An Abuja High Court today ordered the Peoples Democratic Party,PDP, to halt all plans pertaining to its national convention scheduled to hold after the Ramadan fast.
Delivering judgement on the reliefs sought by three members of the party, Justice Suleiman Belgore also restrained about 18 members of the PDP National Working Committee, NWC, from further acting on behalf of the party.
The three members of the party – Abba Yale, Yahaya Sule andBashir Maidugu – had approached the court for an order setting aside and nullifying all the processes that led to the appointment of all the acting national officers of the PDP’s NWC on June 20.
They said in their prayers before the court that the appointment of the interim officers through memoranda dated June 20 2013 addressed to the National Executive Committee, NEC, of the party while the suit was before the court was done “to pre-empt the decision of this court, in absolute self-help and in total disobedience and contempt of this honourable court.”
Counsel to the applicants, Samuel Okutepa, argued that the action of their party’s NEC in asking the officers indicted to relinquish their positions amounted to self-help, in view of a subsisting case on the matter.
The PDP NEC had directed about 20 members of the party’s NWC to vacate their positions following a report of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, that the emergence of the affected officers through voice votes, as against proper election, was a contravention of the party’s guidelines for congresses and conventions.
The three members asked the court to restrain the national chairman of the PDP, Bamanga Tukur, from performing any functions or duties assigned to the National Working Committee of the party pending the hearing and determination of the matter by the court.
They also sought for an order of interlocutory injunction restraining the party “and all its agents, including its national chairman and any other person or group of persons acting for and on behalf of the defendant (PDP) from convening and or holding any meeting or convention in furtherance of the decision of the NEC of the defendant made during the pendency of this suit, pending the hearing and determination of this case”.
The Judge however, refused to stop Tukur, the party’s financial secretary and national auditor from continuing with their functions.