The national
industrial court in Abuja has given an order restraining Ibrahim Idris, inspector-general
of police (IGP), from arresting Walter Onnoghen, chief justice of Nigeria
(CJN), over charges filed against him by the federal government.
The court gave the
judgement on Monday in a suit filed by Peter Abang, a claimant.
The suit marked NICN/ABJ/07/2019,
has Danladi Umar, Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) chairman, National Judicial
Commission (NJC), Federal Judicial Service Commission and the senate president
as defendants.
The court also granted
Abang’s prayer seeking to restrain Umar from going ahead to hear the case
against the CJN pending the determination of the motion on notice.
“In view of the imminent
danger of having res in this suit being destroyed before the hearing of the
motion on notice for interlocutory injunction and the affidavit evidence before
the court, I am satisfied that the applicant in this case has made out a case
for the court’s intervention to prevent and preserve the res from dissipation,”
the court held.
“In view of the
importance of the constitutional issues involved in this matter regarding the
threat to the position of the number one judicial officer of the country.”
The court also gave a
temporal injunction ordering the defendants not to force Onnoghen from vacating
his office.
The development comes hours after a federal high court in Abuja stopped the plan to
arraign Onnoghen at the tribunal.
The CJN was supposed be
arraigned at the tribunal on Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment