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From Chijioke Agwu, Abakaliki
There has been breathtaking tussle over the governorship tickets of the major political parties in Ebonyi State for the 2023 general elections. However, the opposition Peoples Democratic party (PDP) is obviously the most contentious such that about three months to the elections, the party was still enmeshed in legal battle over the authentic governorship candidate of the party.
The crisis of the PDP started even before its primaries with two factions in the party struggling for total control of the party. One faction had Mr. Silas Onu as its Chairman while the other faction has Mr. Tochukwu Okorie as its Chairman.
The inability of the leaders of the party to resolve the internal crisis before the primary election forced the party to conduct parallel primaries.
The faction led by Mr. Silas Onu conducted its primaries on May 28 and 29, 2022 with Chief Ifeanyi Odii as its governorship candidate while that of Okorie conducted its primaries on June 4th and 5th with the Senator representing Ebonyi Central in the National Assembly, Chief Obinna Ogba, as its governorship candidate.
Shortly after the primaries, the battle shifted to the courts. The Federal High Court, Abakaliki was the first to annul the primaries of Okorie’s faction and upheld that of Onu which produced Ifeanyi Odii.
The matter moved from the Appeal Court to the Supreme Court and was finally decided on September 14,2022.
The ruling set aside the Appeal Court ruling of July 19 which had ordered a retrial of the suit between Ogba and Odii
In its ruling, the five -member panel of the apex court headed by Justice Amina Augie, unanimously upheld the appeal filled by Odii challenging the decision of the Appeal Court which had ordered that the matter be retried.
The apex court also restored the judgement of the Federal High Court Abakaliki delivery on June 7, 2022 which the Court of Appeals had set aside in its judgement of July 19.
The court also held that the Court of Appeal lacked the jurisdiction to have heard the appeal filled by Obinna Ogba because the notice of appeal which was filed on June 17th, 2022 ,was incompetent because according to them he failed to obtain the leave of the court to appeal as an interested party.
Many had thought that with the supreme Court judgement, all legal tussle as to who was the authentic governorship candidate of the PDP had been put to rest.
Chief Odii while hailing the judgement as a victory for Ebonyi people promised to unite the party for victory ahead of the elections.
He immediately commenced reconciliation aimed at bringing major and aggrieved stakeholders together ahead of the general elections.
However, just as the reconciliation moves were beginning to yield results, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja delivered a judgement in a suit earlier instituted by Mr. Tochukwu Okorie, against his unlawful removal as the Chairman of the party.
The suit which was instituted shortly before the primaries led to the nullification of parties’s primaries.
The judgement was delivered on December, 7, 2022.
Delivering judgement on the suit, Justice Binta Nyako ordered the party to conduct a fresh primary within 14 days or risk having no candidate in Ebonyi.
The judgement affected all candidates of the party from governorship, National Assembly and state House of Assembly.
The judgement also ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to monitor the primaries.
Reacting to the judgement, former Chairman of the party, Silas Onu, insisted that the issue of the governorship candidate of the party and other positions had long been resolved by the supreme Court in favour of Ifeanyi Odii and all candidates in his faction.
Onu stressed that following the Supreme Court ruling, no other court in the country could revisit the matter in any form.
He dismissed the judgement, and described it as not enforceable.
“In the category of useless judgments, this one ranks the highest. It is a repetition of what the Court of Appeal unlawfully granted them. Invalidating the actions of a state party chairman does not touch on the conduct of primary election as that is solely the prerogative of the National Executive Committee, not state chairman.
“So, ignore those celebrating what they do not understand. On Ebonyi State PDP primary election, the Supreme Court has closed that chapter for good – no lower or other court can do otherwise”
However, the party leadership in the state is currently in a legal quandary over the judgement.
Our Correspondent gathered that a faction of the party loyal to the former Senate President, Anyim Pius, had already met and resolved to go ahead with fresh primaries as ordered by the court while the faction loyal to Odii is said to be opposed to the idea.
Publicity Secretary of the party, Nwoba Chika, while commenting on the matter said some critical stakeholders of the party had met with the national leadership of the party in Abuja over the judgement.
He however said no fresh primary will hold in the state.
“PDP is not planning to conduct another primaries in Ebonyi. Supreme Court has settled the issue of guber primary elections in Ebonyi in favour of Odii. And INEC will not come to monitor any other primary here.
“This is an official piece of information everybody should take home about the rumour. There’s no any valid court judgment that can cause an action of new primary election in Ebonyi. Supreme Court has placed the final nail on the coffin of governorship primary election in Ebonyi State. If anybody tells you that new primary elections will be conducted in Ebonyi PDP, ask the person to tell you the people coming to conduct the primaries and the venue. In nutshell, the governorship candidate remains Chief Ifeanyi Odii” he said
But a legal practitioner, Nnaemeka Nwonu, while commenting on the matter urged the party to adhere to the ruling of the Federal High Court and conduct fresh primary within the 14 days as ordered by the court.
He contended that if the party fails to conduct a fresh primary, it will not participate in the 2023 general elections in the state.
“What the Supreme Court decided in favour of Ifeanyi was different from the matter before the FHC. It is for party’s best interest to conduct a fresh primary” he said.
