‘Rivers guber primaries may end in fiasco’

The governorship primaries of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers state may be in fiasco because the expected Court judgment that would have resolved the intractable feud threatening to tear apart the state branch of the party is still in the pipeline.

The absence of Justice Chiwendu Nworgu of the Rivers State High Court expected to have given his ruling on Monday on the case challenging state congresses of the party last May has stalled the ruling.

That means that the governorship primaries of the party scheduled for next week would still be a jamboree between the feuding factions loyal to Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, current Transportation Minister and Senator Magnus Abe, a governorship hopeful under the platform of the party.

Justice Nworgu of the state High Court 21 was expected to have given his ruling on Monday in the suit filed by 23 APC supporters loyal to Senator Abe’s faction of the party challenging the processes and outcome of the ward and local government congresses.

The Court Clerk, whose names could not be immediately ascertained as at time of this report announced the Judge’s absence but did not give any reason for the absence. She however promised to contact both parties to communicate a new date for the judgement.

The congresses which held on May 19, 20 and 21, 2018 across the 23 local governments of the state had since been subject of hot litigation and had since factionalized the state branch of the party with two factional state executives and offices.

The 23 APC members had earlier approached the Court seeking an annulment of the entire processes of the state congresses and the executives they produced. The Court, had in a ruling last July granted their request by declaring the Ojukaiye Flag-Amachree led state executives of the party and product of annulled congresses as illegal, null and void and directed both parties to maintain the status quo.

When contacted, the council to the plaintiffs, Henry Bello declined comments, saying that, “I am not granting an interview today, am sorry.”

It would be recalled that an Abuja High Court presided over by His Lordship Hon Justice A. O. Musa last Tuesday, September 4, granted an order of perpetual injunction restraining the APC and its national Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole from tampering with the mandate of the Ojukaiye Flag-Amachree led executives of the state branch of the party.