SIXTEEN National Assembly candidates of the Rivers State All Progressives Congress (APC) have called on a Federal High Court judge, Justice Stephen Daylop Pam, to recuse himself from a case filed by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to disqualify them from contesting the 2023 election.
They said their outcries became expedient following the refusal of Pam to withdraw from the case despite all their petitions asking him to withdraw from the matter.
Speaking at the APC Secretariat, Port Harcourt at the weekend, the candidates declared that they had no confidence in the “outcome of suit number FHC/PHC/CS/127/2022 as long as it is allowed to be determined by Justice Pam.”
In a written address read by one of the candidates and 12th defendant, Ezemoye Ezekiel Amadi, the candidate wondered why Justice Pam was saddled with the sole responsibility of handling all cases of PDP seeking to bar all other political parties from the 2023 elections.
Amadi recalled that on July 25th he appeared in person before Pam and brought his attention to his pending application requesting him (Pam) to recuse himself from the suit.
He said: “In response to my oral application, the judge in informed me that he was aware of my application but that it would be taken subsequently at the hearing of the suit.
“Since the judge being aware of my application and neither mentioned it in the open court as he should have, not agreed to hear it on that day but rather chose to adjourn the suit for hearing despite my repeated protestation, I sensed a trap and addressed the press on that same day to alert the whole world of the pendency of my application for the judge to recuse himself.”