N10bn jet scandal: Diezani in fresh moves to stop Reps from probing her

Embattled Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, has filed a fresh application for a provisional order to stop the National Assembly from going ahead with the probe on the allegation that she spent N10bn on a chartered aircraft.
Alison-Madueke in a new application filed on Tuesday, May 10 through one of her lawyers, Mr. Mike Ozekhome (SAN), urged the court to restrain the House of Representatives from carrying out its threat to commence the probe on June 17.
DailyPost reports that the Minister, alongside the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, had ealier approached a Federal High Court in Abuja, both seeking a court order to stop the probe.
The Minister’s earliest suit was filed before Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
In the latest suit, which was just assigned to Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the FHC, Abuja, the minister, along with the NNPC, joined the Senate and the House of Representatives as the first and second respondents respectively.
Justice Kolawole has yet to fix the date for the mention of the suit marked, FHC/ABJ/CS/346/2014.
Part of her grounds for the fresh application read; “that unless this honourable court intervenes to maintain the status quo, the respondents may continue in their persistence and relentless invitations to the applicants and agencies under their supervision.
“That the respondents have vowed to investigate the applicants, on June 17, 2014, notwithstanding that the applicants are, in effect, challenging their powers to so do, and after the applicants had filed this suit.
“That the balance of convenience in this suit is in the applicant’s favour as they will suffer irreparable loss which cannot be compensated for in damages. The respondents have nothing to lose by following the due process of law.
“That the applicants undertake to pay damages, where this application is granted, but later found by this honourable court to be frivolous and a waste of the court’s time.”
Justice Mohammed had on May 26 thrown out a plea by a lawyer, who appears for the Minister and the NNPC in the first suit. The lawyer, Mr. Etigwe Uwa (SAN), had asked the court to stop the House Committee on Public Accounts from carrying on with the probe pending the hearing of the substantive suit.
June 19 has been fixed for hearing.