The Federal High Court in Abuja has been asked to restrain the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the Department of State Services (DSS) from supporting any effort to illegally sack Senate President Bukola Saraki.
These requests form part of the reliefs contained in a suit filed on Monday by Senators Rafiu Adebayo (PDP, Kwara South) and Isa Misau (PDP, Bauchi Central) through a team of lawyers which included a former Attorney General of the Federation , Kanu Agabi (SAN) and Mahmud Magaji (SAN).
The plaintiffs stated that, going by recent occurrences and utterances by some leaders of a faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC), from which they had defected, they were convinced of plots to sack the Senate President through means other than those provided in Section 50(2)(c ) of the Constitution.
Section 50(2) provides that: “The President or Deputy President of the Senate or the Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives shall vacate his office…(c) If he is removed from office by a resolution of the Senate or of the House of Representatives as the case may be, by the votes of not less than two-thirds majority of the members of that House.”
Listed as defendants in the suit are the Senate, the Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Senator Ahmed Lawan (Senate Leader), Senator Bala Ibn Nallah (Deputy Senate Leader), Senator Emma Buacha (Deputy Minority Leader), Clerk of the Senate, Deputy Clerk of the Senate, Attorney General of the Federation, Inspector General of Police and Department of State Services (DSS).
In a supporting affidavit, Senator Misau maintained that there was evidence of threat of constitutional breach which require the court to intervene by restraining the defendants from resorting to unconstitutional means to actualize their alleged threat and plot to unseat the Senate President following his defection to the PDP.
The plaintiffs are praying the court for, among others, an order restraining the 9th, 10th and 11th defendants, either by themselves, agents, servants, privies by whatsoever name so called from enforcing any act of the 1st, 3rd to 8th defendants purporting to have removed the 2nd defendant from office without such act being in compliance with the provisions of Sections 50(2) of the Constitution of the Fedoral Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).
No date has however been set for the hearing of the suit.
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