Umahi: I’ve Hired 18 SANs To Reverse My Sacking As Ebonyi Governor

Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, on Wednesday, revealed that he has hired 18 Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) to challenge the court judgement that sacked him and his deputy from office on Tuesday.

Umahi stated this before a crowd that staged a solidarity rally for him at the Udensi Water Fountain Roundabout in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital.

“…we have engaged 8 SANs to proceed to Abuja [and] we have engaged 10 SANs to proceed to Enugu. Do not be angry about anything, it is for our promotion. What the people intended for evil, God has turned it for good. When it happened yesterday, God told me to be still and know that I am God. And so, you will see what God is going to do, Nigerians are fighting for us,” the governor was quoted to have told the crowd of supporters.

Umahi also withdrew his earlier attack on Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, who delivered the judgment ordering him and his deputy to vacate their offices.

The judge had sacked them for defecting to the All Progressive Congress (APC) from the PDP, on whose platform they had won the Ebonyi governorship election in 2019.

Ekwo had held that the mandate given to Umahi and his deputy during the election belongs to the PDP, hence their defection to the APC meant that they have lost the rights to their offices.

But in his initial reaction on Tuesday, Umahi described Justice Ekwo as “a hatchet man” and accused him of delivering a “procured judgment” in favour of the PDP.

However, following the wide criticisms that trailed his diatribe against Justice Ekwo, including a response from the Nigerian Bar Association, Governor Umahi withdrew the comments and claimed that his verbal assault against the judge was meant for the lawyers that represented the PDP in court.

“I said the lawyers of PDP are the ones doing forum shopping and I’m going to report the lawyers to NBA to discipline them because the judge was misled.

“The blame is not on the judge. The blame is on the PDP lawyers who misled the judge.

“And I’m using the opportunity to appeal for calm and to let Nigerians know that nobody castigated the judge and we will not.

“Today, we have appealed the judgment. We have done three things; we have done the appeal at Enugu, and when I say that, we have two judgments, I say that the judgement in Ebonyi, has equal powers with that of Abuja.

“We said that we will obey the judgement in Ebonyi; we will appeal the judgement of Abuja.

“We didn’t say we will disobey, otherwise we would have not to appeal, we are before the Appeal Court in Enugu state and that of Abuja.

“We have also filed a stay of execution. So, we are still the governor and deputy governor of Ebonyi,” Umahi said.