Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt will on the 14th of October 2022 give a definite hearing to the suits filed by Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) in Rivers State challenging the competency of National and State House of Assembly candidates of Social Democratic Party(SDP) to contest 2023 elections.
Recall that PDP in the State dragged INEC and SDP and its National and State House of Assembly candidates to court for noncompliance with the provisions of the 2022 electoral act.
Justice Stephen Daylop-Pam adjourned the two cases after granting the request to join other defendants as well as giving time to all other parties to amend their processes to reflect the current status of the case.
Justice Daylop-Pam also gives two days to all parties to ensure they file and reply to all their court processes.
Earlier SPD’s lawyer asked for an extension of time to file his counter-affidavit and written address to reflect the current status of the suits.
Justice Stephen Daylop-Pam also adjourned to the 14th of October 2022 in the case instituted by PDP against Labour Party’s three National Assembly candidates in Rivers State over alleged non-compliance to the new electoral provisions.
In the meantime, the lawyer of the Labour Party candidates, Uche Olewunne in an interview with Journalists approached the court that Labour Party is not eligible to field certain Federal constituency candidates.
‘They just served me processes in court this morning .The law permits me to go through whatever they might have served on me before I could make a response.In the circumstance we have to take a date.I have seven days within the law to look at whatever was served on me and respond”.
Meanwhile, a Lawyer to SDP and the National legal adviser of the party, Aderumi Abibola in an interview with newsmen explained why he demanded for extension of time to file his amended court papers.
He said SDP withdrew the earlier processes filled and then filed another application for new one which was granted by the court.
“The second one is that an interested party ( one of the candidates of SDP who was ommitted) brought application for joinder and it was granted the honourable court.We were asked to amend our processes and come back on the 14th October”.
Also, one of the lawyers for PDP, Dike Udenna said they are in court because INEC is about to jettison the new electoral law.
In an interview with Journalists Dike Udenna Esq that PDP case is against INEC because INEC published names of Labour Party candidates who did not emerge from valid primary known to law.
“We are not interested in how they did their primaries Our case is that INEC has no right to names of people who did not emerge from valid primary,so we came to court to challenge the inclusion.
In a related development, Federal High Court in Port Harcourt has adjourned to the 17th of October 2022 to hear the suit involving PDP and Labour Party over some of their State House of Assembly candidates not complying with the new electoral law.
Justice Turaki Mohammed adjourned the case to enable the lawyer of to labour party to respond to papers filed by the PDP lawyer.
