There were speculations in Enugu Wednesday that Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State and his loyalists in the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, may have approached the State Chief Judge, Justice Innocent Umezulike to make an exparte order against party’s Ward Congresses conducted in the state on November 1.
Chime was said to have allegedly bribed the Chief Judge issue to ex-parte order restraining the PDP national executive from recognizing the three-man Ward Delegates elected during the November 1 Congresses conducted under the supervision of Elder David Aja as the Acting State Chairman of the party.
There are fears that this might have signaled a total breakdown in the peace talks between the two warring camps in the Enugu PDP and the seeming truce experienced in the last days resulting in a rancour-free congress to elect National Delegates from the 17 local governments of the State.
Sources close to the governor’s political camp said that the court injunction had become the last option left to the governor and his supporters who appear to have lost out completely in the battle for the control of the PDP delegates for the party’s primaries in the State.
According to the source, the governor held a meeting with the State Chief Judge, Justice Umezulike Wednesday at the Governor’s Lodge where they agreed to procure the injunction having failed to get the party to nullify the Ward Congress, which the governor’s group refused to take part in penultimate Saturday.
Justice Umezulike who is reputed for giving such “cash and carry” questionable interim orders had been queried by the National Judicial Council, NJC several times over such acts.
He was lampooned by the Court of Appeal when he gave a similar order restraining the National Chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Chief Victor Umeh from parading himself as leader of the party . The injunction was generally condemned my eminent legal practitioners in the country, who alleged that the order may have been bought with a huge sum of money from the CJ’s court.
The CJ was also accused of serious compromise in the infamous removal of the former State Deputy Governor, Mr.Sunday Onyebuchi, from office. He was accused of setting up a kangaroo impeachment panel, which returned a guilty verdict against Onyebuchi even when the accusation of gross misconduct leveled against the deputy governor was not proved beyond reasonable doubt at the impeachment trial. The panel also barred journalists from from covering the proceedings of the trial in an episode better known in the media as chicken impeachment.
Text messages were circulated within the state Wednesday evening informing the residents to troop out to Justice Umezulike’s Court to listen to the injunction, which had allegedly been bought by the governor.
