An Abuja High Court on Thursday
described the Peoples Democratic Party’s plan to hold its special
convention on August 31 as “recklessness of a high degree.”
It therefore stopped the convention
pending the determination of a suit filed by three members of the
party: Abba Yale, Yahaya Sule and Bashir Maigudu.
The action by the court presided over by
Justice Suleiman Belgore, coincided with the inauguration of the
30-member committee constituted by the National Working Committee of
the PDP to reconcile aggrieved members of the party.
Yale, Sule and Maigudu had in their
application filed by Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), asked for an order
restraining Alhaji Bamanga Tukur from acting as the party’s national
chairman.
The trio had earlier gone to court to
challenge the “election or appointment” of members of the NWC on the
grounds that their emergence breached certain provisions of the PDP
constitution . But after most of the NWC members voluntarily
resigned, they again asked the court to nullify the appointments of
the national officers, whose nominations were ratified at a National
Executive Committee meeting of the party on June 20, 2013.
However, in his ruling on the matter,
Belgore refused to stop Tukur from serving as PDP chairman. He also
refused to nullify the appointment of the acting NWC members.
Belgore held that the request that
Tukur be stopped from acting as national chairman, as well as the demand
that the appointment of the acting NWC members be nullified, were not
part of the prayers sought by the plaintiffs in their originating
summons.
But he ordered the party to refrain from
proceeding with the planned special convention, where national officers
of the party, are to be elected, in order to “allow sanity to reign.”
The judge upheld the plaintiffs’
argument that the plan by the PDP to hold the special convention, even
as the suit was pending, was aimed at foisting a fait accompli on the
court.
Frowning on the decision of the PDP to
take certain steps capable of foisting a state of helplessness on the
court, the judge held that, having submitted itself to the
jurisdiction of the court, the party must wait for its decision.
He said, “One will expect the PDP to
allow sanity to reign and tarry a while for the outcome of this case.
It amounts to recklessness of a high degree for the PDP to do or take
action that has direct effect on a case that is before this court.
“The emphatic point is that the PDP is a
party in the suit and subjected under the court; therefore the PDP is
obliged to wait for the outcome of the suit before taking any action.”
He noted that the move to hold the
convention meant pre-empting “the outcome of the decision in the
substantive suit, using as it were, self-help to the prejudices of the
administration of justice.”
“The step taken by the PDP would
diminish the integrity of the court and the court has a duty to impose
disciplinary measures on a recalcitrant party who violates the rule of
law and has no respect for the court,” Belgore added.
Earlier, the judge had refused a
preliminary objection in which the PDP sought the dismissal of the suit
on the grounds that it had been overtaken by events with the resignation
of the former NWC members.
PDP counsel, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), had
submitted that since the NWC members had already resigned, no new relief
existed in the originating summons. He noted that their names had
since been removed from the case by the court.
The PDP counsel argued that the case was dead, and that further hearing in the matter would amount to an academic exercise.
But Belgore held that the issues left to
be determined included whether the PDP acted legally in the appointment
of acting national officers, considering the provisions of Article 3 of
the party’s constitution, and whether the court could nullify the said
appointments and compel the party to conduct a fresh convention.
He maintained that it was immaterial
that the NWC members had resigned, noting that the court would still
determine the issues raised by the plaintiffs since their offices are
still in existence.
The judge said, “This court disagrees
with the submissions of counsel to the defendant that the matter is
spent and amounts to an academic exercise. This case is alive and not
academic; it is not spent – a suit is academic if it has no practical
utilitarian value.
“Therefore, this court has jurisdiction to continue hearing the suit.”
Tukur was joined as the second defendant
in the suit following an application in which he sought to be a party
to it. The PDP is the first defendant.
The court adjourned the matter to July 29, 2013.
Meanwhile, the reconciliation committee
of the PDP headed by Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, was on
Thursday inaugurated with Tukur asking its members to concentrate on
states not being ruled by the party.
Tukur particularly regretted the loss
of the entire South-West states to opposition political parties, and
called on the committee to return the zone to the PDP.
He said, “Painfully, the entire South-
West states, except Lagos was under the PDP and there can be nothing
more tragic than the present disturbing reality of losing the entire
zone to the opposition.
“The birth of our problem in the
South-West and indeed other zones can be attributed to the inability of
our people to manage our last success.
“The present leadership of the party is determined now more than ever, to reclaim the dominance of the PDP in the South-West.”
Tukur said the same tragedy affected the
party in the South-East, where it lost Anambra and Imo states to the
opposition. He also said Edo State must be brought back to the party.
In his remarks after the inauguration,
Dickson said, “The stability of our nation for now depends on the
stability of the PDP and this is as a result of our party’s spread and
its unbroken hold on power in the last 14 years.
“Our party remains the strongest
centripetal force that can hold our diverse country together
irrespective of the threat to our very existence as a people.
“At no time in our history has our nation’s unity come under sustained and severe attacks as it is now.”
But the governor regretted that events
in the party were not very palatable, adding that its members were
exploiting its diversity to a negative advantage.
“Instead of building a political party
platform for the unity and development of the country the way our party
is doing, the centrifugal forces are exploiting our diversity to expand
the attacks and even making political capital out of it,” he added.
Dickson promised that the
reconciliation committee would work with another set up by the Board
of Trustees, which is headed by Chief Tony Anenih.
Dickson had initially complained that
he might decline the headship of the committee due to a barrage of
criticisms that trailed his appointment.
However, President Goodluck Jonathan was
said to have compelled him to take up the job at a meeting he had with
12 governors of the party that visited him at the Presidential Villa in
Abuja on Wednesday night.
The meeting with the President, which ended in the early hours of Thursday, was called by the PDP Governors’ Forum .
A source, who was at the meeting, said
if Dickson had declined the offer, those against the President and Tukur
might have an upper hand in the battle for the soul of the PDP.
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