Justice James Omotoso of the Federal High Court in Abuja has refused to grant an ex-parte motion filed by Edo Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu.
Shaibu had filed a motion before the Federal High Court in Abuja seeking seeking an interim order to stop the impeachment process by the state’s House of Assembly.
In the suit, Shaibu sought an order of the court restricting the third to fifth defendants from commencing any process by holding proceedings or setting up any panel of investigation for his removal, pending the hearing of a motion on notice.
He also sought an interim injunction restraining the defendants, whether by themselves or their agents, from interfering with the subject matter of the Originating Summons filed in the suit targeted at his removal from office as the deputy governor of Edo State pending the hearing of the motion on notice among other reliefs.
However, in the ruling dated March 13, but cited on Monday, the trial judge, Justice James Omotosho, declined the deputy governor’s prayers.
It reads: “That the Motion Expartee for Interim Injunction dated and filed 8th day of March 2024 is hereby refused.”
At the proceedings on Tuesday, the judge fixed Wednesday for hearing in another motion ex-parte brought by the plaintiff seeking substituted service on the defendants due to his inability to serve them.
Edo Governor Godwin Obaseki and Shaibu, chieftains of the governing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo, are at loggerheads over the authentic governorship candidate of PDP in Edo.
Obaseki is fully backing a Lagos-based lawyer, Asue Ighodalo, who emerged as the party’s standard bearer of the governorship indirect primary election at Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin.
Shaibu emerged factional candidate at a parallel primary at his official residence on Commercial Avenue in the same Benin.
He went to the PDP national secretariat to receive his nomination certificate but was refused.
