By Uche Amunike
An Appeal Court sitting in Port Harcourt has picked the Thursday October 28th date for the hearing of the appeal filed by the embattled National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus, which among other things, is seeking to stop the upcoming PDP Convention stated for October 30 and 31 2021.
The court which was presided over by a three-man panel, led by Justice Haruna Tsammani at the hearing on Tuesday, adjourned the matter till Thursday to allow the respondents reply.
Justice Tsammani accepted a request by some of the respondents who joined the suit to study the requests of the appellant and respondent accordingly.
The counsel to the appellant, Tayo Oyetibo was allowed 24 hours to serve the respondents all documents to prepare their response, while granting another 24 hours to the respondents to reply before appearing before him at the next adjourned date for arguments and possible determination of the appeal.
However the court struck out a separate but related appeal seeking to override an interim order made by the Rivers State High Court on August 22nd 2021, where it restrained prince Uche Secondus from parading himself as a National Chairman and member of the People’s Democratic Party, noting that the appeal was an academic exercise.
Another appeal filed by the PDP on the same subject matter and marked CA/PH/340 was also struck out by the appeal Court, after the party’s new Counsel, I. S Ami moved for its withdrawal in pursuance to the provisions of order 11, rule 5 and the rules of the Court of Appeal.
The Counsel for Prince Uche Secondus, Tayo Oyetibo, SAN, stated during an interview with pressmen, that they had an application on behalf of Prince Uche secondus to restrain the holding of the PDP Convention which is scheduled for 30th and 31st.
His words: ‘And so many people came to say they want to join, which caused some delay and the court felt that it was necessary to hear everyone concerned.’
‘So, the court has given them the opportunity to come and say whatever they want to say and the matter is adjourned to Thursday. The court said it would decide whether the PDP Convention would go on or not, so everybody is waiting for the decision of the court on Thursday.’
Henry Bello, who represents five Rivers Local Government Area chairman who were joined as respondents had this to say, during an interview outside the courtroom: ‘Because of the joinder of new parties and the fact that a counter affidavit was served on me yesterday which I need to respond to, the matter has been adjourned to 12 noon on Thursday, 28, October, 2021 for argument.’
Addressing journalists at the party’s Secretariat, earlier, the Chairman of the Accreditation Sub-committee and Governor of Delta State, Ifeanyi Okowa said that the committee will do everything in their power to get the accreditation process right, and hoped that the committees will collaborate with them to put everything in place in order to ensure that the accreditation process is integrity-based.
