A Federal High Court in Abuja has refused a motion seeking to restrain the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from recognising Lagos State’s delegates for the June 23 national convention of the APC.
Justice Babatunde Quadri, who read a ruling prepared by Justice Binta Nyako, said the motion for interlocutory injunction filed by a member of the APC in Lagos, Bunmi Tayo Church, was without merit and proceeded to dismiss it.
Justice Quadri said it was wrong to grant the orders sought by Church when all those to be affected by the court’s pronouncement, who emerged from the last Ward, Local Government and state congresses of the party in Lagos, were not before the court and have not been heard.
“This application cannot be granted because all the parties to be affected by the reliefs sought are not before the court. The application therefore fails,” the judge said.
He proceeded to grant accelerated hearing in the substantive suit currently pending before Justice Nyako.
Justice Quadri said he was asked by Justice Nyako, who was bereaved, to help read the ruling which she already prepared and signed.
He said the Federal High Court’s Civil Procedure Rules, under Order 23 Rule 2, allows that where a judge is bereaved, another judge can deliver a ruling signed by the judge handling the case, but bereaved.
Church, whose substantive suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/ 583/18, is challenging the outcome of the last Ward, Local Government and State congresses of the APC in Lagos State, had sought the interlocutory injunctions pending the determination of the main suit.
He urged the court, in the motion, to restrain defendants – APC and INEC – “from according recognition or giving effect to the results of the 1st defendant’s (APC) Lagos chapter’s purported Ward congress, Local Government congress and State congress pending the determination of the substantive suit.”
Church equally prayed the court for an interlocutory injunction restraining the APC from parading any person(s) or permitting any person(s) to parade themselves as being the persons elected by virtue of the 1st defendant’s Lagos chapter’s purported Ward, Local Government and state congress pending the determination of the main suit.
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In his affidavit supporting the main suit, Church, who claimed to be interested in contesting for the party’s Chairmanship position in Mushin Local Government in Lagos, said he would have realised his ambition and become a delegate, but for the unlawful way the congresses were conducted.
It is his contention that the congresses conducted in Lagos were in violation of the party’s constitution, its guidelines for the conduct of Ward, LG and state congresses and the Constitution of Nigeria (as amended).
Church’s lawyer, Akin Olujinmi (SAN), had while arguing the motion on June 14, contended that, since the APC’s national convention was scheduled for June 23, there was need to preserve the res (subject) of the substantive suit.
He said there was special issues to be tried in the main suit, which seeks among others, the determination of whether the congresses conducted in Lagos State should not be set aside, the party having allegedly flouted the nation’s constitution, its constitution and its guidelines for the conduct of Ward, LG and state congresses.
Bola Aidi, who represented that APC queried the competence of the motion for interlocutory injunctions and urged the court to refuse it.
INEC’s lawyer, Alhassan Umar, also urged the court to refuse the motion on the grounds that it contains similar prayers as those contained in the substantive suit.
Umar argued that the plaintiff failed, in the entire of his entire argument, to disclose any legal right he seeks to protect or showed any serious issues to be tried in the main case.
He added: “Where the facts in support of the interlocutory application are similar to those in support of the main claim or are entirely interwoven with the facts required to determine the case on the merit, a court of equity is enjoined to decline granting the interlocutory application.
“Instead, the court is enjoined to order accelerated hearing of the substantive matter. This is so because the court, in doing otherwise, may fall into the unhealthy situation of deciding the same issue twice.
“First, at the interlocutory stage and then, the ultimate decision at the end of the trial. Such a procedure will be prejudicial to a fair trial of the substantive case.
“The law is that the court should avoid the resolution of complex and intricate issues at the interlocutory stage.
“It is submitted that the plaintiff/applicant has not satisfied the requirements to enable the court exercise its discretion in favour of granting the reliefs sought on the face of motion for interlocutory injunctions,” Umar said.