Updated: PDP vs NNPP: Court sacks 14 House of Assembly candidates in Rivers State

Fourteen House of Assembly candidates of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, were disqualified yesterday October 26, after the court ruled in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The case with suit no. fhc/pc/cs/109/2022 was presided over by Hon. Justice Adamu Turaki Mohammed at the Federal High Court, in Port Harcourt the Rivers State Capital.

Some of the House of Assembly candidates of the NNPP who were present at the ruling include; Chile Ogutu (Obio-Akpor constituency 1), Eze G. N. Onunwu (Obio-Akpor constituency 2), Dan Asonye (Omuma constituency), Victor Michael Ohunda (Emohua constituency).

In an interview with Africa Update at the end of the ruling, the counsel for PDP, Dike Udenna said “The court has just delivered its judgement in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party, upholding our contention which is that the NNPP are not entitled to participate in the 2023 general elections in respect of the House of Assembly positions. All 14 of their candidates have been disqualified today (October 26) and the court has directed that INEC should exclude their names from the list of candidates for that election.

“In our view, it’s a good one because they did not comply with the requirements of the law, they did not hold their primaries within the constituencies and they did not hold proper primaries. So on that basis, the court has vindicated us today and held that they are not entitled to participate in the elections.”

While the counsel for NNPP, Monima E. Karibi-Whyte pointed out that the judgement was given in good time. He said “The judgement has been delivered, it is not in our place to justify or critic the judgement of the court. If we have any issue with the judgement of the court, the only thing we can do is to appeal to the Court of Appeal or thereafter to the Supreme Court. Yes, the judgement was read, it was taken and from what the court said, they have disqualified the House of Assembly candidates with the NNPP.

“We will brief our clients, we will discuss with them and we will consider our options, that is not to say that we are not eager in view of the fact that election petition is generics and it is timed. This court had 180days to give its judgement, it gave its judgement in good time. We will go to the Court of Appeal, if we decide to do that which has 60days, it obviously means that our time has started moving, we should take full advantage of it.”