The National leadership of the People’s Democratic Party PDP led by its National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu on Friday, withdrew all their appeal cases filed against other political parties in Rivers State.
The PDP made this known by the party’s National Legal Adviser, Johnson Usman, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) through a motion to discontinue from the suit by the party.
When the matter came up before Appeal Court sitting in Port Harcourt, counsel to Accord, Abdullahi Muhammad, informed the court about a notice of discontinuation of the matter by the PDP which was confirmed by the PDP State Legal Adviser of PDP, Kingsley Chukwu.
The three man panel led by Justice Joseph Ikyegh after listening to the parties, dismissed the appeals against Accord and All Progressives Congress as well as other parties in the state following request by counsel to Accord, Abdullahi Muhammad.
Speaking to newsmen outside the courtroom, Muhammad counsel for Accord and that of all the candidates of Accord, Abiodu Owonikoko explained what transpired in court and why they asked the court to dismiss the suit rather than striking it out.
Mohammad explained; “We came to court to hear the appeal but then we were confronted with a notice of withdrawal filed by the appellant and they filed the appeal and then they have the option to withdraw.
“So we told the court that we are not oppossed to the application for the withdrawal. We now urged the court to dismiss the appeal because we have filed briefs, we exchanged briefs and the matter was adjourned for hearing. So it’s like a runaway battle.
“So that is what happened and the appeal were all dismissed this morning by the court based on their own application and our application to dismiss the appeal because that’s what the law says.
“Our clients have been happy, they have been campaigning. They were successful at the trial court, you remember that the case was struct out, they were the appellant. So our candidates and our party are happy with the development.”
On his part, Owonikoko, counsel to the candidates said; “Having triumphed against the PDP at the trial court in the three cases. Recall that we were here on Monday and because of some internal problems within the PDP with regards to legal representation the matter was adjourned to today with the hope that today we will then take the appeal.
“But we came to court ready only to find out that PDP has opted to withdraw all the appeals for reasons that is not in our position to begin to interrogate. The important thing is that with the withdrawal of the appeals that seals any grievance anybody may have against our client for the governorship, our clients for the National Assembly and our clients for the State Assembly elections.
“So our clients are now fully fortified to proceed to further selling of their programmes to the Rivers electorate and I believe that of course this is the terminus of all the challenges against our candidates for the purpose of standing elections.”
Recall that the National leadership of PDP had last Monday through a letter from the National Legal Adviser who was represented by a senior Advocate of Nigeria, Johnson Usman took over the prosecution of the matter, indicating that they never sent anyone to file a suit on their behalf.
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