PDP: Last Minute Efforts To Dissuade Secondus Fails As Appeal Court Rules Today

Last minute efforts by stakeholders in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to get Prince Uche Secondus, the suspended na­tional chairman of the party, to withdraw his case in court failed as at Wednesday evening.

The Port Harcourt Division of the Court of Appeal after hearing submis­sions by parties, fixed today to hear and rule on the motion for an interim injunc­tion brought by Secondus against the PDP and others.

The ruling is expected to be delivered by 12p.m today.

Secondus had through his counsel, Tayo Oyetibo, urged the court to suspend the October 30 and 31 national convention of the party and declare him the right person to preside over the exercise.

When the matter came up on Tuesday, six other members of the PDP drew the attention of the court to their application for joinder, which was not opposed by counsel to Secondus and was subsequently granted by the three-man panel of the Court of Appeal.

However, the defendants’ counsel, including those who joined in the suit opposed to the motion for an interim injunction by Secondus’ counsel seeking to stop the PDP’s forthcoming na­tional convention, asked for time to respond to the process.

The three-man appeal panel led by Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, after listening to the argument from the parties, ordered counsel to the plaintiff to serve the process on the defen­dant’s counsel within 24 hours.

Tsammani also urged the re­spondents’ counsels to respond within 24 hours and adjourned till today.

Daily Independent gathered that Secondus had to switch off his phones and remained incommunicado following pressure by stakeholders in the party to reach him to have a change of mind and withdraw the case so as not to scuttle the convention.

“The pressure on him was much but he wouldn’t budge. He has said he is determined to pursue the case to a logical conclusion and will abide by the ruling of the court. Several efforts were made to have him change his mind but he said no. Atatime, he had to switch off his mobile phones so that he won’t be reached by those pressuris­ing him to withdraw the case”, an aide of the embattled PDP leader said.

However, another leader of the party who spoke on condition of anonymity said there are some leaders in the party who want the case to continue.

He said,“The leaders are even pushing for the case to be successful because what they are seeing is not what they bargained for. Instead of pushing against the case, they are pushing for the case to go through so that what is happening now that is annoying a lot of people across the country can stop”.