The Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital has nullified all the primary elections conducted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
The judgment delivered on Tuesday, is in respect of a suit filed by some aggrieved members of the party who claimed they were excluded from the delegate elections that preceded the primaries.
George Orlu and four others, who claimed to have purchased nomination forms, had requested the court to nullify the primaries following their exclusion.
Justice E.A. Obile, held that the aggrieved persons were shut out of the primaries unlawfully, describing the process as nullity.
He ruled that all those elected from the primaries stood nullified and should not be recognised as candidates.
The APC confirmed the judgment but described it as dead-on-arrival.
Darlington Nwauju, the party’s spokesperson in the state, said the Supreme Court had in many cases declared political parties as their own Chief Executive Officers and could regulate their own affairs.
He said the subject matter, which formed the fulcrum of the judgment was an internal matter describing the court’s decision as a travesty of justice.
He said: “The persons, who went to court against our party are now members of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and therefore they are meddlesome interlopers in our internal affairs.
“We do believe firmly that the appeal court shall treat the matter dispassionately and deliver justice in this matter because this is not an action against the primaries of our party but an attempt at challenging the composition of our delegate list.
“We assure Rivers people that the attempt to rehash the 2019 episode in Rivers is already dead on arrival. Nothing will stop the APC in Rivers from being in the ballot in 2023.”
