Delta: Osanebi Jittery As Appeal Court Sets Aside His “Stay of Execution Judgment” Over His Sack

Embattled deputy Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Mr. Friday Osanebi is currently jittery as Appeal Court sitting in Benin set aside his stay of execution motion, challenging a lower court judgment which sacked him early this year, BigPen Online can report.

Osanebi, who is facing a forged certificate scandal has been having sleepless night over the case which was made worst by the appeal court decision to set aside the position of Kwale High Court on a motion of stay of execution filed by him.

The Deputy speaker who has been battling to upturn the earlier Kwale High Court judgment had filed a stay of judgment execution which the appeal court on Thursday committed to the dust bin.

BigPen Online gathered that Osanebi had in April got judgment on the motion for stay of execution immediately at the lower court in Kwale and also appealed the substantive suit challenging the authenticity of his parliamentary membership, but the court said the power to grant such an application was not in the confine of the lower court in Kwale.

By virtue of the Appeal Court ruling, the Deputy Speaker is to vacate his representation of the Ndokwa East Constituency as provided in the Kwale High Court ruling on the 2015 House of Assembly election in the local government in suit between Mr. Ozegbe Lawrence and Osanebi and two others.

Meanwhile, in a swift move, Osanebi has filed a case before the Supreme Court to review the judgment on stay of execution as passed by the Benin Appeal Court.

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Osanebi, told newsmen in Asaba on Thursday, that the court only corrected a process, and there’s no reason for tension as he patiently awaits the judgment of higher court in the case that was earlier decided in Kwale this year.

The deputy speaker, who urged his constituents and teeming supporters to remain calm, said: “I am still the privileged representative of Ndokwa East and Deputy Speaker of the state House of Assembly. The court only corrected a proces…(yesterday). Emeka had challenged the competence of the state high court in Kwale in granting a stay of execution filed by our legal team. So, the court in Benin only said no, ‘we are to grant the application.’ That’s all! So, there’s is no cause for alarm”, he enthused.

He also charged his supporters not to be distracted but remain focused, noting that very soon, the Court of Appeal will make its position known on the earlier judgment in Kwale.

BigPen Online recalls that Osanebi who represents Ndokwa East constituency, has been in court battling to saved his job over allegations that the NECO certificate he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC for his election in 2015 was forged.

Osanebi’s closest rival in the 2015 election,  Mr. Lawrence Ozegbe Lawrence brought the case in suit No. HCK/78/2017 in which the court had declared that Mr. Osanebi lied on oath by submitting a forged NECO certificate.

The court had also declared that there was no evidence to prove that Osanebi sat for and wrote his NECO examination at Orogu Grammar School, Orogu, Ughelli North local government area of the state as he claimed.

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Justice V. I. Ofezi who presided over the case in his ruling, said that the claimant was able to prove that Mr. Osanebi presented a NECO certificate which is not his own in the form CF001 2014 he submitted to INEC for the election.

The Judge said on the contrary, the deputy Speaker failed to put up a satisfactory defense for the discrepancies observed in his certificates in terms of the names and different dates by the claimant.

Justice Ofezi, therefore, awarded a cost of N400, 000 against Osanebi, PDP and INEC in favor of the claimant. He also directed INEC to immediately withdraw the certificate of return issued to the deputy speaker and issue same to Lawrence Emeka Odegbe, who was validly nominated as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), in the 2015 general elections.

The Court further ordered the Speaker of the Delta state House of Assembly to immediately sworn in Mr. Ozegbe as the rightful member of the State House of Assembly representing Ndokwa East constituency.