The absence of the 11th Defense Counsel, John Baiyeshea, SAN, on Tuesday stalled the hearing in a suit seeking to stop statutory allocations to the 44 Local Government Councils of Kano State.
The applicants, Abdullahi Abbas, Aminu Aliyu-Tiga, and the All Progressives Congress (APC), through their counsel, Sunday Olowomoran, filed a motion *ex parte* dated Oct. 28 and filed on Nov. 1, 2024.
The respondents in the suit include the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), the Accountant-General of the Federation, the Minister of Finance, the Auditor-General of the Federation, and the Attorney-General of the Federation.
Others are the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), the Kano State Government, the Attorney-General of Kano State, the Kano State Independent Electoral Commission (KANSIEC), and the 44 Kano Local Governments.
The applicants are seeking a declaration that the 12th to 55th respondents were not democratically elected and constituted pursuant to Section 7(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as amended.
They are also asking the court to restrain the Federal Government, the CBN, and the Accountant-General from disbursing statutory funds to Kano’s 44 Local Government Councils.
When the case came up for hearing, Justice Simon Amobeda of the Federal High Court, Kano, informed the court that counsel to KANSIEC, Baiyeshea, was indisposed, citing medical reasons.
The judge noted that Baiyeshea had sent a letter requesting an adjournment.
Amobeda ordered that all applications requiring responses be filed and ready before the next adjourned date.
He adjourned the matter until March 4 for hearing.
Earlier, counsel to the Kano State Attorney-General, Femi Falana, SAN, informed the court that the plaintiffs had served them with six processes that morning.
Falana, alongside Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, counsel to the Kano State Government; B. D. Uche, counsel to the first, third, and seventh respondents; and H. M. Ma’aruf, did not object to the adjournment.
Responding, Mr. Sadiqu Sammani-Lawan, representing parties seeking to be joined in the suit, said: “The interest of my clients is fundamental.
“My clients are the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), the National Union of Teachers, and health workers.
“The allocation from the Federal Government goes directly to these employees, who are more than 60,000 in the state. If they are not joined in this suit, there will be a problem,” he said.
NAN reports that the court, on Oct. 23, halted the conduct of the Local Government Councils’ election scheduled for Oct. 26, 2025, until KANSIEC was properly reconstituted, as it had previously been dissolved by the court for partisanship.
(NAN)
