The national chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Bamanga Tukur, on Wednesday asked an Ikeja High Court to strike out a suit filed by a faction of the party.

Tukur made the request in a preliminary notice of objection filed by his counsel, Joe Kyari-Gadzama.

In his argument, Kyari-Gadzama urged the court to strike out the suit filed by the Abubakar Baraje-led faction of the PDP for want of jurisdiction.

Baraje’s faction filed a suit on September 1, seeking to stop Tukur and other members of his executive council from parading themselves as national officers of the party.

Kyari-Gadzama on Wednesday said: “I am asking the court to strike out the case because it lacks the territorial jurisdiction to entertain the suit. The subject matter of this suit is the PDP which has its registered office in Abuja and none of the defendants is resident in Lagos State”.

He said the course of action which is the purported removal of the defendants and the election of the claimants arose in Abuja and not in Lagos, adding that the writs of summons did not comply with the mandatory requirements of Section 97 of the Sheriff and Civil Process Act because they were not signed.

“It is quite elementary that every court is a creation of law and thus a court of law has its jurisdiction limited and circumscribed by the constitution. The general position of the law on territorial jurisdiction of a court is that a court’s jurisdiction is confined to matters that arose within it, or where the defendants reside or carry out business,” the lawyer said.

The presiding judge, Oludotun Adefowope-Okojie, adjourned the matter to September 25 for further hearing.