A group known as Oba Eminent Citizens has requested that the Commissioner, Anambra State Ministry of Local Government, Chieftaincy and Community Affairs, Hon TonyCollins Nwabunwanne make public the court order barring Oba people from conducting an Igweship election.
Recall that the Commissioner had on live television, said that the Oba people disobeyed a court order that barred them from holding an election to choose a new Igwe. According to him, there is a court order that the Oba community must not engage in the election and anyone who parades himself as the Igwe of Oba would be arrested by security operatives.
However, according to the group, the Commissioner has failed to present the court order to the public for the benefit of the doubt.
In a statement, the organization argued, “The Commissioner had said that there is a subsisting case of Igweship lying in Oba High Court. But there is no such case. If there was, the judge should have objected to our agreement when she directed Oba people to go and complete the election process that was initially suspended.
The Commissioner had earlier sent a case file number as the one, but the case he presented was a case filed in April 2024 and abandoned by those who instituted the suit. They abandoned it, and according to a senior advocate of Nigeria, Chief Chinedu Igbokwe, when a case is not followed for six months, it is no longer valid. If you want to resonate that case, you have to start the process all over again.
But the Commissioner is referring to that case which is now null and void, as the subsisting case that prevents Oba people from holding the Igweship election.
By mentioning that case, it seems there is a ploy to institute a case to stop the election planned for 21st December. When we put the election for Thursday, he advised that we hold the election on Saturday. So, he agreed that the election should be held initially but argued that it be shifted to Saturday to avoid disenfranchising civil servants. That was his reason, but from the development of issues now, he was only looking for a window to give his friends a window to file a fresh case against Oba.
When it was brought to his knowledge that the case before the court was invalid, they wanted to file a new case, and they tried to file a case on Thursday. But that Thursday, the only court that sat was Justice Okuma, the administrative judge of Idemmili, and no such case came up. So how can he say there is an existing court order?
So we are now asking the Honourable Commissioner to show the world the court order or court injunction, so that it would be on record, with proof that the election process that produced our new Igwe, HRM Engr Sir Augustine Chinedu Emelobe, the Eze Okpoko II is faulty.
If there is no such court order, let the whole world be aware that Ndi Oba never disobeyed any court order by holding that election.
Let it also be on record that Oba now has a new Igwe, and by God’s grace, Oba people unanimously elected him into office”, the statement said.
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