Benue: Court vacates order to stop probe panels

A Makurdi High court yesterday vacated an order restraining the Benue State government’s Judicial Commissions of Inquiry from probing former Governor Gabriel Suswam’s eight-year administration.
Justice Adam Onum ruled that the order placed on two panels set up by Governor Samuel Ortom to discontinue the panels from sitting on October 12 has been vacated.
The court held that the commission should resume sitting with immediate effect, adding that while it had the right to issue letter of summon on individuals, it is not vested with the power to issue warrant of arrest on anyone or impose fine.
Suswam had earlier filed a suit to stop the probe panel constituted by his successor to investigate the income and expenditures of his tenure when he held forte in the state between 2007 and 2015.
The state Chief Judge, Justice Iorhemen Hwande, had ordered a stay of proceedings on the commission following Suswam’s pending suit, which among other things, questioned the constitution of the panel which in his estimation was done unlawfully as some members of the panel lacked the locus standi to sit on it.