The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Thursday, deferred hearing on a suit seeking to validate Senator Samuel Anyanwu’s position as the National Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, till September 22.
Justice Mohammed Umar okayed the adjournment on a day all the defendants, including the PDP, challenged the competence of the suit and the jurisdiction of the court to entertain it.
The court held that it would hear all the pending applications on the return date, even as Senator Anyanwu’s lawyer, Mrs. U. C. Njamanze-Aku, disclosed that her client has filed a motion to amend his Originating Summons.
Aside from the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and the National Chairman of the PDP, Umar Damagun, other defendants in the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/254/2025, are the party itself; Rt. Hon. Udeh-Okoye Ememchukwu; the National Vice Chairman, PDP South-East, Ali Odela, as well as the Deputy National Secretary of the party, Setonji Koshoedo.
Senator Anyanwu had approached the court to stay the execution of concurrent judgements that removed him from the position and recognised Hon. Udeh-Okoye as the National Secretary of the party.
The Court of Appeal in Enugu had in a judgement it delivered last December, upheld a High Court verdict that sacked Senator Anyanwu and recognized Rt. Hon. Udeh-Okoye as the national scribe of the party.
The court held that Anyanwu’s continued stay in office as National Secretary was in breach of PDP’s Constitution, having contested and emerged as the party’s candidate in the governorship election that held in Imo State last year.
Both the Board of Trustees, BOT, and the National Working Committee, NWC, of the PDP, acting on the strength of the judgements, endorsed Chief Udeh-Okoye.
However, dissatisfied with the verdicts, Anyanwu lodged an appeal before the Supreme Court, even as he approached the high court with an application that sought to suspend the execution of the judgements against him.
While deciding the matter on May 21, the apex court, in a unanimous decision by a five-member panel of Justices, voided judgements of the two lower courts for want of jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court held that the dispute the courts resolved, bordered on domestic affairs of a political party which it said no court has the statutory powers to meddle in.
The apex court judgement elicited varied reactions with both Anyanwu and Rt. Hon. Udeh-Okoye’s camps claiming victory.
Meantime, in an affidavit he filed in response to Senator Anyanwu’s case, Rt. Hon. Udeh-Okoye, who is the 4th defendant, told the court that though the plaintiff was elected at a National Convention the party held on October 30, 2021, for a four-year tenure, he, however, lost the position after he was nominated as candidate of the party for the governorship election that held in Imo State in 2023.
He told the court that whereas Article 47(5) of the PDP Constitution requires any officer elected into the party’s Executive Committee at any level, to resign before running for any elective office, Article 47 (6) made provision for the appointment of someone from the same area or zone, to serve out the tenure of such officer.
The 4th defendant told the court that following Senator Anyanwu’s refusal to vacate the office, the Board of Trustees of the PDP, in a letter dated October 12, 2023, drew the attention of the National Chairman of the party, Ambassador Umar Damagun, to the constitutional breach.
He said the South East zone Executives of the party, in a meeting held at Enugu on October 16, 2022, nominated him to serve out the residue of Senator Anyanwu’s remaining tenure in office.
Udeh-Okoye further told the court that the litigation that led to the concurrent judgements of the courts in Enugu, was a fallout of the meeting where he was nominated.
He, therefore, sought the dismissal of the suit.
Though the previous judge that presided over Anyanwu’s suit, Justice Inyang Ekwo, earlier heard and reserved the case for judgement, however, before the verdict could be delivered, the plaintiff filed a motion to be allowed to amend his reliefs.
He, among other things, urged the court to bar INEC from accepting any other name the party would submit as his replacement for the position of the National Secretary.
VANGUARD
