PH Mundial – Port Harcourt Online Newspaper News Across The Region
Related Articles
… Community Leaders Seek CJN, NJC Intervention
By Joel Anekwe, Port Harcourt
The Rivers State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and its rival All Progressives Congress (APC), both engaged on a struggle for the political soul of the state, have taken their war to the local government level.
The bone of contention this time is who controls the government at the third tier.
Currently the 23 local government councils are run by caretaker committee appointed by the state governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, which places him and the ruling PDP government in the state in a vantage position.
The APC is however seeking to upstage them via a litigation now pending at the Supreme Court.
But the local council chairmen, on Tuesday, in Port Harcourt, called on the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, and the National Judicial Commission (NJC) to prevail on the Appeal Court in Port Harcourt to stop the hearing of the matter on the 2015 annulled council election still pending before the Supreme Court.
The council chairmen said the call became necessary to prevent an impending crisis in the state that could snowball into anarchy over a fresh case at the Appeal Court bordering on the annulled council election.
The 23 LG bosses, all members of the Peoples Democratic Party alleged that the Appeal Court was about entertaining a case between a former council chairman, who is a member of the All Progressives Congress, Mr. Augustine Ngo, and the Peoples Democratic Party in the state bordering on a 2015 LG poll.
Briefing newsmen in Port Harcourt on Tuesday, Rivers ALGON legal adviser and chairman of Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area, Mr. Osi Olisa, said it was against the law for the Court of Appeal to hear a matter which is pending at the Supreme Court.
Olisa, recalled that while the APC-led government in the state had in 2015 conducted a council election in disobedience of a court order, a Federal High Court had sacked the then council chairmen that were elected on the platform of the APC.
He stated that the opposition party in the state later commenced an action before the Rivers State High Court seeking to validate the election, but that the application was dismissed as the High Court maintained that such an election never held.
According to him the Appeal Court in Port Harcourt had granted some members of the APC who had no bearing with the matter on the annulment of the LG poll the leave to appeal against the ruling of the Federal High Court.
“Inexplicably, on 20th of June, 2016, the Court of Appeal, in appeal No CA/PH/26m/2016, granted some members of the APC leave to appeal against the ruling of the Federal High Court, which set aside the purported election.
“These persons, who to the Appeal Court, were neither parties to the original suit nor were they candidates or winners of any election at the time the originating summons was commenced by the PDP at the Federal High Court,” Olisa added.
The ALGON legal adviser explained that the state government, now with a new governor, entered an appeal at the Supreme Court on July 4, 2016, adding that while the appeal was still pending at the apex court, another proceeding on the same subject matter had been commenced at the Appeal Court by APC.
Said Olisa; “We are calling on the Chief Justice of Nigeria in his capacity as the head of the Judiciary and the National Judicial Council to intervene in this matter in order to prevent a crisis that may degenerate into anarchy.
“We are also calling on members of the legal profession and indeed well-meaning people as well as the international community to pay close attention to the strange events unfolding at the Port Harcourt Division of the Court of Appeal in this matter”.
“The attention of the Honourable Justice of the Appeal Court in Port Harcourt had been drawn to the proceedings before the Supreme Court.
“But rather than follow the laid-down principles in a long line of judicial decision, which precludes the Appeal Court from proceeding in a matter when an appeal touching on the matter has been entered in the Supreme Court, the Appeal Court is poised to proceed without regard to the Supreme Court,” he lamented.
