A/Court orders INEC not to recognize Soludo as PDP candidate
The Court presided over by Justice Mary Peter-Odili in a ruling on an oral application brought by Counsel to the appellant Valentine Ozigbo, Abubakar Sani also ordered the PDP and Soludo to maintain the status quo ante bellium. The court also directed that Prof. Soludo to stop parading himself as the candidate of PDP in […]
The Court presided over by Justice Mary Peter-Odili in a ruling on an oral application brought by Counsel to the appellant Valentine Ozigbo, Abubakar Sani also ordered the PDP and Soludo to maintain the status quo ante bellium.
The court also directed that Prof. Soludo to stop parading himself as the candidate of PDP in the said polls pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice even as it fixed December 14, 2009 for PDP to respond to the appellant’s motion and to continue the hearing.
Justice Peter-Odili in her ruling said: “We are not unmindful of the essence of time in this case and the sensitive nature of the case, all the parties should maintain the status quo ante bellium and not do anything that will destroy the res of the case.
“The Independent National Electoral Commission (3rd respondent) is hereby ordered not to recognize the candidature of Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the February 6th governorship elections in Anambra State pending the hearing and determination of this appeal” she declared.
In a swift reaction to the ruling of the appellant court, Prof. Soludo described the decision as a strange order because it was not sought for by the appellants.
Speaking to Newsmen in Abuja, the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said he had, through his Counsel, Patrick Ikwueto (SAN) appealed against the decision of the appellant court before the Supreme Court.
“Our lawyers have filed notice of appeal and we have also filed motion for a stay of execution, that suffices it for now and I think several other legal actions would be taken on the issue as from Monday”.
“We will settle this thing in the court of law and this is part of the whole process in a democracy. As INEC has behaved typically in the past, we are now waiting to see how that are going to behave this time around because in the previous cases, INEC chose to obey even cases that were vacated by a competent court on the excuse that there was an appeal that was pending.”
“In this particular case, there is an interim order that we have also appealed and let see whether INEC is not going to publish our names. If INECD is not bias as I believe, that will be able to publish our names given the dependency of the appeal”, Soludo noted.
Counsel to the PDP and the party’s National Legal Adviser, Olusola Oke while reacting to the decision noted that, “there should have been arguments before the court could go ahead and make such an order, no court could go ahead and suo moto make such an order.
After the ruling, PDP National Chairman Prince Vincent Ogbulafor was sighted at the party secretariat apparently to meet the beleaguered Soludo who has been waiting for him.
Ogbulafor, Soludo and a prominent lawyer, Mr. Joe Gadzama (SAN) met behind closed doors for about one and a half hours on the latest legal tussle at Ogbulafor’s office but no statement was released after the meeting.
Weekly Trust gathered from staffs of the party who were discussing the situation in silent tones, that the plaintiffs (appellants) might end up frustrating Prof. Soludo but he would still be declared validly nominated as the party’s candidate.