Senate to Appeal against Judgement Declaring Ndume’s Suspension Illegal

Damilola Oyedele

The Senate has said it will appeal the judgement of the Federal High Court, Abuja, which last Friday declared the suspension of Senator Ali Ndume as illegal.

A statement from the Senate Media Office said the law firm of Mike Ozekhome has been instructed to file an appeal against the judgement on Monday and to apply for a stay of action.

The Senate said it respectfully disagrees with the judgement. The statement reads in part; “For the records, the Senate had challenged the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court to entertain the matter on several grounds, portions of which are outlined hereunder for the purpose of emphasis, as follows,”

“That the Plaintiff wrongly joined several causes of action in his Originating Summons,”

“That an action for the enforcement of fundamental rights to fair hearing can only be brought against a court or a tribunal, established by law as held by the Supreme Court in several current cases, and not against Committee of a legislative body,”

“That by the provisions of sections 3 and 30 of the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act, the trial court lacked requisite jurisdiction to hear the suit of the Plaintiff,”

“The Senate’s argument was supported by various and current decisions of the apex court.