Judex Okoro, Calabar
A group, Movement for the Restoration of Cross River (MFTROCR) People’s Democratic Party (PDP), has called for the suspension of Governor Ben Ayade and five others for dragging national PDP and its officers to court over congresses.
Following a directive by the party National Working Committee (NWC), the ward executive committee members in the state were inaugurated in 196 wards on April 30, and were sworn-in by a Notary Public, Okimasi Ojong, principal partner of Okimasi Ojong and Co., in accordance with the provisions of Section 65 of the PDP constitution as amended in 2017.
Ayade faction, led by Ntufam Inok, the caretaker chairman of PDP, in collaboration with some party members, including Otu Marshall, Terence Orok, Raphael Ntui and Henry Edem, instituted a legal action, challenging the inauguration of ward and local government executive committees.
The applicants had claimed to have emerged in the ward congress conducted by Inok-led state executive committee but was not inaugurated. Consequently, they sued the PDP, the National Chairman, Uche Secondus, National Organising Secretary, Austin Akobundu and Inok.
After listening to the motion, Justice Elias Abua granted an order interim injunction restraining the party chairman, Inok (4th defendant) or any other person(s) from inaugurating persons in Akobundu’s, letter dated April 26, as persons elected executive committee members of the party at the March ward and local government congress in Cross River State pending the hearing and determination of the motion
Coordinator of the group, Raymond Takon, in Calabar yesterday, alleged that investigations have revealed that the litigants are sponsored and bankrolled by Inok, the party chairman, through the office of the governor as the claimants/applicants cannot muster enough financial resources and courage to take the party to court.
Against this background, “we call on the national party leadership to take drastic action against the state leadership, led by Inok and their sponsors,” Takon said, adding that the processes that produced the ward and local government executive committees followed the party constitutional guidelines.
Dismissing the anti-party allegation as hogwash, Press Secretary/Special Adviser to the governor on Media and Publicity, Christian Ita, said: “Governor Ayade is the PDP leader in Cross River and under his leadership, the party is growing in leaps and bounds as shown by the outcome of the recently held councils election.
“The governor is too preoccupied with the issues of governance, especially in the areas of industrialising Cross River, to be distracted by jobless busy bodies that are clearly on the fringes of ignorance.
“Governor Ayade, therefore, refuses to be drawn into joining issues with paid hirelings whose stuck in trade is nothing but political jobbing. Remember some people also went to court in Abuja on the same matter, they should be also sanctioned.”
