When the Jonathan Administration picked up power, I guess never would they have thought that so much controversies and court summons would define their tenure, this is because yet again an Abuja High Court on Thursday described the Peoples Democratic Party’s plan to hold its special convention on August 31 as “recklessness of a high degree.”
In his response, the presiding judge Justice Suleiman Belgore therefore stopped the convention pending the determination of a suit filed by three members of the party: Abba Yale, Yahaya Sule and Bashir Maigudu.
Yale, Sule and Maigudu had in their application filed by Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), asked for an order restraining Alhaji Bamanga Tukur from acting as the party’s national chairman.
The trio had earlier gone to court to challenge the “election or appointment” of members of the NWC on the grounds that their emergence breached certain provisions of the PDP constitution. But after most of the NWC members voluntarily resigned, they again asked the court to nullify the appointments of the national officers, whose nominations were ratified at a National Executive Committee meeting of the party on June 20, 2013.
However, in his ruling on the matter, Belgore refused to stop Tukur from serving as PDP chairman. He also refused to nullify the appointment of the acting NWC members.
Belgore held that the request that Tukur be stopped from acting as national chairman, as well as the demand that the appointment of the acting NWC members be nullified, were not part of the prayers sought by the plaintiffs in their originating summons.
But he ordered the party to refrain from proceeding with the planned special convention, where national officers of the party, are to be elected, in order to “allow sanity to reign.”
The judge upheld the plaintiffs’ argument that the plan by the PDP to hold the special convention, even as the suit was pending, was aimed at foisting a fait accompli on the court.
Frowning on the decision of the PDP to take certain steps capable of foisting a state of helplessness on the court, the judge held that, having submitted itself to the jurisdiction of the court, the party must wait for its decision.
He said, “One will expect the PDP to allow sanity to reign and tarry a while for the outcome of this case. It amounts to recklessness of a high degree for the PDP to do or take action that has direct effect on a case that is before this court.
“The emphatic point is that the PDP is a party in the suit and subjected under the court; therefore the PDP is obliged to wait for the outcome of the suit before taking any action.”
He noted that the move to hold the convention meant pre-empting “the outcome of the decision in the substantive suit, using as it were, self-help to the prejudices of the administration of justice.”
“The step taken by the PDP would diminish the integrity of the court and the court has a duty to impose disciplinary measures on a recalcitrant party who violates the rule of law and has no respect for the court,” Belgore added.
Earlier, the judge had refused a preliminary objection in which the PDP sought the dismissal of the suit on the grounds that it had been overtaken by events with the resignation of the former NWC members.
PDP counsel, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), had submitted that since the NWC members had already resigned, no new relief existed in the originating summons. He noted that their names had since been removed from the case by the court.
The PDP counsel argued that the case was dead, and that further hearing in the matter would amount to an academic exercise.
But Belgore held that the issues left to be determined included whether the PDP acted legally in the appointment of acting national officers, considering the provisions of Article 3 of the party’s constitution, and whether the court could nullify the said appointments and compel the party to conduct a fresh convention.
He maintained that it was immaterial that the NWC members had resigned, noting that the court would still determine the issues raised by the plaintiffs since their offices are still in existence.
The judge said, “This court disagrees with the submissions of counsel to the defendant that the matter is spent and amounts to an academic exercise. This case is alive and not academic; it is not spent – a suit is academic if it has no practical utilitarian value.
“Therefore, this court has jurisdiction to continue hearing the suit.”
Tukur was joined as the second defendant in the suit following an application in which he sought to be a party to it. The PDP is the first defendant.
The court adjourned the matter to July 29, 2013.
Meanwhile, the reconciliation committee of the PDP headed by Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, was on Thursday inaugurated with Tukur asking its members to concentrate on states not being ruled by the party.
Tukur particularly regretted the loss of the entire South-West states to opposition political parties, and called on the committee to return the zone to the PDP.
He said, “Painfully, the entire South- West states, except Lagos was under the PDP and there can be nothing more tragic than the present disturbing reality of losing the entire zone to the opposition.
“The birth of our problem in the South-West and indeed other zones can be attributed to the inability of our people to manage our last success.
“The present leadership of the party is determined now more than ever, to reclaim the dominance of the PDP in the South-West.”
Tukur said the same tragedy affected the party in the South-East, where it lost Anambra and Imo states to the opposition. He also said Edo State must be brought back to the party.
In his remarks after the inauguration, Dickson said, “The stability of our nation for now depends on the stability of the PDP and this is as a result of our party’s spread and its unbroken hold on power in the last 14 years.
“Our party remains the strongest centripetal force that can hold our diverse country together irrespective of the threat to our very existence as a people.
“At no time in our history has our nation’s unity come under sustained and severe attacks as it is now.”
But the governor regretted that events in the party were not very palatable, adding that its members were exploiting its diversity to a negative advantage.
“Instead of building a political party platform for the unity and development of the country the way our party is doing, the centrifugal forces are exploiting our diversity to expand the attacks and even making political capital out of it,” he added.
Dickson promised that the reconciliation committee would work with another set up by the Board of Trustees, which is headed by Chief Tony Anenih.
Dickson had initially complained that he might decline the headship of the committee due to a barrage of criticisms that trailed his appointment.
However, President Goodluck Jonathan was said to have compelled him to take up the job at a meeting he had with 12 governors of the party that visited him at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Wednesday night.
The meeting with the President, which ended in the early hours of Thursday, was called by the PDP Governors’ Forum .
A source, who was at the meeting, said if Dickson had declined the offer, those against the President and Tukur might have an upper hand in the battle for the soul of the PDP.