Court nullifies APC primaries in Rivers

Ogun PDP faction suspends guber aspirant, four others

A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, yesterday, nullified all the primaries conducted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.

The court gave the ruling, following a suit by aggrieved members of the party, who had complained exclusion during primaries.

A claimant, George Orlu, and four others, who claimed to have purchased nomination forms, had, consequently, approached the court asking that the polls be nullified.

The court ruled that the persons were unlawfully excluded from the primaries.

Justice E.A. Obile held that the aggrieved persons were shut out of the shadow elections unlawfully, adding that the process amounted to nullity.

He, therefore, ruled that all those elected from the elections stand nullified and should not be recognised as candidates.

Recall that some aggrieved members of the APC loyal to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) governorship candidate, Senator Magnus Abe, had approached the court challenging the conduct of the primary election, with claims of exclusion from the delegates’ primaries conducted in the state.

Reacting via a statement, the state APC Publicity Secretary, Darlington Nwaujun said: “Our immediate response is that the Supreme Court has decided on a plethora of cases suggesting that political parties are their own chief executive officers and can regulate their own internal affairs.

“The subject matter for which Justice E.A. Obile granted the relief of plaintiffs to nullify the congresses of our party is entirely an internal party affair, therefore, it’s a travesty of justice as far as we are concerned.

“Secondly, the persons who went to court against our party are now members of the SDP and, therefore, meddlesome interlopers in our internal affairs.

MEANWHILE, a faction of Ogun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, announced the suspension of its governorship aspirant, Ladi Adebutu; the acting Chairman, Taiwo Akinlabi; Secretary, Sunday Solarin; Publicity Secretary, Mr. Akinloye Bankole, and Ogun East senatorial chairman, Kayode Adebayo, on the ground that they acted in flagrant disobedience of the subsisting court judgment, which produced the current executives of the party, thereby, betraying the terms of settlement entered by the two warring factions in the state.

In a statement in Abeokuta, co-signed by the Financial Secretary and Assistant State Treasurer, Bola Odumosu, and Mrs. Akibu Oriyomi, the party said the suspended members were found guilty of contravening the terms of settlement entered in the consent judgment that birthed the current executives of the party in the state.