The Supreme Court on Wednesday said its judgment that sacked a member of the Federal House Representatives, representing, Vandikya/ Konshisha Federal Constituency of Benue State, Herman Hembe stands.
A five member panel of Justices of the apex court, presided over by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen urged the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Yakubu Dogora, to comply with its judgment, as doing otherwise will spell doom in the democracy of the nation.
Onnoghen, who re-enforced the earlier order of the court, ordered Hembe to pay the sum of N1 million as cost in favour of Mrs Dorothy Mato.
Recalled that the Supreme Court had on June 25, 2017 sacked Hembe and Senator Sani Abubakar Danladi Representing Taraba State and ordered that Mrs Dorothy Mato and Alhaji Shuaibu Isa Lau be sworn in immediately.
The court also ordered the sacked legislators to refund all monies collected as salaries and allowances in the last two years and added that Mrs Dorathy Mato who won the All Progressive Congress (APC) party ticket for the constituency is the rightful candidate.
While Senator Shuaibu Isa Lau had since been sworn in by the Senate President, Mrs Mato’s swearing is still hanging in the House.
Rather, Hembe filed a motion on notice asking the Supreme Court to reverse itself.
Reacting to the motion when the matter came up yesterday, the Supreme Court insisted that it cannot revere itself as it has no jurisdiction to sit on appeal over its judgment.
Counsel to Hembe, Paul Erokoro (SAN) had, while introducing the motion, said it was asking the court to correct some errors and accidental slip contained in the judgment of the court.
The court drilled Hembe’s counsel over the propriety of his motion in view of order 8 Rule 16 of the Supreme Court.
Counsel to Dorothy Mato, Emeka Etiaba (SAN) had expressed his readiness to attack the motion holistically, which he said constitute abuse of court process.
When the case was called, Tochukwu Peter Tochukwu announced his appearance for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), while Usman Sule announced his for the APC.
Erokoro noted that the court was wrong to have invoked section 22 of the Act to hear the appeal instead of sending it back to the tribunal for re-trial.
At this stage, the CJN reminded him that the case was a pre-election matter which has a time frame and added that, “We invoked the powers of this court under section 22 of the Act, heard the matter and gave judgment.
“Are you now asking us to review our judgment. Whether or not we are wrong, our decision is final, we cannot review our judgment. The Supreme Court is a final court for a reason that there has to be an end to litigation.”
The apex Court also refused Erokoro’s application asking it to vacate the consequential order directing Hembe to refund his Salaries and allowances.
On this, the CJN said, “Learned SAN, it appears you close your mind on the circumstances of this case that translated into the judgment of this court. This is a policy making court where we make policies to guide the society to move forward.
“When we use judicial process to perpetuate injustice, this court comes in to maintain decorum. There is no error, there is no accidental slip in our judgment, you can go on appeal to another court, if there is any, but on our own part, we cannot review our judgment whether wrongly made or not, that is the order of this court.
“If somebody has been in the House where he is not supposed to be and has reaped the benefits which it should not be, you mean we should close our eyes to this product of impunity? No, we cannot go back to that because the imposter has no right to it. Whatever he collected should be refunded. This court is sending a message to everybody so that right from the primaries, the right thing should be done.”
Getting the hint of the court, Erokoro made an application for the withdrawal of the motion, which was not opposed by counsel to other parties in the matter.
It was consequently struck out by the court which awarded N1million cost against Hembe in favour of Mrs Mato upon request by her counsel, Etiaba.
and then