The Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, has faulted Justice Uche Ogomoh of the Federal High Court in Ibadan, for granting reliefs that were not sought by any of the parties in a dispute involving the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ina suit before her.
In a judgement delivered by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam of the appellate court, the higher court held that the trial judge went beyond the reliefs before her when she recognised a factional caretaker committee in the PDP leadership crisis.
The dispute stemmed from a judgement delivered by Justice Ogomoh on January 30, in which she held that the PDP faction under the caretaker committee led by Abdurahman Mohammed and Samuel Anyanwu was the legitimate faction of the opposition party.
The Court of Appeal said none of the parties had sought such a declaration.
“In the instant case, there is clearly a live issue where the trial court went outside the reliefs sought to recognise and uphold a factional caretaker committee,” Justice Onyemenam said.
The appellate court added that if the declaratory and injunctive reliefs sought on appeal had not been tied to the legitimacy of the Ibadan convention already nullified by the Supreme Court, it would have ordered a retrial on the leadership organs purportedly created or validated by the convention.
“Once the convention itself has been pronounced null, void and of no effect by the Supreme Court, any superstructure erected upon it is necessarily without legal foundation,” the court held.
The court said the legal foundation of the Anyanwu-led caretaker committee recognised by the trial court had been extinguished by the Supreme Court’s judgement. It added that revisiting the issue would serve no practical legal purpose.
The Court of Appeal stopped short of expressly describing the trial court’s action as ultra petita, a legal doctrine referring to situations where a court grants relief beyond that sought by the parties.
Part of the judgement reads: “This Court would be driven to the conclusion that the offending portions of the judgment, and indeed the judgment as a whole insofar as the excess permeates the decision, are a nullity and liable to be set aside ex debito justitiae.
