BY Rita Okonoboh
Samuel Ortom, governor of Benue, has secured a court order barring the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from expelling him.
A.I. Itoyonyiman, judge of a Benue state high court, gave the order on Thursday following a suit marked MHC/46/2023, brought before the court on Wednesday.
In the suit, the PDP and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are listed as the first and second defendants, respectively.
In its ruling, the court issued an interim order of injunction restraining the PDP from “expelling, suspending or levying any other punishment” on Ortom “pending the determination of the motion on notice for interlocutory injunction”.
The interim injunction by the court also restrained INEC from receiving any communication from the PDP seeking his disqualification as the party’s candidate for Benue north-west senatorial district in the 2023 general election, pending the determination of the suit.
The development comes days after Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers and an ally of Ortom, secured a court order also restraining the PDP from expelling him from the party.
In the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/139/2023, filed before the federal high court in Abuja, Wike asked the court to order the defendants — the PDP, the party’s national working committee; PDP’s national executive committee; Iyorchia Ayu, PDP national chair; Samuel Anyawu, the party’s national secretary, and INEC — to stay all actions relating to the threats to suspend or expel the Rivers governor.
The court decisions come amid a crisis in the PDP, which has seen five PDP governors — Wike, Ortom, Seyi Makinde of Oyo, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu, and Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia — exclude themselves from campaigning for Atiku Abubakar, the party’s presidential candidate.
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