Court Place Embargo On PDP National Convention

An Abuja High Court on Thursday described the  Peoples Democratic Party’s plan  to hold  its special  convention  on August 31 as “recklessness of a high degree.”
 It therefore stopped the  convention  pending the determination of a suit filed by three members of  the party:  Abba Yale, Yahaya Sule and Bashir Maigudu.
The action by the court presided over by Justice Suleiman Belgore, coincided with the inauguration of  the 30-member committee constituted by the  National Working Committee of the PDP to reconcile aggrieved members of the party.
 Yale, Sule and  Maigudu  had in their  application filed by  Jibrin Okutepa (SAN),  asked   for an order restraining   Alhaji Bamanga Tukur from acting as the party’s national chairman.
The   trio  had earlier gone to court to challenge the “election or appointment” of members of the NWC  on the grounds that their emergence breached certain  provisions  of the PDP constitution .  But  after  most of the NWC members voluntarily resigned, they again asked the court to nullify the appointments  of the  national officers, whose nominations were ratified at a National Executive Committee meeting  of the party on June 20, 2013.
However, in his ruling on the matter,  Belgore refused to stop Tukur from  serving as PDP chairman. He also refused to nullify the appointment of the acting NWC members.
  Belgore held that the request that Tukur be stopped from acting as national chairman, as well as the demand that the appointment of the acting NWC members be nullified, were not part of the prayers sought by the plaintiffs in their originating summons.
But he ordered the party to refrain from proceeding with the planned special convention, where national officers of the party, are to be elected, in order to “allow sanity to reign.”
The judge upheld the plaintiffs’ argument that the plan by the PDP to  hold  the special convention, even as the suit was pending, was aimed at foisting a fait accompli on the court.
Frowning on  the decision of the PDP to take certain steps capable of foisting a state of helplessness on the court,  the judge  held that, having submitted itself to the jurisdiction of the court, the party must wait for its decision.
He said, “One will expect the PDP to allow sanity to reign and tarry a while  for  the outcome of this case. It amounts to recklessness of a high degree for the PDP to do or take action that has direct effect on a case that is before this court.
“The emphatic point is that the PDP is a party in the suit and subjected under the court; therefore the PDP is obliged to wait for the outcome of the suit before taking any action.”
He noted that the  move to hold the convention meant  pre-empting  “the outcome of the decision in the substantive suit, using as it were, self-help to the prejudices of the administration of justice.”
“The step taken by the PDP would diminish the integrity of the court and the court has a duty to impose disciplinary measures on a recalcitrant party who violates the rule of law and has no respect for the court,”  Belgore added.
 Earlier,  the  judge  had refused a preliminary objection in which the PDP sought the dismissal of the suit on the grounds that it had been overtaken by events with the resignation of the former NWC members.
PDP counsel, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), had submitted that since the NWC members had already resigned, no new relief existed in the originating summons. He  noted that their names had since been removed from the case by the court.
The PDP counsel argued that the case was dead, and that further hearing in the matter would amount to an academic exercise.
But Belgore held that the issues left to be determined included whether the PDP acted legally in the appointment of acting national officers, considering the provisions of Article 3 of the party’s constitution, and whether the court could nullify the said appointments and compel the party to conduct a fresh convention.
He maintained that it was immaterial that the NWC members had resigned, noting that the court would still determine the issues raised by the plaintiffs since their offices are still in existence.
The judge said,  “This court disagrees with the submissions of counsel to the defendant that the matter is spent and amounts to an academic exercise. This case is alive and not academic;  it is not spent – a suit is academic if it has no practical utilitarian value.
“Therefore, this court has jurisdiction to continue hearing the suit.”
Tukur was joined as the second defendant in the suit following an application in which he sought to be  a party to it.  The PDP is the first defendant.

The court adjourned the matter to July 29, 2013.

CKN NEWS

Chris Kehinde Nwandu is the Editor In Chief of CKNNEWS || He is a Law graduate and an Alumnus of Lagos State University, Lead City University Ibadan and Nigerian Institute Of Journalism || With over 2 decades practice in Journalism, PR and Advertising, he is a member of several Professional bodies within and outside Nigeria || Member: Institute Of Chartered Arbitrators ( UK ) || Member : Institute of Chartered Mediators And Conciliation || Member : Nigerian Institute Of Public Relations || Member : Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria || Fellow : Institute of Personality Development And Customer Relationship Management || Member and Chairman Board Of Trustees: Guild Of Professional Bloggers of Nigeria

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