The crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State took another twist on Monday, August 12, as the State High Court in Port Harcourt dissolved the seven-member Caretaker Committee led by Chief Tony Okocha.<\/p>\n
The ruling, delivered by Justice Sika Aprioku, came in response to a suit filed by Sam Sam Etetegwung, Barnath Ezemoye, and others on behalf of the democratically elected executive committee members of the APC in the state.<\/p>\n
The court reinstated Chief Emeka Beke as the legitimate Chairman of the party in Rivers State.<\/p>\n
Justice Aprioku also issued a perpetual injunction against Okocha and his caretaker committee, barring them from taking any actions that would interfere with the Beke-led executive committee until the end of their four-year tenure.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the court ordered the national leadership of the APC to cease recognizing the Okocha-led caretaker committee and to officially acknowledge Beke as the rightful Chairman of the party in the state.<\/p>\n
The court slammed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for supporting the dissolution of democratically elected executive members of the APC throughout the suit.<\/p>\n
The judge cautioned that leaders of political parties must learn to obey their constitution and stop acting recklessly in managing their party.<\/p>\n
The judge insisted that they relied on hearsay allegation of anti-party activities which was not demonstrated by the defendants in the suit.<\/p>\n
The judge dismissed preliminary objections by the defendants on the issue of justification and application for joinder by a set of individuals, who had earlier sought to join the suit.<\/p>\n
He further held that the national leadership of APC disobeyed its own constitution by not giving a fair hearing to elected party executive members and awarded N300,000 as cost in favour of the Beke-led leadership of the APC.<\/p>\n
Justice Aprioku held that the APC could not benefit from its illegality and declared the inauguration of a seven-man caretaker committee of APC led by Okocha as null and void and of no effect.<\/p>\n
He said the CTC chairman and his members never existed in the eyes of the law.<\/p>\n
The crisis rocking the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State took another twist on Monday, August 12, as the State High Court in Port Harcourt dissolved the seven-member Caretaker…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n