Michael Onwuka, Enugu
An Enugu State High Court presided over by Justice Harold Eya will on April 28, 2022, hear an application seeking to stop former Deputy Senate President, Chief Ike Ekweremadu, from contesting the 2023 governorship election in the state.
The Director-General, Ikeoha Campaign Organisation, Mr Ogbonna Asogwa disclosed this on Monday in a statement made available to Ikengaonline in Enugu.
Asogwa said that the suit marked E/254/2022 was filed by one Chief Oforma Mbannaji for himself and on behalf of other members of Enugu-East Senatorial District.
He said that the plaintiffs had sought the leave of the court to stop Ekweremadu based on a purported zoning agreement reached at an expanded caucus meeting of the state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on July 7, 2013.
The director general described the move as another display of unmitigated and unconscionable desperation by those seeking to desecrate democratic institutions and impose their lackeys and relations on the state.
The statement read in part: “We have in our possession court processes filed at the Enugu State High Court with the aim of using the judiciary to obtain an injunction barring Ekweremadu from contesting the gubernatorial election in the state.
“Their festival of lawlessness has seen the State House of Assembly, local government chairmen, town unions and lately the Enugu State Council of Traditional Rulers needlessly dragged into and ridiculed by their reckless 2023 plots.
“Institutions that have remained apolitical have been compelled and induced into issuing communiqués purportedly upholding a non-existent zoning arrangement.
“Those who resisted their plots have been threatened, detained in prison and or sanctioned. The current attempt to drag the judiciary into their plots is one that the judiciary must never allow to happen,” he said.
Asogwa called on the Nigerian judiciary to take particular interest in the unfolding events in Enugu State.
“Democracy is gravely imperiled when the rule of law is reduced to the rule and unholy schemes of some men who found themselves in power.
“We wish to restate that no amount of intimidation, attacks, and detention of the supporters and political associates of Ekweremadu can stop an idea whose time has come,” Asogwa said.
