Dave Umahi, governor of Ebonyi State, on Wednesday tendered an apology to the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) over some derogatory remarks he made against justice Inyang Ekwo, the Abuja High Court judge who ordered his removal as governor.
Umahi apologised while addressing members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who held solidarity rally for him at the Udensi Rundabout, Abakaliki.
The NBA had in a statement by its president, Olumide Akpata earlier on Wednesday, berated Umahi for attacking the judge and demanded an apology from him.
Speaking at the rally, Umahi said that he has mobilized over seventeen (17) SANs to Appeal the judgement of the federal high court sitting in Abuja led by justice Inyang Ekwo, wherein he was sacked for defecting from the opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the ruling APC.
He noted that he has no regrets in defecting to the ruling APC and threatened to engage in battle with the opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ebonyi State, especially for trying to distract his administration.
“I’m still the governor of Ebonyi state and I’m still working. I said the lawyers of PDP are the ones doing forum shopping and I’m going to write against the lawyers to NBA to discipline them because the judge was misled. The blame was not on the judge. The blame is on the PDP lawyers who misled the judge,” he said.
“And I’m using the opportunity to let Nigerians know that nobody castigated the judge and we will not and because the matter was not before any judge.
“Today, we have appealed the judgement. We have done three things; we have done the appeal at Enugu, and when I say that, we have two judgements, I say that the judgement in Ebonyi state, which has equal powers with that of Abuja. We said we will obey the judgement in Ebonyi state. We will appeal the judgement of Abuja. We didn’t say we will disobey otherwise we would have not appealed.
“We are before the Appeal of Enugu state and that of Abuja. We have also filed a stay of execution. So, we are still the governor and deputy governor of Ebonyi state” he stated