Battle Royale In Delta APC, Senator-Elect, Omo-Agege, Fighting Governorship Candidate Ogboru, And Other nominations Sacked By Federal High Court.
There seems to be no end to the crisis rocking the Delta State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Federal High Court in Asaba, the Delta state capital, yesterday passed a ruling which automatically sacked the Jones Erue-led state executive committee.
The ruling which took the presiding judge, Justice Toyin Adegoke, a better part of two hours to deliver clamped down the ward and local government executives of the party, under the Erue-led state executive, thus declaring them illegal. The court declared the plaintiff, Cyril Ogodo, the authentic chairman of APC.
The plaintiffs in their case prayed the court to declare as null, void and of no effect any and every action purportedly taken, initiated or carried out by the fourth defendant, Jones Erue, as chairman of the APC (first defendant) by the second defendant (national chairman) Adams Oshiomhole, in Delta State, following his purported inauguration, swearing in and recognition and/or appointment by the the national chairman as chairman of the APC in Delta State had sought 13 reliefs, among which are a declaration that the Ogodo-led executive committee was the authentic state executive of the APC. The court granted all the reliefs sought by the plaintiffs.
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By yesterday’s judgment, it does imply that Senator Ovie Omo-Agege’s re-election as senator representing Delta Central, the election of the Mr. Francis Waiva into the House of Representatives, and that of three other APC members into the Delta State House of Assembly, stands nullified because they got their mandate from the primaries conducted by the Erue-led state executives.
The nomination of Great Ogboru as governorship candidate; that of the immediate past governor and senatorial candidate for Delta South, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan; and that of Doris Uboh’s nomination as the Delta North senatorial candidate, and so on, in fact, a respondent put it like this
“With this judgment, Delta state had no APC party all along”.
Counsel to the defendants, Dr. Okubor Nwachukwu, said that the defense was not moved by the judgement as very soon the judgement would be tested at the Court of Appeal, he expressed confidence that it would be set right.
On his part, counsel to the plaintiffs, Roland Ekpe, said the judgement did not fall short of their expectations, noting that, by implication, the nomination of candidates who flew the flag of the party in the 2019 general election was null and void, having emerged from the primaries conducted by the Erue-led executive.
The plaintiff Ogodo said that justice had finally been served on the contentious state executive committee of the party, he described the judge as incorruptible, according to him
“who, despite all the intimidation and frivolous petitions, was able to deliver justice.”
Mr. Turner Ogboru, brother to one of those affected by the judgment; advised Ogodo and his group not to rejoice yet, saying that the judgement was void ab-initio, he said the verdict was wrongly delivered and as such he was confident that will not stand legal scrutiny at the Court of Appeal, because nullifying the primaries conducted by the National Working Committee of the party was a judgment made in error
“When we profile it, we will go on appeal. The beauty of our jurisprudence is that the first court has its right, but you have the upper court to correct all the errors of a lower court.
“There was no dependable evidence to make the judge reach this decision. The judgement is void ab-initio. It does not even need an appeal to set it aside because this court cannot sit as Court of Appeal over another Federal High Court judgment”.
