The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa to disband the National and States Houses of Assembly Election Tribunal for Rivers State (Panel 1) because the panel was not legally constituted.
In a letter to the PCA dated July 24, 2015, the PDP counsel Godwin Obla (SAN) said the chairman of the panel, Justice Victor Uchenna Okorie was appointed in violation of Paragraphs 1 (1) and (2) of the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 as amended.
The party said that Justice Okorie is a justice of the Customary Court of Appeal in Imo State and not a justice of the High Court and therefore not qualified to be appointed as a chairman of Election Tribunal.
Besides, the PDP has also filed an application before the Tribunal itself challenging its jurisdiction to continue to hear the petition filed by Senator Magnus Abe of the All Progressives Congress (APC) against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Olaka Nwogu (winner of the election into Rivers South East Senatorial District) and the PDP.
“We urge your Lordship to timeously look into this matter by taking appropriate steps to correct the anomaly by disbanding and re-constituting a new panel failing which we shall be constrained to take immediate steps by recourse to legal proceedings in the Federal High Court for the interpretation of the relevant statute as they touch and affect the said panel,” the letter read.