Court refuses to stop inauguration of Buhari’s ministerial nominees

Justice Taiwo Taiwo of a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Monday refused to grant an application seeking to restrain President Muhammadu Buhari from inaugurating the ministerial nominees that were recently cleared by the Senate.

The Judge, in his ruling, dismissed the ex-parte application filed by a legal practitioner, Musa Baba-Panya, wherein he prayed the court for an order stopping the inauguration of the ministerial nominees.

Justice Taiwo said he will prefer to hear the substantive suit and give a formal judgment rather than granting interim restraining orders as sought by the plaintiff.

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He ordered the plaintiff to effect personal service of the originating and other processes so far filed in the case on the defendants and return for a date for the commencement of the hearing.

The grouse of the plaintiff is that the President’s non-nomination of an Abuja indigene as a ministerial nominee was disobedience of a subsisting judgment of the Court of Appeal.

Baba-Panya claimed that the Court of Appeal, in the judgment delivered on March 15, 2018, in Abuja, held among others, that Abuja possesses the status of a state and should be so treated.

According to the plaintiff, since the Constitution stipulates that every state of the federation should produce a minister, Abuja deserves to also be considered.

Baba-Panya joined President Buhari and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice as defendants in the case.