PDP LEADERSHIP DIRECTS IMO CHAPTER TO OBEY COURT ORDERS

The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has directed the Imo State chapter of the party led by Chief Marcellinus Nlemigbo to obey court orders, saying that any attempt of deliberate disregard of judicial decision would be unacceptable.

The National Legal Adviser of the party, Chief Olusola Oke in a letter to the state Chairman, Chief Nlemigbo dated June 3, 2010 and obtained by Daily Sun, explained that the present leadership of the party extolled and practiced the rule of law.

Oke advised the state chapter of the party to honour all court orders or take urgent steps to appeal against it. He, therefore, urged them to seek the support of the legal directorate to join their legal team to tackle the orders.

He said, 'flagrant disobedience of orders of court of competent jurisdiction and persistent disposition to continue to do so by Chief Marcon Nlemigbo, the purported chairman of the illegal caretaker committee set up by the former national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party in Imo State despite the subsisting orders of court.'

Reacting to the decision of the leadership of the party on the flagrant disobedience of court orders, the Vice Chairman of the Alliance for Good Governance in the party, Chief Boni Ejiogu hailed the decision saying that with the directive from the party's secretariat the state Caretaker Committee and the purported party primaries for council elections had been declared null and void.

Ejiogu stated that the national leadership of the party would authorize the conduct of a free and fair primary exercise in the state in accordance with the laid down party guidelines and constitution when proper measures had been taken to resolve the existing legal encumbrances.

Daily Sun recalls that the former national chairman, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor, last year dissolved the democratically elected state and local government area party executives and replaced same with Caretaker Committee. The elected state officers of the party went to court seeking the court to declare the Caretaker Committees illegal and unconstitutional with further prayer to restrain them. An injunction restraining them was granted pending the hearing and determination of the main suit which has not been vacated.