An Anambra High Court has ruled against the Independent National Electoral Commission's (INEC) decision to remove the name of the former central bank governor, Chukuma Soludo, from the list of candidates for the Anambra State governorship election. The order came in late afternoon on Monday after INEC had officially announced the removal of the name of Mr. Soludo - the ruling Party's candidate in the forthcoming February 2010 election - following an ex-parte order from an Abuja High Court on Friday.
Justice Danladi Senchi of the Abuja Federal High Court had on Friday asked the electoral commission not to recognise Mr. Soludo as the party's flag bearer.This was in response to a motion filed by Okey Muo-Aroh, one of the 47 governorship aspirants of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Anambra State.
A petition instituted by two other aspirants, also from the PDP, Valetine Ozigboh and Victoria Nwakwo said to be allies of Chris Uba, had also asked the electoral commission to vacate Mr. Soludo's nomination as the PDP's candidate for the 2010 governorship election in Anambra State.
In reaction, Mr. Soludo immediately proceeded to the Anambra High court to challenge the decision.
The electoral commission is, however, abiding by that first order - based on which it removed Mr. Soludo's name, and "it is also headed to the Court of Appeal in Abuja on the morning of Tuesday, October 27, in a bid to vacate the order and resolve this impasse," said a media official who spoke under anonymity.
After court ruling in Anambra, the legal assistant to the Soludo campaign group and a former Speaker of the Anambra House of Assembly; Dom Obieke, told NEXT that "Mr. Soludo's lead counsel, Patrick Ikwueto, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, is headed to the Abuja High Court to vacate the interim motion removing his client as the PDP candidate". "Mr. Ikwueto will be arguing that the Abuja court, which is the legal equivalent of a State High Court, has no jurisdiction over a federal agency like INEC," he said.
He also said that Mr. Ikwueto "will be arguing that the court cannot interfere in the process of selection of party candidates for elective office because there are judicial precedents from the Supreme Court on such matter." One of such precedence according to him, "is that of the April 27 2008 decision where the Supreme Court decided in Senator Hosiah Ehlawon vs. Olushola Oke (who is now the legal adviser of the PDP) that the judiciary cannot intervene in an intra-party dispute unless it violates the Electoral Act or any other law in Nigeria - calling to mind the Rivers governorship case of Chibuike Rotimi Amachi vs Celestine Omehia, where the PDP tried to substitute Mr. Amaechi's name after the deadline permitted by INEC and the Electoral Act." He said that Mr. Ikwueto will be arguing that, in this case, the Electoral Law was not violated.
The ruling party's move
The PDP leadership on its part has directed Chris Uba and his allies not to go ahead with a planned demonstration against Soludo's nomination today in the state capital. This was contained in a press release, dated October 26 and signed by the party's zonal secretary, Vin Okpalaeke. "We have been directed by the national working committee of our party to inform the general public... that the purported rally/meeting of our party scheduled to hold on Tuesday the 27th day of October 2009 at Awka has been suspended," read the release in part.
View the PDP Press Release here
The party is also said to have, through its Vice National Chairman (South-East), Olisa Metuh, alerted the Inspector General of Police to take actions to stop the demonstration. However, there is no indication yet that the police has moved to stop the rally.
Mr. Soludo's camp had, last Saturday, organised its own rally in Awka, the Anambra State capital, with a crowd of about 10, 000 supporters. While opposition leaders fault the figures, those present at the rally include key party leaders as well as senior officials of the Peoples Progressive Alliance (PPA), led by its national chairman, Augustine Ndigwe, who pledged support for Mr. Soludo's candidacy. The PPA party headquarters in Awka has in fact been converted to the state headquarters of the Soludo governorship campaign.
Mr. Soludo's selection by the PDP has generated inter-party fracas among party members because the party did not hold a congress to elect the flag bearer, even though 45 candidates had paid non-refundable fee of N5 million to pick up nomination forms for the party's slot. Rather the National Working Committee of the party decided to appoint Mr. Soludo when the candidates failed to agree on a consensus candidate for the election.
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