By: Felix Ikpotor
With barely a few days to the Saturday, October 5 2024, date for local council polls in Rivers State, the a fresh crisis has rocked the Action People’s Party, APP, as a Federal High Court in the state has granted a motion seeking to remove Sunny Wokekoro as chairman of the party and the 23 APP flag-bearers in the poll.
Recall that following the crisis that rocked the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP, as a result of the face-off between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, the governor’s loyalists contesting the council elections left the PDP for the APP, where they emerged chairmanship candidates for the 23 LGAs in the state.
On Wednesday, a Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt and presided over by Justice Emmanuel Obele granted an exparte order to serve the state APP Chairman, Sunny Wokekoro, the twenty three chairmanship candidates of the party and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, through a substituted means.
The order followed a suit instituted by Hart Badom, Destiny Omereji and four others demanding the removal of Sunny Wokekoro as chairman of the party and reinstatement of Badom as the authentic state chairman.
The plaintiffs in suit are also questioning the membership status of the twenty three chairmanship candidates of the party.
They are also urging the court to declare null and void every action taken by Wokekoro.
Our correspondent reports that when the matter came up in court, counsel to the plaintiffs, Excel Omeghara applied for motion exparte to serve the defendants through substituted means and presiding Judge, Justice Emmanuel Obele granted the request.
Addressing newsmen outside the courtroom, plaintiffs’ counsel, Excel Omeghara explained that his clients are the authentic leaders of the party.
He said: “My clients are the authentic leaders and stakeholders of the APP who emerged through the 2022 congress supervised by INEC in Rivers State and we are in court to say that our client remains the authentic chairman and executives of the party at the state and local government levels.
He noted that; ” The second and third plaintiffs, are subsisting local government chairmen of APP in their various local governments and they are in court here saying that they have never resigned or been removed, yet they were not part of this primaries or electorial activities that brought in the candidates”.
“So, they are asking the court to determine who the authentic chairman of the party is. Whether it is the card carrying PDP members or the APP members who were elected on the platform of APP and supervised by INEC in the congress?
“Does it automatically translate that when their chairman resigned from his position, the whole executives were no longer in existence?”, he queried.
Quoting a section of the APP constitution, the plaintiffs’ counsel said, “Where a position is vacant, the deputy will automatically assume, but in the event where the chairman and deputy resigns, a member of the EXCO that became vacant, will be refilled by the remaining EXCO, appointing a person to replace him.
He noted further that the day the former chairman, Kenneth Atata resigned, the remaining EXCO appointed Hart Badom as chairman, adding that from that day, Badom had been the APP chairman in the state, staying; “It was a shocking news to all the APP members to hear that one Sunny Wokekoro, a member of PDP is now the chairman of APP Rivers State”.
He maintained that Sunny Wokekoro has and wondered how a non member would now become chairman of the party.
On his part, Hart Badom told newsmen that they were in court to get interpretation of the current situation in the party, insisting that those who are now parading as chairmanship candidates of the party were not known to them.
Badom said he is the authentic chairman of the APP in Rivers State, saying, “APP as a party has a constitution and we can’t fold our hands as members and watch our party being hijacked by non-members of our party.”
Explaining his emergence as chairman of the party, Badom said: “On the day Kenneth Atata resigned, as constitution demands, our people sat, and called me and they made me the state chairman. I am the authentic Chairman of our party, the APP in Rivers State.
“I don’t know Wokekoro from Adam, he is not a member of Action People’s Party, and we don’t know where he is coming from and that is why we are in court,” he said.
