{"id":68640,"date":"2025-06-20T13:09:23","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T13:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=68640"},"modified":"2025-06-20T13:09:23","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T13:09:23","slug":"inec-staff-allegedly-shun-court-order-meant-for-chairman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/20\/inec-staff-allegedly-shun-court-order-meant-for-chairman\/","title":{"rendered":"INEC Staff Allegedly Shun Court Order Meant for Chairman"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adenike Lawal<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), have been accused of evading the service of a court order directed at the Commission\u2019s Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu.<\/p>\n

The allegation was made by Anselem Nebeife, National Publicity Secretary of the National Rescue Movement (NRM), in a statement issued Friday morning in Abuja.<\/p>\n

Nebeife claimed that INEC officials deliberately refused to accept Form 48, a legal notice of potential contempt proceedings, despite a court directive.<\/p>\n

According to Nebeife, Justice Obiora Egwuatu of the Federal High Court in Abuja had granted NRM\u2019s request for substituted service after their lawyer, Oladimeji Ekengba, filed a motion ex parte citing difficulty in reaching Professor Yakubu directly.<\/p>\n

The judge ordered that the document be served through any INEC official at the Commission\u2019s national headquarters.<\/p>\n

However, when court bailiff Ayuba Sule arrived to serve the document, he was allegedly met with resistance.<\/p>\n

Sule first approached the INEC Chairman\u2019s office, where staff confirmed his identity and reviewed the court papers but refused to accept them.<\/p>\n

He was then redirected to the Legal Department.<\/p>\n

At the Legal Department, a staff member reportedly examined the document and, upon realizing it was Form 48, refused to accept it, allegedly saying, \u201cCan\u2019t you see this is Form 48? Please, I love my job ooo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sule, frustrated by the refusal, eventually placed the documents on the floor in front of the Legal Department and left.<\/p>\n

Justice Egwuatu had previously warned that Form 48, which serves as a notice of possible contempt charges for disobeying court orders, could be lawfully served to any INEC staff member.<\/p>\n

The case has been scheduled for hearing on July 15.<\/p>\n

The contempt proceeding arises from INEC\u2019s alleged failure to comply with a previous court judgment recognizing Chief Edozie Njoku as the authentic National Chairman of the NRM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adenike Lawal   Staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), have been accused of evading the service of a court order directed at the Commission\u2019s Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu. The allegation was made by Anselem Nebeife, National Publicity Secretary of the National Rescue Movement (NRM), in a statement issued Friday morning in Abuja. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":68641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1386,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68642,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68640\/revisions\/68642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}