Ousted Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, on
Wednesday suffered a temporary set back as a Federal High Court siting in Abuja
and presided by Justice Gabriel Kolawole, refused to grant his ex parte
application for his return to office pending he determination of the suit he
filed challenging President Jonathan’s powers to suspend him from office.
The judge declined the invitation to make the orders being sought by Sanusi
on the ground that it would be unfair to grant such an application without
affording the President, the Attorney General of the Federation and the
Inspector General of Police the opportunity to be heard.
Sanusi had filed the application last Monday where in he urged the court to
make an order of interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants from
obstructing, disturbing, stopping or preventing him in any manner whatsoever,
from performing the functions as the governor of the CBN and enjoying in full,
the statutory powers and privileges attached to the office.
The judge declined the invitation to make the orders being sought by Sanusi
on the ground that it would be unfair to grant such an application without
affording the President, the Attorney General of the Federation and the
Inspector General of Police the opportunity to be heard.
The court ordered Sanusi to put the President and the other defendants in the
suit on notice, to enable them to be heard and fixed further hearing for
Wednesday, 12th March.
In refusing the application, the court noted that it had, not only the
judicial powers to declare the suspension unlawful, but to order that Sanusi be
returned to perform his duties as the governor of the CBN and that even where
the tenure had lapsed, that the court can also order the defendants to pay
Sanusi such remuneration and allowances on the basis that his suspension also
carried with it the stoppage of his remuneration and allowances.
“It is unsafe, judicially speaking, to embark on far reaching interim orders
which have all the attributes of a mandatory injunction without according the
defendant a hearing. Pondering on the reliefs sought, I feel hesitant and
constrained to grant the plaintiff’s motion ex parte”. The judge stated.
He further noted that another issue he would like to raise when defendants
have been duly served with the originating summons and motion on notice was
whether in the light of the third alteration Act number 20 of the Constitution
of Nigeria, whether the Federal High Court still has the jurisdiction to
entertain issues dealing with employment, notwithstanding the questions that
Sanusi had set down for determination in his originating summons
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