Anambra commissioner, others risk jail over contempt

By Phil Okose, Onitsha

Anambra State Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Hon.  Obinna Ngonadi, and others, risk jail for flauting the order of an Atani High court, near Onitsha, Presided over by Hon  Justice Alexious Okuma.

It was gathered that the caretaker committee of the Electronics Dealers Market, Onitsha, and the Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Dr. Obinna Ngonadi, have on August 5, 2022 been issued Form 48 by the Anambra State High court, sitting in Atani.

Others to be affected by notice of consequences of disobedience to order of the court included, Attorney General of Anambra State, The incorporated Trustees of Electronic Dealers Association Onitsha, Mr. Izuchukwu Okoye and Mr. Ikechukwu Ekwegbalu, for their failure to maintain status quo, as ordered by the court on July 5, 2022.

When contacted, the immediate past chairman of the market, Mr. Izukwukwu Okoye, declined to make comment adding, “the case is sub-judice”

Reacting, one of the traders in the market, Mr. Bonny Nze, disclosed that, ” Form 48  issued to both parties, was consequences of their disobedience to the order of the court by installing care-taker committees in our market.

According to Nze who is an aspirant for the post of Secretary General, of the market ” As our market constitution requires every four years election would be conducted, after the expiration of the incumbent executives.

“This year, we all assembled on a general meeting and agreed to conduct election. The former Pesident of the market, Mr. Izuchukwu Okoye, was the one who convened the general meeting as our constitution stipulates.

“In the meeting, election committee was set up and Inaugurated .The committee later circulated  information across our market that anybody who wished to contest election should apply by picking form..

“The form for the office of president was #300,000, Secretary #150,000 while other positions were #100,000 respectively.

We willingly paid for the forms based on the position each person wants to contest for. We hard meetings about two to three times, all of a sudden, what we heard was that the election would no longer hold .

“We began to hear rumours that certain funny things have been played behind. Some of us who are aspirants became aggrieved and went to court and obtain injunction restraining State government or whoever might act on anybody’s capacity from doing any other things in the market other than conducting election.

“It is  unfortunate that the Commissioner for Commence and Industry and Attorney General of Anambra State, ignored the court order. We heard from the reliable source that they said the court order was a tissue paper that it doesn’t hold water and they went ahead and constituted care-taker committees against the court order and constitution of the market.

“It is unfortunate that this happened under the democratic dispensation of Anambra State and we deemed it necessary to bring attention of the Governor on what is happening, perhaps he might not be aware as well as to make the public hear what might likely cause crises in the market.

“. Form 48 has been served to the names raised and perhaps in few days Form 49 will be equally issued to them.

“The issue is that the tenure of the executives have expired and our constitution stipulated that the new election would be conducted so that new leaders would emerge to oversee the affairs of the Union for the next four years. So, the issue of setting up Care-taker is uncalled for.