Politics

Ebonyi PDP guber primaries: No controversy over Odii’s candidacy, says party chair

The Ebonyi State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says the issues surrounding the emergence of Ifeanyi Odii as the party’s governorship candidate have been resolved by the Supreme Court.

The chairman of the PDP in Ebonyi State, Silas Onu, made this known via a statement made available to The Star on Monday.

Onu said a five-member panel of the Supreme Court, led by Justice Amina Augie, on September 14, 2022, declared Odii as the authentic governorship candidate of the PDP in Ebonyi State for the 2023 gubernatorial election in the state, adding: “That’s the final bus stop as per litigations on who our party’s gubernatorial candidate in Ebonyi State is.”

He described claims by Tochukwu Okorie that he was the chairman of the PDP in Ebonyi State as “not only spurious, but prejudicial”.

“I wouldn’t ordinarily join issues with him as the substratum of this entire episode is before the Supreme Court for determination. However, I will attempt to touch on the barefaced lies contained in his claims,” Onu added.

The chairman, who said no amount of shenanigans can unsettle what the Supreme Court had already settled concerning Odii’s candidacy, added that “Okorie and his co-travellers were only trying to wake a dead horse by going to a Federal High Court to secure a black market judgement on the state chairmanship so as to use that as another ground to give life to the governorship primary matter, which has been laid to rest by the supreme court.”

He stated that in the judgement delivered on December 7, 2022, it was admitted that the case was an offshoot from the judgment of Justice A.R Muhammed of the Federal High Court with coordinate jurisdiction as the person who delivered the judgement.

“Was it an appeal? In that judgement, it was also very clear that the actions being invalidated were the actions of the PDP, not those of Silas Joseph Onu as contained in their prayers – Silas Joseph Onu never conducted any election and if Tochukwu understand how political parties are managed, he won’t be messing himself up like this.

“The judgement was clear that the actions of the 2nd Defendant were being cancelled, not mine – very distinct from their prayers. I wonder if the judgement is saying that PDP cannot hold primary election because Mr. Tochukwu is fighting to be a State Chairman? Without a State Chairman, PDP can hold its primary elections and no court can stop that as provided in the Electoral Act, 2022,” Onu said.

The PDP chairman added: “He (Okorie) claimed that his action was independent of what is at the Supreme Court. This is patently false. The case where he obtained an unenforceable ‘stay of Execution’ is the same case at the Supreme Court. So, how can he attempt to invalidate actions that can be affirmed by the Supreme Court?

“Interestingly, when the Court of Appeal gave its judgement, a judgement being challenged at the Supreme Court, it ignored these imaginary request by Tochukwu. Their motion at the Court of Appeal was withdrawn and struck out.

“They, after being served with a notice of Appeal in the case, fraudulently filed the same motion at the Federal High Court and misled the Court into granting them prayers that are capable of overreaching the Supreme Court.

“The question to ask Mr. Tochukwu is, if the Supreme Court set aside the decision of the Court of Appeal for lack of jurisdiction, what will become of this Federal High Court judgment he obtained and how can the damages caused by his deceptive action be remedied?

“The Stay of Execution he has so vociferously relied on was never enforceable. In his own argument, he said that once a motion for stay of execution is pending, a judgment could not be enforced.

“There’s also a motion, where PDP (a joint applicant for the Stay of Execution) is praying for the Stay of the order of Stay of Execution by Court of Appeal. That motion remained alive up until the delivering of final judgement in the appeal.”

The Star