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Federal High Court in Umuahia, Abia State has again dismissed a suit challenging the membership of governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abia State, Ikechi Emenike.
Delivering judgement late Wednesday in Suit No: FHC/UM/CS/101/2022, presiding judge, Evelyn Anyadike affirmed Emenike’s bona fide membership of the APC and awarded him N500, 000 in damages.
The dismissal of this particular suit brings to 21 the number of cases Emenike has won, out of 24 filed by his opponents in the governorship primary.
The plaintiffs, Chief Oti Brutus Agbai and three others had gone to court challenging Emenike’s party membership on the grounds of a purported suspension, which had already been settled in Emenike’s favour by a court of competent jurisdiction.
Justice Anyadike lambasted the plaintiffs over abuse of court processes with frivolous suits.
The judge also decried the activities of faceless groups and their penchant for inundating the courts with frivolous pre-election cases, ostensibly to distract validly nominated candidates, like Emenike.
She also noted that plaintiffs would rush to court and file frivolous cases without a modicum of evidence to prosecute their cases.
The judge, accordingly awarded N500, 000 cost against the plaintiffs to serve as deterrent to frivolous litigants. The Court ordered that the cost must be paid by the plaintiffs jointly and severally to each of APC and Emenike.
The plaintiffs had anchored their claims on the May 26, 2022 judgment of Justice O. A. Chijioke of an Abia State High Court Umuahia, which upheld Emenike’s purported suspension even when a court of concurrent jurisdiction had already quashed the purported suspension.
