Appeal Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Wednesday, struck out a suit filed by the twenty-two sacked local government Council Chairmen elected in 2015, under the administration of Former Governor Rotimi Ameachi.
Justice Tani Yusuf-Hassan struck out the appeal on grounds that the appellants filed the appeal without proper notice.
The court held that the jurisdiction of the court was never activated for the appellants failing to file a notice of appeal.
Recall that the twenty-three Local Government Council Chairmen elected in 2015 under Amaechi’s administration were removed from office during the first tenure of Governor Nyesom Wike which made them approach the court on grounds of alleged illegal removal.
They prayed the court to restore them back to office as Chairmen and Councillors of the respective local government they represented as at then.
There was an existing court order restraining the Appellants from conducting the local government election in 2015, but they went ahead to conduct the election, which a Federal High Court in Port Harcourt later nullified.
In an interview with journalists, Echezona Etiaba, Counsel to Rivers State Government and RSIEC who are the 3rd and 4th Respondents in the matter, said it is based on their preliminary objection that the court struck out the appeal while urging the appellants to prepare themselves for the forthcoming local government election.
“The Appellants should go get ready for a fresh election, the tenure they are talking about, it’s been spent. We should not over-labour the court with issues like this, the election is next month, they should get ready”
On his part, Counsel to the Appellants, Michael Wodi, expressed dissatisfaction with the court ruling that their notice of appeal was not found in the court file.
“There is no way we will file an appeal without filing a notice of appeal, the matter was struck out not dismissed, all we need do is to go back to our records. If there is a notice of appeal in our records, we will refile the matter. It was not decided on merit, it was just struck out so, we can always come to court at anytime”
