BEVERLY HILLS, March 28, (THEWILL) – The National Judicial Council (NJC) has cleared Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court, Abuja, of any wrongdoing in his verdicts relating to the leadership crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The Council, in a letter dated March 15 and signed by its Secretary, Danladi Halilu, dismissed the allegations of gross misconduct levelled against Abang by the Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led action of the party saying it found no merit in the petition the group lodged against him.
THEWILL recalls that Justice Abang had on July 29, 2016, declared the Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee of the PDP as illegal considering that it was a product of a convention a faction of the party held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on May 21, 2016, in defiance of a court order by Justice Ibrahim Buba of the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court, which had stopped the said convention from holding.
Dissatisfied with the decision by Abang, Makarfi wrote a petition to the NJC dated August 25, 2016 and accused Justice Abang of assuming appellate powers by overriding the decision of another court of the a coordinate jurisdiction.
After due consideration of the petition, the NJC in its letter stated: “At the end of deliberations, the council found that your petition finds no merit as there was no sufficient material before the NJC to infer that the judge sat on appeal over the decision of his brother judge of coordinate jurisdiction.”
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