A Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt has nullified the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ward, local government, and state congresses held in 2024.
The ruling, delivered on Monday by Justice Stephen Jumbo, also barred the executives produced by these congresses from functioning as officers of the party in the state.
The decision came in response to a suit filed by two Port Harcourt-based lawyers, Edwin Woko and Love Otuonye, alongside two other party members. The case named the PDP National Chairman, the State Chairman, Aaron Chukwuemeka, and nine others as respondents.
The claimants argued that the congresses conducted on July 27, August 10, and August 31, 2024, were in “flagrant disobedience” to a court injunction issued on July 16, 2024. That injunction had specifically barred the PDP, its National Chairman, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and their agents from organizing congresses until the determination of the originating summons.
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The applicants sought an interlocutory injunction to invalidate the congresses across the state’s 319 wards, 23 local government areas, and the state level. They also requested that Chukwuemeka and other executives be restrained from acting or parading themselves as members of the PDP state executive committee. Furthermore, they asked the court to declare them as the authentic and subsisting members of the Rivers State PDP executive committee and direct the national leadership of the party to recognize them.
After reviewing the submissions from both sides, Justice Jumbo granted the claimants’ prayers. In his ruling, he nullified the congresses and prohibited the respondents from serving as party executives.
“The court recognises the applicants as the authentic and subsisting members of the Rivers State executive committee of the PDP,” the ruling read.
This judgment has further deepened the leadership crisis within the PDP in Rivers State, leaving its political structure in uncertainty.
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