Rivers Assembly: Court says order against fresh polls made on Friday

A Federal High Court in Abuja has said its order halting the removal of 27 lawmakers of the Rivers State House of Assembly was delivered on Friday.

There were rumours about the source and authenticity of the ex parte order in the social media over the weekend.

But the registrar of the court presided by Justice Donatus Okorowo, on Monday, confirmed that the draft document of the order, dated Monday December 18, was not from the court as the ruling was on Friday.

The registrar advised those interested to apply for the certified true copy (CTC) of the order to enable them to compare with the copy that was circulated online.

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In the order being circulated, Justice Okorowo had restrained the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from conducting fresh elections to fill the positions of the 27 lawmakers after they were declared vacant.

The court had also restrained any party from preventing the lawmakers from carrying out their legislative functions at the Rivers State House of Assembly, because of their defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The affected lawmakers, including Speaker Martin Amaewhule and his deputy, Dumle Maol, brought the application No.FHC/ABJ/CS/1681/2023 on Wednesday, December 13 with a date indicating Monday December 18 for delivery.

The application joins INEC, PDP, Rivers State House of Assembly, Clerk of Rivers State House of Assembly, the Inspector General of Police and the Department of State Services (DSS) as defendants.

However, a pro-democracy organisation, Concerned Lawyers in Defence of Democracy, has called for investigation into the ruling of the Federal High Court on the Rivers matter, vowing to resist plans to pocket the judiciary.

Speaking on behalf of the group, Kingdom Okere urged the National Judicial Council (NJC) and the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court to look into the process of how a case that was filed on Wednesday, scheduled to be delivered on Monday was found to have already been delivered on Friday.