The ongoing crisis in the Peoples Democratic Party on Tuesday reared its head at the Court of Appeal, Abuja, when six appeals filed with respect to the tussle between Okezie Ikpeazu and Uche Ogah over the governorship seat of Abia State came up for hearing.

The presiding Justice of the five-man bench of the appeal court, Justice Helen Ogunwumiju, apparently incensed by the development, threatened to order a former National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, to be escorted out of the court for failing to heed to the warning against turning the court to the PDP’s battleground.

When the first appeal filed by Ikpeazu was called, one Mr. Bashir Madugu, from the Sheriff camp and claiming to be the Acting National Legal Adviser of the PDP, stood up and identified himself as the representative of the party in the proceedings.

Ogbulafor, who is of Ahmed Makarfi camp, also identified himself as a former Chairman of the PDP, a member of the Board of Trustee and that he was in the court to represent the party.

Angry with how the event was playing out, Justice Ogunwumiju warned that the court should not be turned to a forum for “intra-party squabbling”.

Shortly after the warning was handed down, Ogbulafor stood up, saying, “I am a former National Chairman of the PDP and I represent the Board of Trustee of the party. I actually don’t know him (Magudu).”

Justice Ogunwumiju who could no longer hide his irritation, shouted at the ex-PDP boss, saying, “Sit down and keep quiet. If you don’t, I will order that you be escorted out.”

Shortly after the drama, Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), announced his appearance as the lawyer representing the PDP in the case.

Ikpeazu urged the court not to record any of the factions as representing the party (PDP) for the Tuesday’s proceedings.

The court agreed with Ikpeazu.

After Ikpeazu announced appearance for the PDP, another lawyer, Mr. O.O Fakunle (SAN), also layed claim to be the PDP’s authentic lawyer.

Fakunle said he was briefed by the “National Working Committee of the PDP” and that he had been instructed to withdraw the appeal briefs filed by Ikpeazu (the lawyer) and substitute them with the ones he freshly filed.

Portraying his link to the Sheriff faction, Fakunle said Magudu was the valid representative of the party for the proceedings.

In response, Justice Ogunwumiju said the court would not condone Fakunle’s appearance because he was not the counsel on record.

She challenged Fakunle to file it as part of his grounds of appeal if he was dissatisfied with the court’s decision on the issue.

The court, after the proceedings that lasted over eight hours on Tuesday, reserved judgments in six separate appeals challenging the two decisions of a Federal High Court in Abuja, which on June 27, 2016 removed Okezie Ikpeazu as Governor of Abia State.

The Justice Ogunwumiju-led five-man bench of the appeal court reserved its judgments till a yet-to-be-fixed date after hearing parties to the various appeals.

Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court in Abuja had in his judgments delivered on June 27 sacked Ikpeazu for allegedly disclosing false information in relation to his tax clearance details to the Independent Independent National Electoral Commission in his form nominating him as the candidate of the PDP for the last year’s governorship election in the state.

The judge, also in the said judgment, ordered the governor’s rival who was the first runner-up in the primary that produced Ikpeazu as the candidate of the PDP, Mr. Uche Ogah, to takeover.

The judge held that Ikpeazu was not qualified to be PDP’s candidate having disclosed false information to INEC in violation of his party’s Article 14(a) of the PDP Electoral Guidelines and Section 31 of the Electoral Act.


http://punchng.com/abia-court-threatens-throw-ex-pdp-chairman-ogbulafor/

O se ti go

Justice Helen you should have trow him out of the court ,so that he will no the difference between court and PDP Rally ground.

Commotion, confusion, tension, rancour, fear etc on Nigeria today all because of one illiterate ruler.

yarimo:
Justice Helen you should have trow him out of the court ,so that he will no the difference between court and PDP Rally ground.

Hahaha

Where are the wise ones in PDP? Does anyone need a soothsayer to know that Markafi and Sherrif are working in the interest of Buhari and APC to destabilize PDP ahead of next election as they know that APC has zero chance of being reelected....so the plan is to destabilize PDP that has a chance.

Clinton9000:
Where are the wise ones in PDP? Does anyone need a soothsayer to know that Markafi and Sherrif are working in the interest of Buhari and APC to destabilize PDP ahead of next election as they know that APC has zero chance of being reelected....so the plan is to destabilize PDP that has a chance.

Mmmmmh