National Assembly candidates on the platform of the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State for the 2023 general elections have protested against Justice Stephen Daylop-Pam of Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt over his refusal to recuse himself from the matter involving them and the Peoples Democratic Party.
The action of the APC National Assembly candidates follows the refusal of the presiding Judge to put on record the complaints arising from a petition filed by the Defendants which was announced by Ezemonye Ezekiel who appeared for himself.
It was gathered that when the matter was mentioned in court, counsel to the Peoples Democratic Party, Dem Nwigwe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria informed the court of issues of service of the court process.
But when Ezemonye Ezekiel who is the candidate for Ikwerre-Emohua Federal Constituency of APC reminded the judge of his and other candidates’ petition against him, the judge could not take a record of the information but went ahead to adjourn to 20 September 2022 for hearing.
Speaking with journalist outside the courtroom, Ezemonye Ezekiel said the action of Justice Stephen Daylop-Pam has again proven their earlier alarm that the judge is in a mission to allegedly destroy their political destinies.
“I brought to the attention of his Lordship my pending petition and supported by other Defendants asking him to recuse himself and he refused to entertain it, instead he adjourned the matter to September for hearing. That is distasteful to me both as a litigant and a Lawyer.
“From day one, we have been saying that he is on a mission to destroy our political carriers, we have been saying he has a vested interest in the matter. Every day, this matter comes up in Court, and those who are decerning enough will see the signs of what we have been saying since.
“When a Judge have a petition before him to recuse himself, that petition must be attended to because just like the issue of jurisdiction, it goes to the root of his jurisdiction to hear the matter. If I do not have confidence in a court to hear the matter and there is nothing that the judge t should do other than recuse himself and send back the file for reassignment.
“That is what should be done if there is no vested interest, but every day we come to court here it gets clearer and clearer that justice Daylop-Pam actually has some vested interest in this matter and that is why he is insisting to hear the matter rather than take it back for reassignment.
“We are unrelenting and we are serious about this matter, he will not hear about our matter”.
Also, the APC Candidate for Rivers West, Asita Honourable said they will resist every attempt by Justice Stephen Daylop-Pam to hear their suit, alleging that they are aware of the relationship with the judge and governor of the state.
“We petitioned this judge, we do not want to divulge certain information we have concerning his relationship with Governor Nyesom Wike because that would affect his carrier. I am a lawyer, most of us are lawyers and we have respect for the institution.
“The Judge should stop this adjournment. What is he adjourning for? We say leave our matter because if he hears the matter now and he decides in our favour, the impression will be because we petitioned and he is trying to favour us. If he rules against us, we would still not take it as it justifies the suspicion we had.
“We are saying that he should leave our case, there are so many judges in the federal high Court, he is not the only Judge and we don’t have confidence in him. We are not saying give us judgement or don’t give us judgement but that we do not trust him. What is so difficult about it? we are begging him to remove his hand from our matter and we are sure his family members are hearing us because he has an interest in the case”.
