Court restrains PDP from removing Damagum as acting National Chair

A Federal High Court in Abuja has restrained the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from removing Umar Damagun as the party’s acting national chairman.

Justice Peter Lifu on May 3 issued an ex parte restraining injunction against the party from nominating anybody to replace Damagum as acting national chairman of the PDP, pending the determination of the motion on notice.

The suit, marked FCH/ABJ/CS/579/2024, was filed by Umar El-Gash Maina and Zanna Mustapha Gaddama on May 2.

Those joined as respondents in the suit are the PDP, the National Working Committee (NWC), the National Executive Committee (NEC), the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

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The judge ruled that “The respondents are hereby restrained in the interim from appointing, selecting, or nominating any person to replace Amb. Umar Illiya Damagum as national chairman or acting national chairman of the 1st defendant/respondent pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice already filed, which is herein fixed against the 14th of May, 2024.”

He further ruled that “The defendants/respondents, by themselves, agents, privies, or by any proxy, are hereby in the interim restrained from, according to recognition, any person other than Amb. Umar Illiya Damagum as acting national chairman of the 1st defendants/respondents or giving effect to or acting upon any document purporting to be signed by the national chairman or acting national chairman of the 1st defendant without the name and signature of Amb. Umar Illiya Damagum pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice already filed in court in the instant suit.

“The applicants are herein ordered to enter into a fresh undertaking to pay damages to the respondents (to be assessed by the court) if, at the end of the day, it is discovered that this order ought not to have been granted or that the honourable court was misled into granting the same.”

The court adjourned the case to May 14 for a hearing of the motion on notice.