Rivers High Court Sets Stage For Showdown Over PDP’s Congresses

A Rivers State High Court presided over by Justice Stephen Jumbo has scheduled a hearing for January 15, 2025, to argue an interlocutory injunction filed by two Port Harcourt-based legal practitioners, Edwin Woko and Love Otunoye, and two others who are members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

The applicants are seeking to nullify the congresses conducted in 319 wards, 23 local government areas, and the state structure of PDP in Rivers State.

The congresses in question took place on July 27, August 10, and August 31, and the applicants claim that they were conducted in flagrant disobedience to a Rivers State High Court order issued on July 16, 2024.

The order had prohibited the PDP and its national chairman from conducting congresses pending the hearing and determination of the originating summons already filed.

According to the applicants, the congresses were a clear violation of the court’s order, and they are seeking an order of interlocutory injunction to set aside the congresses as a nullity.

They are also seeking an order restraining Aaron Chukwuemeka and others from acting, representing, or parading themselves as members of the state executive committee or officers of the PDP.

Furthermore, the applicants are seeking a court order recognizing them as the authentic and subsisting members of the state executive committee of PDP and directing the PDP and its national leadership to recognize and deal with them.

This move is seen as an attempt to clarify the leadership structure of the PDP in Rivers State and to ensure that the party’s activities are conducted in accordance with the law.

The case has been adjourned until January 15, 2025, after Justice Stephen Jumbo listened to counsel for the defendants, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who informed the court of the absence of the claimants’ counsel.

Rivers High Court Sets Stage For Showdown Over PDP’s Congresses is first published on The Whistler Newspaper