PORT HARCOURT – Crisis Looms around the Rivers State chapter of the Action Peoples Party (APP), days ahead of Saturday, October 5 local government election, as a Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt granted an experte order to serve the state APP Chairman, Sunny Wokekoro, the 23 Chairmanship candidates of the party through a substituted means....For More READ THE FULL STORY▶▶
The court on Wednesday also ordered that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC be served via substituted means in the suit filed by Hart Badom, Destiny Omereji and four others demanding Badom’s reinstatement as the authentic State Chairman of the party, while Sunny Wokekoro who is currently the state chairman is removed.
The plaintiffs in the suit are also questioning when the 23 pro-Fubara chairmanship candidates of the party became APP members in the state and that whatever action taken by current chairman, Mr Wokekoro be declared null and void.
You may know that the Action Peoples Party, APP, was adopted by Governor Fubara’s loyalists to contest on its platform in the forthcoming elections, following the crisis that rocked the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP, as a result of the impasse between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike.
Our correspondent reports that when the matter came up in court, counsel to plaintiffs, Excel Omeghara applied for experte motion to serve the defendants through a substituted means and presiding Judge, Justice Emmanuel Obele granted the request.
Speaking to newsmen outside the courtroom, counsel to the plaintiffs, Excel Omeghara explained what transpired in court and why his clients approached the court.
He said, “My clients are the authentic leaders and stakeholders of the APP who emerged as leaders of the party through the 2022 congress supervised by INEC in Rivers State. And we are in court to say that our client remains the authentic Chairman and excos of the party at the state and local government levels.
“For instance, the second and third plaintiffs, are subsisting local government Chairmen of APP in their various local governments and they are in court here saying that they have never resigned or removed, yet they were not part of this primaries or electorial activities that brought in the candidates.
“So, they are in court to for the court to determine who is the authentic Chairman of the party. Is it the card carrying PDP members or the APP members who were elected on this platform of APP supervised by INEC in the congress?
“Does it automatically translate that when their chairman resigned from his position, the whole excos were no longer in existence?”
Quoting a section of the APP constitution, he said, where a position is vacant, the deputy will automatically assume, but in the event where the chairman and deputy resigns, a member of the Exco that became vacant, will be refilled by the remaining Exco, appointing a person to replace him.
“And the day Hon. Atata resigned, the remaining exco appointed Hon. Heart Batam, and from that day, Batam had been the APP Chairman from that day. It was a shocking news to all the APP members to hear that one Sunny Wokekoro, a member of PDP is now the Chairman of APP Rivers State.
“Sunny Wokekoro has never been a member of APP. So they are in court against the chairmanship and the exco of Sunny Wokekoro. We want to know when he became a member of APP and who appointed him? Is he not governed by the constitution of APP? Will he not first become a member of the APP before he becomes an Exco member?
“That is our case, it is simple. These plaintiffs remain the authentic leaders of the APP in Rivers State,” he said.
On his part, Hart Badom told newsmen that they were in court to get an interpretation of the current situation in the party, insisting that those who are now chairmanship candidates of the party are not known to them in the party.
Badom said he is the authentic Chairman of the APP in Rivers State. “APP as a party has a constitution. And we can’t fold our hands a members and watch our party hijacked by nonmembers of our party.”
He explained that “On the day Hon. Kenneth Atata resigned, as the constitution demands, our people sat, and called me and they made me the state Chairman. I am the authentic Chairman of our party, the APP in Rivers State.
“I don’t know Wokekoro from Adam, he is not a member of Action People’s Party, APP, and we don’t know where he is coming from and that is why we are in court,” he said….For More READ THE FULL STORY ▶▶
