motion of urgency was heard.
He said since he already vacated the warrant of arrest and
the judgment, “the matter is hereby terminated”.
Reacting to the ruling shortly after the court session, the
complainant’s counsel said he was not informed about the hearing of the motion
of urgency.
He also faulted the court for setting aside the entire
proceedings and judgment on the grounds that it was never sought as a relief in
the defendant’s motion.
He said he would discuss with his client to know the way
forward.
The complainant had alleged that he carried out a contract
for the defendant which spanned for about six years and he was supposed to be
paid about N28 million.
He alleged that the defendant breached the contract and did
not pay him.
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