Court okays nullified Rivers APC congresses

An Appeal panel in Port Harcourt,  Rivers State capital, yesterday, struck out the three appeals by factional Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Ojukaye Flag Amachree, challenging the October 10 judgment of a High court on the outcome of the party’s congresses.

Twenty-three aggrieved APC members, who protested their exclusion from the ward, council, and state congresses, approached the court to stop the perceived illegal exercise from holding.

They filed the suit under the name Ibrahim Umar and 22 others versus APC.

In the originating summons, the plaintiffs were granted the prayer they sought because Justice Chinwendu Nwogu, of the State High Court, issued an order stopping the congresses.

But the APC ignored the order and conducted the exercise, which later produced Amachree and others as executives.

The Amachree-led executive conducted primaries on September which produced Tonye Cole as the party’s governorship candidate.

But the court, in an October 10 judgment, voided the congresses and outcome of their primary, including the election of Cole, on the grounds of disobedience to the court order.

Amachree appealed and the judgment was nullified.

But Ibrahim Umar and 22 others moved to the Supreme Court, which voided the Appeal Court’s judgment and asked for a repeat.

Parties requested a special panel to hear the retrial, and president of the Appeal Court constituted a three-man panel, chaired by Justice Abubakar Yahaya.

The suits were struck out yesterday on the grounds of incompetence. The court held that being a pre-election matter, the appeal was filed out of time and it was statute-barred.

Another is a joinder application by Pastor Cole and 48 others (being purported candidates of APC, who emerged through the voided indirect primaries). This application was dismissed on the grounds that one could not appeal a matter he was not party to, especially when that person was in serial contempt of court.

Also, the one by Ojukaye Flag-Amachree and others (representing the party exco in Rivers, who emerged through the congresses in defiance of a valid court order) was dismissed on same grounds.

Justice Yayaha said the appeal lacked competence. According to him, the appeal against the Justice Nwogu judgment lacked merit.

He said the application for a joinder failed to observe the 14 days’ rules of Appeal.

On the substantive suit, the judge ruled that the Ojukaye faction failed to seek leave of court before appealing the judgment.

Justice Yahaya ruled that the judgment delivered at the lower court was a consent judgment, adding that  the Ojukaye faction should have done the needful legally before approaching the court.

He said: “This matter is between one party. What is going to happen when it is between separate parties? This is politics, and we are brothers of the same house and we are throwing stones on each other. Please, let’s reconcile and settle this.”

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Counsel to the 23, Patrick Luke, said: “The first was an appeal against the October 10 judgment of the High Court. After listening to our arguments, the court dismissed that appeal because they filed their appeal outside the terms provided by the Constitution, and they ought to file that appeal within 14 days upon delivery of judgment by the lower court. But they filed the appeal 25 days later through the status bar, and it was accordingly dismissed by the Court of Appeal today.

“The other two matters were based on application for joinder. Also, the two applications were also struck out for lack of merit. The implication is that the October 10 judgment is valid, subsisting, sacred and inviolable.”

Counsel to the applicant, Emenike Ebete, corroborated Luke, saying: “Today, the court of Appeal’s special panel held three appeals against the High Court of Rivers State, 281 and 282, which were applications by the candidates against the lower court’s October 10 judgment. Arguments were taken but the court held that in Appeal 461, that is the substantive appeal, that the consent judgment of the High Court, and by provision of the constitution, we ought to have sort leave of court to appeal against that consent judgement. That is their decision and they struck it out, saying we should come back and do the proper thing by seeking leave of court.

“The one for the candidates and the state excos were dismissed on the grounds that it was a pre-election matter, that we did not bring the application within 14 days after decision was delivered on October 10. What that means is that we will approach the Supreme Court to contest that.”