PDP Asks Court To Discharge Suit 

 

The Peoples Democratic Party( PDP) has questioned the jurisdiction of the Federal High Court seating in Abuja to quit its upcoming primary elections, following its alleged denial to zone its 2023 presidential ticket to the South East.

The party, in methods it rubbed via its group of lawyers conducted by Mr. Mahmud Magaji, (SAN), also queried the management of the court to call it to reply to the suit that was installed by one of its presidential candidates, Mr.

Cosmas Ndukwe.
It claimed that the court lacked the jurisdiction to interfere in its inner affairs
The Peoples Democratic Party( PDP) in its preliminary protest against the suit, claimed that the topic matter of the case, which touches on whether to zone its presidential ticket to any part of the country or not, was not an issue that the court was constitutionally authorized to judge upon.

It, thus, urged the court to remove the order instructing it to establish cause why reserves the Complainant is pursuing in the suit, should not be given.

Justice Donatus Okorowo of the high court had earlier Friday, granted an ex-parte mandate for PDP to occur on May 5, to react to the suit.
The complainant, Ndukwe, who is a ex Deputy Speaker of the Abia State House of Assembly, in an application he obtained before the court, sought an ordering of request restraining his party from proceeding with its organized primary election, pending the hearing and conclusion of his suit challenging the function of the party on the issue of zoning its presidential ticket

Quoted as Defendants in the suit kept: FHC/ABJ/CS/508/2022, are The Peoples Democratic Party( PDP) , National Chairman of the party, Dr. Iyorchia Atu, Chairman of PDP Primary Election Planning Committee/National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, as nicely as the Independent National Electoral Commission,( INEC).

Though the court denied giving the restraining demand it required the complainant to put all the Defendants on information to allow them to occur on the next adjourned date to show cause.

In its swift complaint to the suit, PDP, aside from questioning the jurisdiction of the court to consider the suit, claimed that it had become quality barred.
According to the defendants, “the cause of motion in the suit bonds to the inner happenings of a political party and thus within the principles of political inquiries which cannot be justiciable” and as such,, the court lack jurisdiction to consider it.
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, stated that the reason for the move stemmed from a communique its National Zoning Committee issued on April 5, whereas the complainant’s suit, was pointed on April 19, 15 days after, in breach of Paragraph 285 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, which delivers for 14 days for filing of such cases.
In other words, the 3rd defendant in the suit, Senator Anyanwu, has also moved before the Court of Appeal in Abuja to set aside the demand on the party, arguing that the trial judge erred in law.
He claimed that Ndukwe’s suit was not mature for listen at the time the trial court completed the order.

“The intellectual trial judge erred in reckoning an exparte
clue

which
aims to stop the presidential primary election of the appellant without listening notice”, counting that the court further erred in law when it failed to “aver its reason to section 84(15) of the Electoral Act, 2022, before producing an order to show cause”, he claimed.
It will be recalled that The Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) had set May 28 for the conduct of its presidential primary election and to that effect, screened the 17 aspirants that obtained its presidential form to contest in the 2023 election.
However, in his suit, Ndukwe, through his lawyer, Mr. Paul Erokoro, SAN, oppugned the planned presidential primary on the premise that PDP was preparing to act in violation of its own body on zoning.
He told the court that PDP has a process of elective seats in place, and by that configuration, it ought to be the favor of the Southern part of the nation, particularly the South East geopolitical zone, to offer the president.