Lawmakers ask court to nullify election of Abdullahi as Nasarawa assembly speaker

Some members of the Nasarawa house of assembly have asked the federal high court in Lafia to stop Balarabe Abdullahi and Jacob Kudu, from parading themselves as the speaker and deputy.

NAN reports that the lawmakers, in a suit, FHC/LF/CS/8/23, asked the court to make “an order nullifying the purported oath of office taken on the 6th day of June 2023″, by Abdullahi, Kudu and nine other members-elect. 

The suit followed the emergence of two speakers after Abdullahi Sule, governor of Nasarawa, inaugurated the state’s seventh Assembly on June 6. 

Abdullahi and Daniel Ogazi, who were speakers of the fight and sixth assembly, are laying claim to the speakership position of the seventh house. 

While Abdullahi was elected at a sitting which took place at the ministry of local government and chieftaincy affairs by 11 out of 24 members, Ogazi was elected by 13 out of 24 members at plenary at the state’s assembly complex.

Following the postponement of the assembly’s inauguration, Ogazi and his supporters filed a lawsuit against Abdullahi, Kudu and others in their cohort.

They are asking the court to make “an order of perpetual injunction restraining the 1st-11th defendants from parading themselves as the speaker, deputy speaker and members of the house of assembly,” as they had not taken their oath of office in the parliamentary chambers.

The aggrieved lawmakers also prayed the court to restrain security agencies from intimidating, harassing, arresting or detaining the Ogazi-led faction from performing their functions as the speaker, deputy speaker and members of the state assembly. 

“An order of perpetual injunction restraining the 12th defendant (INEC) either by itself, agents, privies, or any of their other organs or officials (anyhow so-called) from recognising the 1st-11th defendants as members of the 14th plaintiff (assembly) until they are validly or legally sworn-in,” the case reads. 

“That the 1st-13th plaintiffs and 1st-11th defendants were elected on the platform of their various political parties into the 14th plaintiff in the general election held on the 18th day of March 2023.”