In a suit seeking to sack the Labour Party chairman Julius Abure, national organising secretary Clement Ojukwu, and national treasurer Oluchi Opara, respectively, Justice Hamza Muazu of the High Court in Abuja made a decision.
On Friday, the court declared that it has the authority to hear lawsuits brought by some Labour Party (LP) members.
According to Justice Muazu, the prohibition against the court hearing cases involving political parties has been repealed.
The judge went on to say that there would not have been a need for the court to get involved in the party’s affairs if it had been at peace with itself.
“There won’t be a need for an outsider to come in to fix it when there is no crack on the wall,” he said.
According to Muazu, the plaintiffs’ case is justiciable, in contrast to what Alex Ejesieme, SAN, the attorney for Abure and Farouk, claimed.
He continued by saying that the plaintiffs had every right to start the case with an originating summons.
Regarding the plaintiffs’ locus standi to bring the case before the court, the judge held that because they are LP members, they have the right to do so.
After Justice Muazu issued an ex-parte injunction on April 5 to halt Abure, Farouk, and two other national officials, Ejesieme claimed on April 20 that the court lacked the authority to hear the case.
The senior attorney argued that the dispute before the court had a tenuous connection to the internal matters of the Labour Party.
“These criminal allegations cannot be ventilated in an origination summons, in our opinion,” he said. There is a locus standi problem. The claimants are not party or NEC members, as you mentioned when you referred to the LP constitution. They were required to provide the court with their membership cards, but they didn’t.
George Ibrahim, the plaintiffs’ attorney, urged the court to overrule the defendants’ attorney’s preliminary objection.
He claimed that the first through fourth defendants were still posing as national officers of the LP and had not yet complied with the court’s order from April 5.
With the court’s decision that it had jurisdiction to hear the case, its order from April 5 is still in effect.
The judge postponed hearing the main case until May 19.
Martins Esikpali John, Lucky Shaibu, Isah Zekeri, Omogbai Frank, Abokhaiu Aliu, Ayohkaire Lateef, John Elomah, and Dr. Ayobami Arabambi are the eight plaintiffs in the case.
The plaintiffs requested the dismissal of Abure and the other three national party officers in an ex-parte motion with the file number M/7082/2023.
Through their attorney, Ogwu Onoja, SAN, they informed the court that Abure and the three other national officials were accused of forging several FCT High Court documents, including receipts, seals, and affidavits, to carry out illegal substitutions in the most recent general election.
The four individuals, according to Onoja, must be arraigned in court following their indictment by a police investigation, adding that arrest warrants have already been obtained.
Alhaji Bashir Apapa responded to the court’s decision by saying that justice had followed its natural course and that the judge had acted in accordance with true justice in a press conference with journalists.
He asserted: “With this decision, there is no question that I am in charge. I am the acting National Chairman of the Labour Party as of right now.
Apapa then gave the party’s solicitors handling its election petition before the presidential election petition court instructions to report to him within 48 hours to brief him on the current processes.
It’s unclear if the judge mandated that Apapa serve as the Labour Party’s interim national chairman.
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