Appeal Court rejects PDP’s plea to upturn ruling on congress over Anambra poll

• ADC will checkmate impunity, multiple candidacy plot, says Nwosu
• Group urges aggrieved aspirants to accept Uba as candidate
• APC insists on choice of flagbearer
• ‘No court voided Ozigbo’s candidacy’

The Court of Appeal, Abuja, has dismissed two applications instituted by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seeking a legal injunction to stop enforcement and effect of the judgment of a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court presided over by Justice A. O. Adeniyi, which authorised the Anambra State PDP Congress in Awka.

Also rejected was the argument of the PDP counsel, Othai Otokpa, for accelerated hearing of the appeal in view of the case being a pre-election matter for which time is of the essence.

The court insisted that the PDP did not qualify for any order for abridgment of time having not even filed any brief of argument.

It, therefore, mandated the PDP counsel to withdraw the motions and struck both out. Counsel to the respondents, led by B.E.I. Nwofor, did not object or ask for costs.

MEANWHILE, the campaign office of Valentine Ozigbo, has while reacting to the purported rejection of motion for a stay of execution by the Court of Appeal in Abuja, declared that the ruling of the court did not void his election as PDP’s standard bearer.

In a statement by its Director, Strategy and Media, Val Ayika, the VCO Campaign Organisation, said “the statement that Mr. Valentine Ozigbo should not be paraded as the PDP gubernatorial candidate for Anambra State is false in its entirety.”

He insisted that such a statement could not have emanated from the Court of Appeal since it has not heard the appeal talk less of making an order.

IN another development, the National Chairman of African Democratic Congress (ADC), Chief Ralphs Okey Nwosu, has said that the impunity of the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to foist a candidate who did not pass through proper primary as its flagbearer for the election would be resisted.

Nwosu, who spoke in Awka, Anambra State, yesterday, also tackled both the PDP and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) for lack of internal democracy that has created double and multiple candidates in the parties.

Nwosu said that the people of the state had grown wiser to the point that APGA and PDP would no longer succeed in hoodwinking the members of the public, especially the electorate. Describing the incidences of double and multiple candidacies, he said that by deliberately fronting double and multiple candidates, both APGA and PDP had intended to outdo the other parties with a sole candidate.

A GROUP, under the umbrella of APC Media Frontier of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has urged all aggrieved aspirants in the concluded governorship primary to accept Senator Emmanuel Andy Uba as the duly elected candidate of the party.

The state Co-ordinator of the group, Ikemba Iyke-Oliobi, who made the appeal yesterday in Awka, Anambra State, said that the primary election had come and gone, adding that it is time for all members to work together for the victory of the party in the forthcoming governorship election.

ALSO, the APC said it had the final say on the choice of its flagbearer in the Anambra State governorship election.The Caretaker Secretary of the party, Dr. John Akpanudoedehe, who stated this while receiving the report of the Governor Yahaya-led appeal committee at the APC national secretariat in Abuja, urged five of the aggrieved governorship aspirants to abide by the final decision of the party.