Barrister Chris Giwa has not given up on trying to reclaim the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) presidency from Amaju Pinnick and is heading to the Supreme Court.
He confirmed this in a press conference on Tuesday, explaining his reasons for taking the case to the highest court in the land.
“We have been able by the grace of God to appeal to the Supreme Court. Appeal is different from stay of execution. They are two different processes. We have filed an appeal and we have filed a stay of execution saying that we do not agree with the judgment,” Giwa said.
“The Court of Appeal has given us 19th of September, 2016, for that motion of stay of execution to be heard. Once that is done by law that judgment is ineffective till when that motion is argued.
“When we got our ruling from the Federal High Court (Jos), I know some people may ask why you held on to it. Yes we held on to it because the defendant there did not ask for stay (of execution). If they had applied for stay that judgment wouldn’t have been effective till when the Court would give a pronouncement.
“But they never did that, all they did was they applied for stay of proceedings and ask for leave to appeal and when we went to the Court they withdrew the stay of proceedings. Stay of proceedings is different from stay of execution; they are not the same motion. So they withdrew it and they relied on leave to appeal and went to the Appeal Court.
“Luckily for us, the Judge at that date hands off from the case since he has granted them the leave to appeal. As we all know that Appeal Court is not the final court, the Supreme Court is the final court.
“If this judgment they got came from the Supreme Court there is nothing like stay (of execution). But because it is coming from the court that is not the final court we stand on the advantage to ask for stay (of execution) and which we have done.
“So, the Court of Appeal cannot effect that judgment because there is a motion pending before them. I want to say this because we have gone to the Supreme Court I can tell you very well that the Appeal Court has nothing to do with the matter again.
“The Court of Appeal ruling delivered by His Lordship Joseph Tine Tur delivered his final judgment in the appeal without allowing the respondents right of legal representation of our choice.
“We have appealed to the Supreme Court against the ruling of 21st July 2016 and the judgment of 25thJuly 2016. The effect of this application is that the judgment of 25th July shall be stayed pending the hearing of the application.
“In view of the foregoing, we have taken patience to pursue the slow but sure processes in our laws. We have secured all legal decisions that guarantee our place in the management of Nigerian football.
“With the quality of patience we have exhibited, we shall explore all legal means without violence. This is not to say we are not capable of violently taking what belongs to us otherwise, we would have posited that if the next stage will warrant forceful execution, we may consider same.
“We are going to inform the structure in a matter of days agree and take all steps to take our legal mandate.”
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