The Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) embattled National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, filed a motion to halt the execution of the ruling that removed him from office, but the Supreme Court rejected it on Monday.
A five-member panel of the apex court led by Justice Uwani Abba-Aji struck out the motion after it was withdrawn by Anyanwu’s counsel, Mr. Ken Njamanze, SAN.
Njamanze, SAN, said the motion was withdrawn to pave the way for the hearing of the substantive matter.
Meanwhile, the panel, after hearing from the parties, reserved its judgment on the matter.
While Anyanwu urged the apex court to set aside the judgment of the Enugu Division of the Court of Appeal that removed him from office, on the other hand, Mr. Paul Erokoro, SAN, who appeared for the respondent, prayed the court to uphold the verdict.
The Justice Abba-Aji-led panel said it would communicate the judgment date to the parties.
The appellate court had, in a judgment it delivered last December, upheld a High Court verdict that sacked Senator Anyanwu and recognized Chief Ude Okoye as the authentic national scribe of the party.
In its lead judgment that was delivered by Justice Ridwan Abdullahi, the appellate court dismissed as incompetent and lacking in merit Anyanwu’s bid to upturn the decision of the high court.
The court held that Anyanwu’s continued stay in office as national secretary was in breach of PDP’s constitution, having contested and emerged as the party’s candidate in the governorship election that was held in Imo State last year.
However, dissatisfied with the concurrent judgments of the two courts, Anyanwu approached the Supreme Court to set them aside.
Aside from his substantive appeal, he equally filed a motion for an accelerated hearing and for the abridgement of time within which the matter would be determined, citing the crucial role of the office of National Secretary in the affairs of the political party.
The apex court had, after it accelerated the hearing of the case, ordered service of the court processes on the respondent, Mr. Aniagu Emmanuel, whose suit led to Anyanwu’s removal.
It will be recalled that both the Board of Trustees (BOT) and the National Working Committee (NWC) of the PDP had earlier endorsed Chief Okoye as the National Secretary of the party, in line with the subsisting court judgments.
Anyanwu outrightly rejected the decisions, insisting that the position is still the subject of ongoing litigation.
