There was drama on Friday at the Bayelsa State High Court 3 over calls by the All Progressive Congress (APC) to Justice Timinipre Cocodia to recuse himself from suit No YHC/16/2022 between Mr Alex Izibenikibo Blankson and the All Progressive Congress.
The suit filed in 2022, seeks to nullify the congresses that produced the State Executive Committee of the All Progressive Congress.
After the hearing of the matter on January 4, the APC had written to the Chief Judge of Bayelsa State, Justice Kate Abiri calling for Justice Cocodia to recuse himself from the case on the “grounds of perceived bias/lack of impartiality and display of judicial excesses.”
At the resumed hearing on Friday, Justice Cocodia sat amid tight security provided by anti-riot Policemen, who mounted strategic locations around the Court premises.
The proceedings which began at about 9.45 am dragged on for several hours as both parties engaged in arguments over the status of the case.
The defendants through their counsel led by Tuduru Ede, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria moved an application calling for Justice Cocodia to recuse himself but the latter dismissed the application.
They also presented a medical report from Somiari Sammie, a counsel of one of the defendants, who was being hospitalised at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Yenagoa and wanted the case to be adjourned.
However this failed to sway Justice Cocodia as he insisted on going ahead with the case and called for counsels to move their processes.
Irked by the development, Ede and other counsels for the defendants at about 4.45pm announced their withdrawal of appearance from the case.
Ede, in an interview said while they do not have any problem with the Court, they are against proceedings adopted.
“On behalf of the All Progressive Congress, we have withdrawn from the proceedings because the proceedings of the Court are geared towards giving judgment to the claimant. Ever since we entered this matter, every application made by the first defendant has been refused, denied even without giving a hearing.
“Today we are in Court and have brought several applications. One to the Chief Judge of Bayelsa State to transfer the matter to another Court and brought a motion for the Court to recuse itself from hearing the matter, the Court without allowing us to move our application dismissed. So we have formally withdrawn and in withdrawing we told the Court to allow our former clients to have legal representations. The Court refused,” he said.
Counsel to the claimant, Mr James Fawei who deplored what he called “gimmicks” by the defendants to stop proceedings, said the case still proceeded.
“Despite the respective gimmicks on the part of the defendants to step down the matter for hearing, all the processes have been adopted, so we await the outcome of the judgment which has been adjourned till 20th of January. It was the counsel that withdrew their appearance but the litigants are still part of the case”