A Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, has set aside the judgment of the Federal High Court, which delisted all candidates of the All Progressives Congress in River State from the ballot for the 2023 general election.
Some persons claiming membership of the APC had approached the Court to challenge the validity of the emergence as candidates in a suit that threatened the participation of the Party in the forthcoming polls.
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The Federal High Court erred in hearing the matter and delivering judgment in the internal affairs of a political party.
The Aggrieved APC members claimed that they were excluded from participating in the congresses and primaries that produced the candidates.
The lead Judge, Justice Mohammed Lawal Shuaibu said they did not exhaust internal Party mechanisms for conflict resolution before approaching the Court.
Counsel for the APC, Emenike Ebete said “The Court of Appeal just set aside a judgment, the judgment of a high court, saying that those persons, or 400 of them that they claimed were not members of APC, had no locals because they did not participate in the primaries that brought up the candidates of APC, and that the trial court had no jurisdiction in the first place to entertain an inter party affair.
“The judgment was set aside and the cost of 500,000 naira awarded against them in the three appeals, so they are oweing us 1.5 million naira”.
The 2023 general election promises to be a tough fight for the APC in River State, as their campaign activities almost ground to a halt after the Federal High Court judgment.
The party is now satisfied with this particular victory at the Court of Appeal.
The outcome of this appeal gives some reprieve to all 50 APC candidates for the election in River State, but the coast is not yet cleared with the Party’s standard bearer, Tonye Cole
The Court of Appeal is yet to decide on another Federal High Court judgment that disqualified him on the basis of dual citizenship.
