A Federal High Court in Abuja yesterday fixed December 6 for further hearing in a suit by the suspended president, Court of Appeal (PCA), Justice Isa Salami, and at the same time ruled that all the preliminary objections filed by all the respondents be consolidated.
Justice Donatus Okorowo added that he would hear the consolidated preliminary objections first before hearing the other motions pending before the court. This followed a repeated failure to hear the substantive matter yesterday as scheduled following the request by Salami’s lawyer, Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN), for time to respond to a fresh application brought by one of the respondents whose names were erroneously mis-pelled in the court papers.
The respondent, Justice Edozie Dennis, was erroneously presented in the court documents as Justice Edozie Dominic. The implication of this error is that the right person was not before the court and required an amendment of all the processes filed before the court where this error occurred.
Apart from the preliminary objections, other motions pending before the court were the ones filed by the ousted Court of Appeal President, Justice Salami, and another filed by the National Judicial Council (NJC) seeking to make Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), a principal partner at Olujinmi, Akeredolu & Co, the Chambers representing Justice Salami, one of the respondents on the basis that he was also a member of the NJC.
In Justice Salami’s motion, which the court had decided to entertain only after dealing with the jurisdictional issues raised in the consolidated preliminary objections, the embattled jurist is seeking to set aside all the actions taken by the NJC during the pendency of his suit. These include his forceful removal from office and retirement from service.
Justice Okorowo however?