Ikpeazu remains Abia governor, Supreme court says

A five man panel of the Justices of the Supreme court has upheld the election of  Okezie Ikpeazu as the governor of Abia state, setting aside an earlier order of Justice Okon Abang of an Abuja Federal High Court.

Justice Abang had ordered Ikpeazu’s removal on allegations that his tax certificate were false after Uche Ogar who second in th primaries went to court.

However, the court of Appeal set aside the judgement of the lower court saying that, the judge, ignored examining the tax documents which were tendered to his court as exhibits.

Ogah appealed the judgement at the apex court, to which the five-man panel of judges led by Justice Walter Onnoghen, Chief of Justice of Nigeria (CJN) faulted the lower court on the tax documents.

Onnoghen said Ikpeazu could not be held for discrepancies in his tax document because it was given to him by the state.

“They said the information is false, no one is disputing the fact that it is false. I’m a government employee and it Is also common knowledge that tax is deducted at source.

“They give you a tax clearance certificate, you are not the person who produced the tax certificate. If they say bring you tax clearance, I have my file and my pay slip, if you ask I will say this is my pay slip.

“If they don’t send it on time I will ask for my tax clearance because I may need it. When they send it to me and there is anything wrong with it, why should I be held responsible? The long and short of it was that this case was a no case”, Justice Onnoghen held.