The Court of Appeal has dismissed the ex parte order given by the Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt on May 10, 2024, stopping Martin Amaewhule from parading himself as Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
The appellate court also dismissed the decision of the state high court stopping 24 other members of the Assembly from accessing the complex or carrying out any legislative assignment in the name of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
The appellate court, in determining the issue of the jurisdiction of a lower court to hear and also grant an ex parte order, held that the Federal High Court is exclusively and mandatorily the only court that can hear such matters and not a state high court, citing section 273 of the Constitution.
The three-man panel led by Justice Jimi Olukayode-Bada, therefore, upheld the appeal filed by a factional Speaker of the Rivers Assembly, Amaewhule, and 24 others against the Speaker, Victor Oko-Jumbo, and two others.
Details later…
