ABUJA—The Supreme Court has fixed July 13, this year for definite hearing in an appeal filed by the incumbent Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Hon Martin Okonta, seeking to review the verdict of the Abuja Court of Appeal which removed him from office.

Vanguard learnt  that the date was fixed for the case because of its importance and that the panel of justices convoked by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Katsina Iyorger Alu, to hear the matter would also consider the merit of an application for stay of execution of the Appeal Court judgment which removed Okonta from office.

The application for stay was supposed to act as stop-gap pending the time the substantive appeal by Okonta would be mature for hearing and determination at the Supreme Court.

But the judgment creditor in the case and opponent of Speaker Okonta is not leaving anything to chance with regard to the execution of the only judgment in his favour.

In fact, he is already before the Court of Appeal, Abuja seeking to jail anybody that would stop the execution of his judgment.

But Okonta who is contending that the case in question in which his opponent procured a favourable judgment at the Court of Appeal was a pre-election case.

He said he has the right of appeal in the matter to the Supreme Court which is already seized of the facts of the case.

He said the last bus stop in pre-election matters is the Supreme Court.

He said his opponent was being mischievous going to the Court of Appeal to pursue the committal of some principal officials of the Delta State House of Assembly.

Although Okonta is seeking a formal order staying execution of the verdict of the lower court, the principle of lis pendis which precludes parties from taking steps until the Supreme Court hears and determines the case ought to apply.

Okonta had hired the Chambers of Chief Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) to prosecute his appeal at the apex court.

In the appeal, Okonta gave 26 major reasons why the verdict of the Court of Appeal must be upturned including that the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Abuja, was in conflict with the one earlier, given by its Benin division and that the Abuja division of the court shut him out of the case and was therefore not given fair hearing before judgment was given in the case.

It would be recalled that the Abuja division of the Court of Appeal, had, recently, sacked Speaker Okonta from office.

The court had held that he was not the duly sponsored candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2007 State House of Assembly elections in the state.

The chairman of the panel, Justice Uwani Abba_ Aji who led Justices Jimi Olukayode Bada and Abdu Aboke in his judgment ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to issue the cross appellant, Kingsley Nonye Philip, the certificate of return, pointing out that the matter had dragged for long.

In making his consequential orders in the judgment which was read by Justice Uwani Abba-Aji, the court said that the election was in contravention of section 34 of the electoral Act 2006.