Court upholds order nullifying APC congresses in Rivers
Maureen Aguta
The Port Harcourt division of the Court of Appeal has affirmed a high court order nullifying the Rivers APC ward, local government, and state congresses that produced the Tony Okocha-led exco.
Recall that on December 20, 2024, Justice Godswill Obomanu of the Rivers State High Court had issued an ex parte order restraining the All Progressives Congress from conducting its congresses in the state, reports Channels TV.
However, they went ahead with the said congresses, which midwifed the emergence of Tony Okocha as party chairman alongside other executives.
Dissatisfied with the order, Mr Okocha filed an appeal at the appeal court with appeal number CA/PH/523/2026, arguing that the high court had no jurisdiction in the matter and, as such, was not empowered to make the said order.
The appellate court, in a decision delivered by Justice Elfreida Williams-Dawodu JCA, however, affirmed the jurisdiction of the high court in issuing that order and threw out the appeal for want of competence.
Confirming the judgement, counsel to Emeka Beke-led APC, Emenike Ebete said, “An appeal was filed by Tony Okocha exco against the order of Justice Obomanu that nullified the congresses that were conducted by APC while the matter was in court. Now, before those congresses were conducted, the court gave an ex parte order restraining them from conducting those congresses.
“They disobeyed the order of court, went ahead and conducted local government, state, and ward congresses.
“So we went back to the high court and prayed that those congresses be nullified, having disobeyed the court order, and the court nullified the congresses.”
Speaking further, the counsel said, “They appealed to the court of appeal against the ex parte order, and in that appeal they were saying that the court has no jurisdiction to make any order at all and that the court should strike out the suit for want of jurisdiction. If that had happened, then the order nullifying the congresses would’ve all gone.
“That appeal was dismissed because the court said the appeal was incompetent. We’ve not gotten the full text of the judgment, but the good news is that the court said their appeal was incompetent. and struck it out, meaning that the order the high court made nullifying their congresses still stands.”
He, however, stressed that this appeal has nothing to do with the judgement of Justice Sika Aprioku that sacked Tony Okocha and his exco as the leadership of the APC in Rivers state.
In a swift reaction, however, the party disagreed with the Court of Appeal’s decision.
In the statement, which was signed by the publicity secretary, Chibike Ikenga, they say they have applied for a certified true copy of the judgment.
“We have applied for the judgement of the Court of Appeal delivered today. Once the copy of the judgement is made available, our lawyers will address us on the next line of action.”