The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has faulted the constitution of the National and States Houses of Assembly Election Tribunal for Rivers State (Panel 1).
The party, in a letter to the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, argued that the tribunal was not legally constituted.
PDP, in the letter dated July 24, by its lawyer, Godwin Obla (SAN), contended that the tribunal’s Chairman, Justice Victor Uchenna Okorie was appointed in violation of Paragraphs 1 (1) and (2) of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution.
The party noted that Justice Okorie, being a judge of the Customary Court of Appeal in Imo State, was not qualified to chair of an election tribunal, because he is not a judge of the High Court as required.
The PDP urged the Court of Appeal president to disband the tribunal. It also filed an application before the tribunal to challenge its jurisdiction to continue to hear the petition by Senator Magnus Abe of the All Progressives Congress (APC) against the winner of the election into Rivers South East Senatorial district, Olaka Nwogu, his party, the PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Part of the letter by Obla reads: “We urge your Lordship to timeously look into this matter by taking appropriate steps to correct the anomaly by disbanding and re-constituting a new panel, failing which we shall be constrained to take immediate steps by recourse to legal proceedings in the Federal High Court for the interpretation of the relevant statute as they touch and affect the said panel.”
In a motion filed before the tribunal, PDP seeks among others, an order restraining the chairman of the tribunal, sitting at the Apo division of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), from further presiding as the chairman.
The party also asked the tribunal to set aside all the directions issued, judicial rulings delivered and the entire proceedings of the tribunal from the date of the panel’s inaugural sitting till date.
It is the party’s contention that the tribunal lacked the competence and jurisdiction to sit as a tribunal constituted in violation of the constitution.