Anambra: Soludo not PDP’s candidate yet

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Anambra: Soludo not PDP’s candidate yet - Court - Ex-CBN gov laments insecurity in Anambra

THE Court of Appeal, sitting in Abuja, on Tuesday halted further action in the governorship quest of Professor Chukwuma Soludo, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Anambra State governorship election scheduled for next February.

It said that any step taken in furtherance of Professor Soludo’s governorship ambition remained a nullity until an appeal brought before it by some aggrieved members of the party had been resolved.

Justice Mary Peter Odili made this known at the hearing of an application by two PDP governorship aspirants in Anambra, Mr. Valentine Ozigbo and Mrs. Victoria Nwankwo, seeking to stop Soludo from parading himself as the party’s governorship candidate in the state.

Counsel for the applicants, Mr. Abubakar Sani, had asked the court to order Soludo, PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who are respondents in the application, not to take further steps in the matter until the appeal was determined.

Responding to the oral application, Justice Odili said, “The matter is before us. Anyone that does anything, that would be an action in futility.”

The applicants had also filed an appeal challenging the judgment of an Abuja high court, which vacated the order restraining Soludo from parading himself as the party’s governorship candidate for the February 6, 2010 governorship election in the state.

They are asking the appellate court to set aside the judgment of Justice Danlami Senchi and also return the case to the high court for a fresh trial by a new judge.

Pending the time the court would hear the appeal, they had asked the appellate court to issue an interim order restraining PDP from fielding Soludo as its candidate.

When the matter came up on Tuesday, the court, presided over by Mrs. Odili, promised that the matter would be given accelerated hearing.

It, however, could not go on with the application because Soludo’s lawyer, Patrick Ikwueto SAN, told the court that he just filed a preliminary objection and a counter affidavit to the application.

She gave the applicants 24 hours to file their responses to the objection, while directing that all processes must be filed on or before Thursday, 3 December, 2009.

Mrs. Odili said that the court would hear the application on Friday, 4 December.

In the objection, Soludo asked the court to dismiss the application seeking to stop him from parading himself as PDP’s governorship candidate for election, arguing that the application was incompetent and that the court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain it.

Ozigbo and Nwankwo, in their appeal, had claimed that the trial judge, Senchi, erred in law when he held that he lacked the jurisdiction to entertain their case.
According to them, a careful consideration of the provisions of the 1999 Constitution, the Electoral Act 2006 and the constitution of the party showed that the court had the jurisdiction to entertain their case.

According to them, “The learned trial judge failed to advert to Article 17.2 (b) of the 1st Respondent’s (PDP) constitution which provides that the primaries for its candidate for governorship of a state shall be held at the state congress thereof specially convened for that purpose.”

The appellants further noted that the trial judge did not take cognisance of Article 17.2(g) of the party’s constitution which prescribed a minimum of two years membership of the party in order for a person to be eligible to stand for election into public office.

While vacating the order, the trial judge stated that he granted the restraining order without jurisdiction.

In his ruling, Justice Senchi said his court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the suit, adding that, “by this ruling today, the motion filed by Soludo to set aside the ex parte order that barred him from parading himself as the PDP governorship candidate made by the court on October 23, 2009 has been vacated.”

The judge said the plaintiff could either appeal against his ruling or go back to the Anambra High Court, which he said had the jurisdiction to entertain the suit on the alleged violation of a court order made on October 7, 2009, by an Anambra high court sitting in Aguata which restrained PDP from holding its state congress on October 9 as scheduled.

Meanwhle, Soludo, has bemoaned the increasing insecurity in the state, saying that it is as a result of leadership failure.

Soludo, who stated this during a press briefing in Onitsha, stated that the mass exodus of people from the state to neighbouring ones was beginning to have its toll on the socio-economic welfare of the state, but that his administration would adequately meet the challenges of providing a secure environment for people and investments in the state.

He said that the state had the potential to be on the global business map but had remained under-harnessed due to the alleged failure of previous administrations to develop a blueprint for aggressive development of the state, adding that the state was currently operating at about 40 per cent capacity, when it could operate at 99 per cent.

The former CBN boss, who will officially kick off his campaign on Thursday in Onitsha, promised to embark on an issue-driven campaign that he believed would win the hearts of the people of the state, stressing that he needed their mandate to implement his policies.

“During our campaign, there won’t be name-calling, calumny or any other act capable of overheating the polity. It will be a massage about the potential of the state that is currently under-harnessed. We can’t continue in total insecurity and massive unemployment,” he said.

Soludo said that his election would bring back to the state members of the elite who had left it and that he would create industrial village that would create thousands of jobs for youths, saying that where there was no employment, there would be no prosperity.

Professor Soludo, who spoke against the backdrop of the formal inuaguration of his governorship campaign by Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, said that it would be an elaborate campaign designed to win Anambra people’s mandate not only to get into office but for effective governance.

Others who will accompany the vice-president include the national chairman of the PDP, Chief Vincent Ogbulafor, governors, party big-wigs, among others.