By Ameh Ejekwonyilo
A Federal High Court in Abuja yesterday ordered the House of Representatives to stop its proposed probe of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, over allegation that she blew N10 billion on a chartered aircraft.
Justice Ahmed Mohammed, in a ruling, said the order was to subsist till July 3, when the substantive suit would be heard.
The order came ahead of the plan by the House Committee on Public Accounts to carry out the probe on June 25, 26 and 27, 2014.
It followed an application by the counsel for the plaintiffs, Mr. Etigwe Uwa, who asked the court for a preservative order pending the hearing of the suit.
He had urged the court to make the order, alleging that letter dated May 23, 2014, by the House Committee on Public Accounts, inviting his clients for the probe, constituted disrespect for the court.
The plaintiffs are, through their substantive suit, asking the court to declare that the National Assembly and the House of Representatives, who were the two defendants in the suit, lacked the power to summon them without the consent of President Goodluck Jonathan.
The judge in his ruling said the Committee on Public Accounts had no genuine reason to continue the probe on June 25, 26 and 27, 2014, having been aware of the pending suit seeking an order to restrain them from carrying out the investigation.
Earlier, counsel for the House of Representatives, Mr. Aminu Sadauki, had urged the court to refuse the application for an interim order insisting that it would amount to determining the relief of the plaintiffs in the substantive suit.
The matter has been fixed for June 3, for hearing.
