13th December, 2010
Seven months after an appellate court sitting in Abuja upheld a decision of a Federal High Court sacking the erstwhile Speaker of the Delta state House of Assembly, Mr. Martin Okonta, who was representing the Ika South constituency at the House of Assembly, the Supreme Court on Monday set aside that judgment which sacked the legislator from office.
The judgment followed an appeal filled at the apex court by Mr. Okonta where he claimed that the Federal High Court entered a judgment against him when he was not a party in the suit instituted by his challenger, Mr. Kinsley Monye Phillips. He told the court that he was denied his constitutional right to be heard by the trial court which ought to have directed that he, whose election was being contested, ought to have been made a party in the suit.
In the unanimous judgment read by Justice Adekeye, the 5 man panel of the apex court held that a court can only be competent to entertain a suit when all necessary parties are properly before it. They held that the suit as instituted by Mr. Phillips challenging his substitution by the Peoples Democratic Party before the 2007 general election ought no to have been determined without the presence of Mr. Okonta who participated in the election and was returned winner by the Independent National Election Commission.
While setting aside the decision which ousted the former Speaker from the Delta state House of Assembly, the court awarded a cost of Fifty Thousand Naira and Thirty Thousand Naira respectively against Mr. Kingsley Monye Phillips and the electoral body in favour of Mr. Martin Okonta.
It is however doubtful if the former Speaker while resume as Speaker of the House of Assembly when he returns to the House as the House now has a serving Speaker.
—Nnamdi Felix / Abuja
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