Enugu Appeals Court Verdict on Ex-UBEC Boss

The Enugu State government has filed an appeal before the Court of
Appeal sitting in Enugu in the case involving government and the
dismissed chairperson of the Enugu State Universal Basic Education
Board (ENSUBEB), Mrs. Ethel Nebo-Ezeabasili.
The appeal was sequel to the June 18, 2014 judgment of Justice C.I.
Nwobodo of the Enugu State High Court which declared the removal of
Nebo-Ezeabasili for fraud as illegal and unconstitutional.
The notice filed by the Honourable Attorney-General and Commissioner
for Justice of Enugu State, Anthony I. Ani (SAN), faulted the judgment
in its entirety, exposing obvious loopholes which the trial judge
ignored.
It will be recalled that the former ENSUBEB chairperson was removed
from office in November 2012 for gross misconducts including
defrauding the government of the sum two hundred and thirty million,
two hundred and forty five thousand naira (N230,245,000) belonging to
ENSUBEB. The police had also investigated the complaint of gross
misconducts against her while she is currently standing trial in
charge number E/21C/2014 for stealing the above sum.
Though Mrs. Nebo-Ezeabasili has continued to evade all attempts to
serve her with the notice of trial, her surety who took her on bail
from the police, has been served with the papers in order to bring the
run-away defendant to court.
One of the grounds of the appeal filed on June 30, 2014 by Ani (SAN)
was that the learned trial judge, C.I. Nwobodo erred in law in failing
to resolve the fundamental issue of jurisdiction before going into the
substantive case.
The  Attorney-General also contended that the first and
second defendants (Mrs. Ifeoma Nwobodo as Chief of Staff to Governor
Sullivan Chime and Amaechi Okolo, Secretary to the State Government)
sued in their official capacities by Nebo-Ezeabasili before the High
Court were entitled to three months pre-action notice which was not
given to them before instituting the action.
According to Ani, “the learned trial judge erred in law when she held
that the appellants (Nwobodo and Okolo) being political appointees are
not entitled to the pre-action notice mandatorily provided for public
officers under the State Proceedings Law.”
Another ground of the appeal was that there were contentious issues of
facts before the parties, making the proceedings “hostile” which
required trial by ordinary writ of summons, pleadings and oral
evidence. Government’s other disagreement with Nwobodo’s ruling was
that she was wrong to accept that “a private legal practitioner can
institute an action on behalf of a statutory body owned by the State
Government without being authorized by the Attorney-General of Enugu
State.”
Throughout the proceedings, Mrs. Nebo-Ezeabasili never appeared in
court and did not prove any damages flowing naturally from her removal
from office for misconduct. Yet, the trial judge awarded her ten
million naira for damages.