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| Mrs. Ethel Nebo-Ezeabasili |
The Enugu State government has filed an appeal before the
Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu in the case involving government and
the dismissed chairperson of the Enugu State Universal Basic
Education Board (ESUBEB), Mrs. Ethel Nebo-Ezeabasili.
The
appeal was sequel to the June 18, 2014 judgment of Justice C.I. Nwobodo of
the Enugu State High Court which declared the removal of Nebo-Ezeabasili
for fraud as illegal and unconstitutional and went ahead to award f N10 million
cost against the state government .
The notice filed by the Attorney-General and
Commissioner for Justice of Enugu State, Anthony I. Ani (SAN),
faulted the judgment in its entirety, exposing obvious loopholes which the
trial judge ignored.
The former ENSUBEB chairperson was removed from office in
November 2012 for alleged gross misconducts including defrauding the government
of the sum of N230,245,000 belonging to ENSUBEB. The police had also
investigated the complaint of gross misconducts against her while she is
currently standing trial in charge number E/21C/2014 for stealing the above
sum.
Though Mrs. Nebo-Ezeabasili has continued to evade all attempts
to serve her with the notice of trial, her surety who took her on
bail from the police, has been served with the papers in order to bring
her to court. Nebo-Ezeabasili had said that she decided to stay away
from Enugu because of the alleged attempt on her life.
One of the grounds of the appeal filed on June 30, 2014 by Ani
(SAN) was that the learned trial judge, C.I. Nwobodo erred in law by
failing to resolve the fundamental issue of jurisdiction before going into
the substantive case.
The Attorney-General also contended that the first
and second defendants (Mrs. Ifeoma Nwobodo as Chief of Staff to
Governor Sullivan Chime and Amaechi Okolo, Secretary to the State
Government) sued in their official capacities by Nebo-Ezeabasili before
the High Court were entitled to three months pre-action notice which was not
given to them before instituting the action.
According to Ani, “the learned trial judge erred in law when she
held that the appellants (Nwobodo and Okolo) being political appointees
are not entitled to the pre-action notice mandatorily provided for
public officers under the State Proceedings Law.”
Another ground of the appeal was that there were contentious
issues of facts before the parties, making the proceedings “hostile”
which required trial by ordinary writ of summons, pleadings and
oral evidence. Government’s other disagreement with Nwobodo’s ruling
was that she was wrong to accept that “a private legal practitioner can institute
an action on behalf of a statutory body owned by the State Government
without being authorized by the Attorney-General of Enugu.State.”
Meanwhile, a civil society activist, Mr. Damian Okenwa, Tuesday,
described the notice of appeal as a “damage control stunt and time-buying
strategy”.
He said: “In Nigeria of today, I do not see how a judge of a
State High Court could indict a government that pays her salaries if she did
not clearly see that the Chime Administration acted illegally and
unconstitutionally. But I believe even the former Chairman of ENSUBEB
knew from the outset that when you fight corruption, corruption also fights
back. Let them go even as far as the Supreme Court, truth will always come on
top”
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