The crisis rocking the Delta state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) seemed to have gathered more steam on Thursday as the legal team of the Cyril Ogodo-led faction of the party threatened further legal actions against the party.
The new threat, hinged on contempt of court and threatened to be filed against the party and its National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, followed an alleged misinterpretation of the Federal High Court, Asaba, judgement of Wednesday, October 17, this year, by the Prophet Jones Erue-led faction of the party and the tendency of the party at the national secretariat to disobey the court order.
The High Court, presided over by Justice Toyin Adegoke, had issued a restraining order against the party and Comrade Oshiomhole, being the first and second respondents in the matter, to the effect that the party should maintain status quo by refraining to submit any list of candidates from Delta to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), pending the decision of the primary case before the court.
The legal team of the Erue-led faction had interpreted the order to mean that the status quo to be maintained was asserting that the Erue faction remains the only recognized body.
However, sounding a note of warning to the first and second respondents in the matter, the leader of the legal team of the the Ogodo faction of the party, Chief Fred Olokor, noted that both the counsel of the respondents and the INEC understood that the status quo ordered by the court meant the fact that the INEC had yet to receive any list of candidates from Delta APC as at the time the court was sitting, thus it should remain so until the preliminary case is decided.
In a statement issued to journalists in Warri on Thursday, the legal team noted that the court gave the order, having noted that the matter would be given an accelerated hearing and set dates for hearing and decision.
“The court then inquired from the Counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) if any list of candidates had been submitted to INEC as at 17th of October, 2018. The INEC counsel confirmed to court that no list of candidates for Delta State have been submitted to INEC yet.
“At this point the Honourable Judge ordered that all parties should maintain status quo. The clear meaning and intent of the Status Quo, therefore, is to preserve the res by ensuring that no list of candidates is submitted to INEC until the determination of the substantive matter.
“This was why the judge ordered for accelerated hearing and fixed November 1st and 2nd 2018 for the hearing and determination of the case. It is therefore pedestrian and mischievous for anyone to suggest or argue that the Federal High Court in Asaba did not restrain APC from submitting any list of candidates for Delta State to INEC.
“The counsel to the 1st and 2nd Defendants (APC and the APC National Chairman) was in court and clearly understood what the order meant. Counsel will thus be unduly exposing his clients to the risk of contempt proceedings if he allows them to be misled by the mischievous interpretation of the Prophet Jones factional Legal Adviser as is being circulated in the media.
“Let it be known that anyone who violates the clear orders made on the 17th of October, 2018 stands the risk of having contempt proceedings initiated against them”, the team warned.