The State Executive Committee (SEC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State was prevented from being dissolved by a Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday due to suspected anti-party conduct.
Justice Inyang Ekwo stated in his ruling that he believed plaintiff Desmond Akawo’s case had substance.
The party and Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, the party’s immediate past national chairman together with party members on the National Working Committee (NWC), and the National Executive Committee (NEC), were named as the first and second defendants in Akawo’s lawsuit against them.
The plaintiff added the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as a third defendant in the modified originating summons filed on March 9 by his attorney, Joshua Musa, SAN, with the case number FHC/ABJ/CS/112/2023.
Akawo asked the court to rule on whether the Rivers SEC was ineligible to hold office in accordance with Section 223 of the 1999 Constitution and Article 47(1) of the PDP Constitution (as revised in 2017).
He claimed that he, along with other Rivers PDP SEC, LGA, and ward executive committee members, were chosen and sworn in in accordance with the state congress conducted on March 21, 2020, and are thus qualified to serve out their four-year terms, which end on or around May 22, 2024.
In the affidavit to which he was personally deposed, Akawo claimed that the PDP and its national chairman had threatened to unilaterally dissolve the Rivers PDP SEC and replace it with an interim caretaker committee on January 4, just before the general elections.
He claimed that before the threat, neither he nor any state committee member had ever been questioned.
In order to prevent the party and the national chairman from terminating, suspending, or shortening the terms of the ward executive committees, LGA executive committees, and SECs in the Rivers until May 22, 2024, when their four-year terms would expire, among other reliefs, he requested an order of injunction.
According to Justice Ekwo, neither the PDP nor its national chairman denied Akawo’s allegations.
“In essence, the first and second defendants have conceded the plaintiff’s position on this matter.
“The law is that admitted facts need no further proof,” he stated.
All of Akawo’s requests for relief were granted by the judge, who ruled that the party and its national chairman cannot unilaterally dissolve state executives who were duly elected to serve terms of four years without good cause.
Additionally, he issued an injunction preventing them from designating any individual or group of individuals as the state’s interim caretaker committee until May 22, 2024.
In addition, Justice Ekwo issued an injunction order prohibiting INEC from accepting or recognising any caretaker committee of the PDP in the state other from those that were legitimately elected and were represented by Akawo in the lawsuit.
