A Federal High Court in Abuja yesterday stopped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from holding the Bayelsa State governorship primary election slated for Saturday, November 19, to pick its candidate for the state governorship election in 2012.???
Justice Gabriel Kolawole also warned that he would use the court’s statutory powers to nullify the results of? any governorship primary held before the next adjourned date of? November 22 when the PDP would be required to show reason why it intends to choose another person other than Governor Timipre Sylva? as its candidate for the forthcoming governorship election in the state.
? Sylva had in an ex-parte application filed on his behalf by Chief Lateef Fagbemi (SAN),? named the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), PDP and Abubakar Baraje ( the PDP acting national chairman) as co-defendants to the suit.???????????
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But the PDP was said to have evaded service when the order was made and served on the party yesterday as directed by the court. The court, however, granted another application moved by Fagbemi for substituted service by pasting the order on the PDP National Headquarters’ building in Wadata Plaza, Abuja yesterday.
Justice Kolawole, however, directed Sylva to put the defendants on notice within 72 hours of being served with same motion on notice to show cause why the governor is not entitled to the preservative orders in prayers 1-3 in the motion ex -parte.
Justice Kolawole further held that “In the event that the defendants when served with the originating summons on notice and enrollment in this order,? the 2nd and 3rd defendants [PDP and its acting National Chairman,? Baraje) were unable to show such reasonable or just cause why the order shall not be made, the court will have no hesitation in either granting the said order? the way and manner couched or may grant prayer 4 as the alternative prayer in the motion ex -parte.
The order that tied the hands of the PDP from conducting the election reads in parts; “That in the event perhaps, unlikely that the 2nd defendant [PDP] in defiance of these orders takes steps which may be pre-judicial; perhaps subversive of these orders and of this proceedings before the returned date adjourned to November 22, 2011, this court will without much ado, proceed to making such necessary orders to nullify such steps or decision taken once they are served with the motion ex parte and or order made herein in order to uphold and protect the sanctity of the court process and to vindicate its integrity as the established constitutional arbiter between the state and the citizens and between the citizens inter se.”
Sylva had asked the court to restrain the defendants from holding?? any fresh gubernatorial primary election for Bayelsa State on?? November 19? in the bid to submit another name other than his own? to the INEC for the forthcoming governorship election in the state.
Sylva claimed that his name was submitted by the PDP to the INEC as its candidate for the gubernatorial election of the? state, following his success at the primary election conducted by the PDP on January 12 , 2011.
The governor also claimed that since he is still alive and has not withdrawn his candidacy for the governorship election, he is therefore asking the? court to declare the said primary as? illegal, null and void.
Justice? Kolawole also? held that the era when political parties’ leadership played god in the affairs leading to the emergence of candidates to represent the parties at general elections were over based on the Electoral Act, 2010 as amended.
He warned that any act of a political party that breached the Electoral Act and? the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria as amended would be upturned.
He said, “The new Electoral Act as Amended is a clear departure from the 2006 Act by which on the authority of the Supreme Court’s decision in Onuoha v. Okafor, the political parties were “god unto themselves” in terms of the choice of candidates. This court had intervened in quite a number of political parties’ cases when candidates were being manipulated by the leadership of the political parties.
Meanwhile, the PDP has denied receiving any court injunction over the primaries.?
The PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Prof Rufai Ahmed Alkali, in a statement made available to LEADERSHIP, dismissed the purported court order as the work of mischief makers.
Alkali said, “The NWC wishes to urge all party members in Bayelsa State to continue preparations for the primaries where a freely elected candidate shall emerge to fly the PDP’s flag for the gubernatorial elections holding in February 2012.
However, one of our correspondents,? who was at the national secretariat of PDP in Abuja? reported that there was confusion among the party hierarchy over the court order. Members of PDP NWC deserted the secretariat because they did not want to be served the court orders.
A meeting earlier scheduled by the Bayelsa State Chairman of the party, James Durgo, and some stakeholders at Wadata Plaza was put off without any notice or explanation. Also, the acting National Chairman of PDP, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, had to hurriedly issue certificates to aspirants that had been screened to participate at the forthcoming primaries.
However, Durgo later addressed a press conference at the Protea Hotel, Asokoro in Abuja, where he asked the aggrieved aspirants to accept the results of the ward congress in good faith or seek redress in relevant quarters.
Durgo, in company of six of the eight local government area chairmen of PDP in the state, told journalists that the ward congress was conducted in accordance with the party guidelines and the party would not succumb to cheap blackmail by the losers.
The party chairmen, who reportedly relocated to Abuja, added that their lives were no longer safe, as a result of the heated polity in the state.
But some of the local government chairmen of the party have alleged that their signatures were forged to support the claim that the congress was held on Monday.
The chairmen , Edison Sorgwe (Yenagoa), Milton Ebi (Brass), Ben Foreman (Southern Ijaw) and Anthony Zuokemefa (Nembe), said the actions of those involved in the alleged forgery of their signatures would be formally reported to the State Executive Committee of the party for disciplinary action.
A governorship candidate of the Party, Seriake Dickson had, on Tuesday, said that six out of eight PDP local government area chairmen affirmed that the congress held in all the wards of the state.
But at a media briefing yesterday in Yenagoa, the four chairmen of the PDP in Brass, Yenagoa, Southern Ijaw and Nembe, said they were never at anytime part of an endorsement of results of a congress that was not held and that the claims by the aspirant was? fictitious, criminal and sad.?
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