A leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Senator Magnus Abe is not surprised that the Supreme Court struck out his motion seeking to validate his faction’s primaries because the Court wrote him a letter before the election, explaining that it will hear the pre-election matter after the conclusion of 2019 elections.
Abe, who spoke on a television programme, said the Supreme Court had premised its decision to hear the pre-election matter after the 2019 elections on a petition written by the Rotimi Amaechi faction, which challenged the integrity of the panel hearing the matter at the time.
According to him, the Supreme Court letter which implied a judgment, said a new panel would be constituted after the elections had been concluded.
Abe said he understood the implication of adjourning a pre-election matter till after the elections.
The Supreme Court had repeatedly declared the primaries and congresses of Rivers State APC null and void on the Premise of the judgment of Justice Chinwendu Nwogu. It was on the premise of that judicial pronouncement that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) removed APC from the ballot for the general elections in Rivers State. The APC accepted its fate and declared an alliance with AAC during the elections.
Abe said: “Because of the delay in hearing the matter, the Supreme Court actually wrote a letter to us, a week before the election, to say the matter could not be heard because the other faction had written a petition against the Judges.
“Therefore, the Supreme Court had decided that the matter could only be heard after the elections, when a new panel had been constituted. As a lawyer, I read that to mean a judgment of the court as far as the issue was concerned. This was clearly a pre-election matter. The effectiveness of the pronouncement would have affected the party going into the election when the court wrote that letter; I saw it as a decision in itself.