Saturday’s planned national convention of Nigeria’s main opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party in Port Harcourt has suffered a setback, with the
Independent National Electoral Commission saying any election into the positions of national chairman, secretary and auditor would be invalid.
The electoral body convened its stance on the matter to the PDP Chairman, Ali Modu Sherrif, on via a letter on Thursday, a spokesperson for the commission,
Nick Dazang, confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES.
Ibrahim Buba, a judge of a Federal High Court in Lagos, Monday, had given an order in suit FHC/L/CS/61 3/2016 filed by Mr. Sherrif, the National Secretary, Adewale Oladipo and National Auditor, Fatai Adeyanju, asking the court not to conduct elections into three key offices. The three national officers reportedly claimed in the suit that their tenures of office were yet to lapse.
The court restrained INEC from monitoring and or recognizing the conduct of any election into the affected offices pending the hearing and determination of a
substantive suit on it.
But Mr. Sherrif’s media aide, Inuwa Bwala, in a telephone interview with PREMIUM TIMES said Mr. Sheriff was “not aware of any court case and he did not authorize anyone to go to court on his behalf” and that the convention would proceed as planned.
But even as Mr. Sheriff disowned the suit, INEC which was listed as
defendant, said it would comply with the order granted by the court.
“INEC will not monitor elections of national chairman, national secretary and national auditor because of court order,” Mr. Dazang said. “And we have written the national hhchairman of the party. INEC as law abiding organization will comply with the court order.”
He, however, stressed that the development would not affect the convention entirely. “Of course, we will monitor the convention.
We have a monitoring team led by a national commissioner,” Mr. Dazang said. “Elections into all the offices will be monitored except those three named offices of the National chairman, national secretary and national auditor.”
The development has compounded the confusion in the PDP where some party
chieftains led by former Information Minister, Jerry Gana, are opposed to the continued stay of Mr. Sherrif as chairman, and are reportedly planning a parallel convention.
Earlier, INEC had said aside from the National Convention of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) holding in Port Harcourt, it was unaware of another convention of the party.
The commission’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
Mr. Osaze-Uzzi said contrary to media reports that two parallel conventions of PDP would hold in Abuja and Port Harcourt the same day, there was only one PDP known to INEC, which had conducted congresses at all levels.
“There is only one PDP known to INEC, which has been holding congresses at the ward, local government, state and zonal levels.
“There is only one convention known to the
laws and regulations of INEC for which we
were given appropriate notice and that is the one in Port Harcourt.”
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