{"id":68667,"date":"2025-06-20T20:35:19","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T20:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=68667"},"modified":"2025-06-20T20:35:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T20:35:19","slug":"court-bailiff-serves-inec-chairman-with-contempt-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/20\/court-bailiff-serves-inec-chairman-with-contempt-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Bailiff Serves INEC Chairman with Contempt Charge"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Anifowoshe Oladipupo<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Federal High Court in Abuja has served the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, with a contempt charge initiated by the National Rescue Movement (NRM).<\/p>\n

Court bailiff Ayuba Sule delivered the Form 48 at INEC\u2019s headquarters in Abuja on Thursday, acting on a June 17 ruling by Justice Obiora Egwuatu.<\/p>\n

Form 48 is a legal notice that outlines the consequences of disobeying a valid court order and marks the beginning of contempt proceedings.<\/p>\n

Justice Egwuatu had granted an order for substituted service, allowing the bailiff to deliver the documents to any INEC staff member after previous attempts to serve the chairman directly failed.<\/p>\n

In a statement released Friday by the NRM\u2019s National Publicity Secretary, Anselem Nebeife, the party alleged that INEC officials initially resisted receiving the documents.<\/p>\n

According to the statement, the bailiff first approached the INEC chairman\u2019s office, where staff requested identification.<\/p>\n

After inspecting the document, they redirected him to the legal department.<\/p>\n

At the legal department, another staff member reportedly looked at the document, realized it was Form 48, and refused to accept it.<\/p>\n

Frustrated, Sule left the documents in front of the department and exited the premises.<\/p>\n

The contempt charge stems from INEC\u2019s alleged refusal to comply with a mandamus order issued on March 5, which directed the commission to recognize the outcome of the NRM\u2019s emergency national convention held on January 17.<\/p>\n

The convention elected Chief Edozie Njoku as the party\u2019s national chairman and was convened to fill executive vacancies and resolve internal imbalances.<\/p>\n

NRM\u2019s counsel, Oladimeji Ekengba, argued that INEC and its chairman were fully aware of the court order but had willfully ignored it, prompting the legal action now underway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Anifowoshe Oladipupo   The Federal High Court in Abuja has served the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, with a contempt charge initiated by the National Rescue Movement (NRM). Court bailiff Ayuba Sule delivered the Form 48 at INEC\u2019s headquarters in Abuja on Thursday, acting on a June 17 ruling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":68668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1386],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inec","category-judiciary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68667","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=68667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68669,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68667\/revisions\/68669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}