The Independent National Electoral
Commission on Monday asked Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High
Court in Abuja to allow it to serve the Kogi West senator, Dino Melaye,
the petition requesting the senator’s recall and other accompanying
documents, through substituted means...
Justice Dimgba had in his judgment
delivered on September 11, 2017 permitted INEC to proceed with the
exercise of verifying the signatures of the 188,588 registered voters
who were said to have signed in support of the recall process.
The judge had ordered that the senator
be served with the recall petition and other accompanying documents as a
pre-condition for commencement of the verification exercise.
But, INEC, through its lawyer, Mr.
Olawale Ibrahim, told the judge on Monday that all its attempts to serve
the senator personally, as ordered by the court on September 11, had
been futile.
Ibrahim, in an ex parte application,
sought the court’s order directing substituted means of serving the
senator by dumping the documents in front of Melaye’s office at the
National Assembly.
But a counsel, Nkem Okoro of the law
firm of Mike Ozekhome (SAN), Melaye’s lead counsel, told the judge that
the senator had been away from the country.
The judge, in his response, said he was
informed in the morning of Monday of the “arrival of a motion ex parte
by INEC for substituted service of the petition.”
He therefore directed that “INEC should make one more attempt at personal service on Melaye or through his counsel.”
The judge noted that “only if that fails” could he be disposed to taking the INEC’s ex parte application.
Lawyers for both parties agreed that the
matter be adjourned until September 28 “for report of service and / or
hearing of the ex parte and all pending applications in the unlikely
event that personal service still fails.”
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