The ongoing political battle between the Governor of Imo State, Senator Hope] Uzodimma, and the spokesperson of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, which have led to accusations and counter-accusations on assassination attempts on Ugochinyere, continued at an Abuja Magistrate Court where yet again Ugochinyere won as the Chief Magistrate struck out the suit instituted by Uzodimma’s aide, Chinasa Nwaneri.
In a short ruling on Wednesday, the Magistrate, Hon. Umah Isa Dodo, while agreeing that the impact of a subsisting order of an High Court was that he should stay proceedings, went further to also raise jurisdiction issues and resolved that the Court lacked the requisite jurisdiction to entertain the matter.
The Court went ahead to strike out the matter.
Recall that an FCT High Court had upon an application by Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere for judicial review of the trial and orders of the Magistrate, ordered the Magistrate to stay all proceedings.
The Magistrate had earlier threatened to order the arrest of Ugochinyere if he did not appear before him before he was served with the processes pending at the High Court and which warranted the suspension of the trial.
Efforts by J. C. Nwosu, counsel to Mr. Nwaneri, to make the Court to continue the hearing was opposed by Ugochinyere’s lawyers, who succeeded in convincing the Court on lawful thing to do which is to obey the pendency of the matter in the High Court and stop its own hearing.
Cross section of lawyers interviewed at the end of the session were unanimous in agreeing that the case was provocative and an audacious move by the Imo State Government to allegedly silence the opposition spokesperson who revealed the massive voter register manipulation now popularly called the Omuma Magic.
The manipulation included importing photos which obviously do not belong to eligible voters into the register in order to use them as voters in the 2023 elections.
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