Lawyers of the Fresh Democratic Party, FRESH, Dr. Fred Agbaje and Kola Dopamu, yesterday made available to the media, a new notice of appeal/affidavit dated July 17, 2014 filed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, against the court verdict that voided the commission’s deregistration of the party.
INEC deposed in the said affidavit: “The delay by the Appellant/Applicant in compiling and transmitting the records was occasioned by the fact that the Appellant/Applicant was engaged with numerous appeals emanating from pre and post election cases.”
The FRESH lawyers said that the new notice of appeal effectively debunked the false claims that INEC officials have been making all along, that they have appealed the verdict which was why FRESH have not been recertified as required by law.
It will be recalled that FRESH won a court verdict against its deregistration by INEC at Federal High Court, 5 Abuja division, presided over by Justice Gabriel Kolawole on July 29, 2013. But the Commission has refused to obey the court order to recertify the party on the ground that it had already appealed the verdict.
According to Barr. Dopamu, “With the latest expose, viz the newly filed notice of appeal, FRESH was correct when we alleged that, no appeal was ever filed by INEC; a notice of appeal it initial entered was abandoned long time ago, only for the agency to re-file it and plead for a waiver by the court of Appeal rule that bans any appeal after 90 days of a delivered judgment from a lower court.”
Mr. Dopamu said FRESH, a party founded by Rev. Chris Okotie, would respond to INEC’s latest legal somersault, when a hearing date is given for the commission’s affidavit. He, however, added whimsically, “we hope Prof. Attahiru Jega (INEC Chairman) and his people would have the courage to pursue the notice this time, as the Presidential election is drawing nearer.”
The lawyer asserted that Rev. Okotie would surely contest the 2015 Presidential election, as the pastor-politician previously declared. “INEC can’t intimidate us, nor can it get away with this grave insult against the judiciary. How can a government agency tell a court of law, that it was too busy to file an appeal against a ruling delivered more than a year ago?” Dopamu queried.
The lead counsel to FRESH, Dr. Agbaje, meanwhile, said Prof. Jega would have to answer for contempt of court, for willful disobedience of a verdict by a court of competent jurisdiction, when the case eventually comes up in court.
In a related development, Rev. Okotie, reacting to INEC’s current assault on Fresh Democratic Party, spoke in Lagos that “It is an unpalatable reality that learned Prof. Jega seems to have metabolized into a general factotum of the Jonathan Administration. Those who are subservient to ineptitude and mediocrity soon declare themselves to be abject vassals of ignominy.”