‘PDP misled court’ — Umahi denies criticising judge who ordered his sack

Dave Umahi, governor of Ebonyi, says lawyers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) misled the judge into issuing the court ruling ordering his removal as governor.

Umahi said this on Wednesday while addressing a crowd of his supporters in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi capital.

A federal high court sitting in Abuja had, on Tuesday, ordered the sack of the Ebonyi governor and Eric Igwe, his deputy.

Responding to the court ruling, Umahi had said the judge did a “hatchet job”, and described the ruling as a “sham”.

Speaking on the development, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) had described Umahi’s outburst against the judgment as “executive rascality”.

Addressing his supporters on Wednesday, the Ebonyi governor said he did not criticise the judge, adding that the PDP lawyers were to blame.

“The blame is not on the judge. The blame is on the PDP lawyers who misled the judge,” NAN quoted him as saying.

“I have no regrets leaving PDP. The judgment sacking me as your governor will not stand at appeal and I remain the governor as I’m still working.

“I said the lawyers of the PDP are the ones doing forum shopping and I’m going to report the lawyers to NBA to discipline them because the judge was misled.

“And I’m using the opportunity to appeal for calm and to let Nigerians know that nobody castigated the judge and we will not.

“Today, we have appealed the judgement. We didn’t say we will disobey, otherwise we would have not appealed. We are before the appeal court in Enugu state and that of Abuja.

“We have also filed a stay of execution. So, we are still the governor and deputy governor of Ebonyi.”