A Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, on Tuesday, nullified the primaries of the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State.
The court gave the judgment in a suit brought before it by some aggrieved members of the party who had during the primaries alleged exclusion from the process.
The PUNCH reported that some aggrieved members of the APC loyal to the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party, Senator Magnus Abe, had stormed the party’s secretariat along Woji Road, GRA in Port Harcourt to protest their alleged exclusion from the delegates’ primary election in the state.
One George Orlu and four others, who claimed to have purchased the party’s nomination forms, approached the court requesting that the primaries be nullified because of their exclusion.
The court presided over by Justice Emmanuel Obile held that since the aggrieved persons were shut out of the primaries unlawfully, the process amounted to nullity.
He, therefore, ruled that all those elected from the primary election not be recognised as candidates.
Meanwhile, the APC, in a swift reaction, described the judgment as a travesty of justice.
The party’s state Publicity Secretary, Darlington Nwauju, in a statement made available to our correspondent on Tuesday, said the attempt to exclude the main opposition party in the state from the ballot in 2023, like what happened in 2019, will fail.
The statement read, “We do believe firmly that the appellate court shall treat the matter dispassionately and deliver justice in this matter because this is not an action against the primaries of our party, but an attempt at challenging the composition of our delegates list.
“We assure Rivers people that the attempt to rehash the 2019 episode in Rivers State is already dead on arrival. Nothing will stop the APC in Rivers State from being on the ballot in 2023.”
