The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the February presidential election, Omoyele Sowore, has asked the court to discharge the interim order restraining him from parading himself as the national chairman of the party.
Sowore also asked the court to restrain the party national executive from holding a national convention in the name of AAC until the determination of the suit before the court.
Sowore also filed a motion on notice, urging the court to grant an interlocutory injunction, restraining Leonard Nzenwa from functioning as acting national chairman of the AAC.
The party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) had on March 13 removed Sowore as National Chairman of the AAC for alleged corruption.
The party had in his stead appointed Nzenwa as the Acting national Chairman.
Comrade Oladele Ade, Acting Director Communication, in a statement said Nzenwa was until then the national secretary of the party.
The party recalled that at its second NEC meeting in Abuja, Sowore and nine other NEC members of the party were accused of corruption and anti–party activities, hence their suspension.
To give effect to the suspension of Sowore and others, Nzenwa, through ex parte motion, asked Justice Iyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja, to restrain the suspended Sowore from parading himself as the national chairman of the party.
The court gave the interim order also against the deputy national chairman of the party, Malcolm Fabiyi, to stop parading himself as deputy national chairman.
The court also restrained the Independent National Electoral Commission from further recognising the suspended Chairman, pending the determination of the motion on notice.
In the order, the court restrained Sowore and Fabiyi from further exercising any power or function relating to the offices pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice.
In the affidavit in support of the motion on notice, the party alleged that Sowore failed to fulfill the mandatory statutory requirement of holding the National Executive Committee meeting of the party quarterly.
He was also accused of receiving money from foreign donor and convert it for his personal use in contravention of the provisions of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The party said despite appeals made to him to call for a NEC meeting of the party to respond to allegations against him, he failed to do so.
The party further said that it reached a resolution on March 27, 2019 suspending them from the party for six months.
Meanwhile, when the matter came up Thursday, legal adviser to the party and Sowore, Inibehe Effiong told the court that the processes and counter affidavit in response to the plaintiff’s suit were in the process of filing.
Effiong pleaded with the court to order the plaintiff not to go ahead with the planned convention of the party. But the court insisted there was no application before it to make such an order.
However, counsel to the plaintiff, Emeka Ozoani, made an undertaking on behalf of his client, not to call for national convention until the case is determined.
The court subsequently adjourned to June 24 to take all the pending applications and the substantive suit.
