Court Dismisses Stay of Execution Order Sought by Ex-ASCSN President, Others

The Federal High Court sitting in Lagos presided over by Justice D. E. Osiagor, has dismissed the Stay of Execution suit filed by former President of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, ASCSN, Bola-Audu Innocent and others, in respect of his order of 26th October 2022.

The order restored Dr. Tommy Okon and Alade Bashir Lawal as President and Secretary-General of ASCSN respectively.

The court in its ruling insisted that both Dr. Tommy Okon and Alade Bashir Lawal remain the authentic and legal signatories to the bank accounts of ASCSN.

Justice Osiagor frowned at the refusal of Bola-Audu and his group to obey his final order of 26th October 2022 and berated them for describing his order as “judicial advice.”

The judge also frowned at the attitude of Bola-Audu and his group for jumping from one court to another in an attempt to get a favourable ruling on the same matter.

According to him, “This motion for stay of execution is, to say the least, an affront to the court’s dignity. A very patent case of abuse was dismissed and the exparte order and the consequential orders were set aside The applicants now want to enjoy the fruit of an expired and set aside exparte order. By Exhibit JA2 titled press statement the Applicant described my judgment in this ignoble manner “…..is therefore unenforceable and executable court order against the applicants. The applicants have nothing to say as their suit was dismissed and all consequential orders made earlier set aside.

“The court orders are in nature declaratory and not executory. The Court frowns at those who use the machinery of justice for mischievous purposes. As he who comes to equity must come with clean hands.

 “When a party surreptitiously and stealthily chose to sue normal parties and not the necessary parties and ran quickly to execute the exparte order but now mischievously describing this court’s dismissal as “The order was thus essentially a judicial advisory to the Applicant to consolidate both cases as one single case at the NIC, Abuja

“This is, to say the least, even at the risk of sounding prolix, an affront to this court’s orders and now seeking equity which they refused to do. The application is summarily dismissed as lacking merit, hollow, and a sham.”