The Federal High Court in Abuja has dismissed a suit filed by a former Chairman of the governing Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] Bamanga Tukur, seeking the removal of his successor, Adamu Muazu, as the incumbent chairman of the party.
The trial judge, Justice Evoh Chukwu, dismissed the case on Tuesday morning after hearing arguments by parties to the matter.
Details of the judgment will come in our subsequent updates.
Mr. Tukur had in November dramatically joined a suit seeking to oust Mr. Mu’azu as the national chairman of the PDP, and demanded his reinstatement to the job.
Mr. Tukur resigned from office in January following campaigns mounted by party members that he should do so barely two years after his election at its convention in March 2012.
He was succeeded by Mr. Mu’azu who was merely appointed to the job by the party’s National Executive Committee.
But a member of the PDP, Aliyu Gurin, recently filed a suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja, seeking Mr. Mu’azu’s sack and a stoppage of the party’s coming delegates’ convention slated for December 11 and 12.
Mr. Gurin, a House of Representatives aspirant from Adamawa State, contended that Mr. Tukur’s resignation did not comply with the provision of Section 47(5) of the constitution of the party.
The section stipulates that a 30-day notice be given to the National Executive Committee by a national chairman resigning from office.
Mr. Tukur was joined as second defendant in the suit while Mr. Mu’azu and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, were 1st and 3rd respondents.
However, in a counter-claim filed at the court registry by his counsel, Adamson Adeboro, Mr. Tukur asked the court to grant an order to allow him return to office until 2016 when his four-year tenure ought to have expired.
The former national chairman argued that he was forced to quit the job to pave way for the return of some governors who defected from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress, APC, to return to the ruling party.
The governors are Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), Rabi’u Kwankwaso (Kano), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto) and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa).
Mr. Tukur, a former governor of the old Gongola State, said following the defection of the governors, the PDP leader, President Goodluck Jonathan came under pressure to sack him as national chairman to enable them come back.
Courtesy: Premiumtimes
