By Suleiman Shehu
The Oyo State High Court has ruled that its earlier order granting the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to proceed with its Ibadan National Convention on Nov. 15 and 16 subsists.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Justice Ladiran Akintola gave the ruling in Ibadan on Wednesday.
NAN recalls that the claimant, a PDP member, Mr Folahan Adelabi, had, in his earlier ex parte motion, prayed the court to restrain the respondents from truncating the scheduled national convention.
The respondents are the PDP, its acting National Chairman, Umar Damagun; and Gov. Umar Fintiri of Adamawa, for himself and as a member of the PDP National Convention Organising Committee.
The fourth respondent is the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The court granted Adelabi’s prayers on Nov. 4, directing the PDP leadership to adhere to the guidelines, timetable and schedule of activities earlier released for the convention in Ibadan.
It also directed parties to file all their processes in the matter.
At Wednesday’s proceedings, Mr Emmanuel Ukala (SAN), counsel representing parties to be newly joined as the fifth, sixth and seventh defendants, informed the court of his application for joinder.
However, before moving his application for joinder, the judge drew his attention to the unsigned affidavit in support of his processes before the court, hence making the processes incompetent.
Ukala responded that his copy of the document and those of Mr A. Ladapo, counsel to the third defendant, and Mr O. Adeyemi, counsel to INEC, were duly signed by the Commissioner for Oaths.
He, however, said that copies of the documents served the claimant’s counsel, Mr Musibau Adetumbi, and that of Mr D. Durosaro, counsel to PDP and Fintiri, were not signed.
Ukala told the court that the error must have originated from the registrar.
He, therefore, urged the court to stand down the matter to find out what really happened from the registry.
Opposing the stand-down application, Durosaro said that standing it down won’t cure the defect of the unsigned affidavit.
According to him, since the document before the court was not signed by the deponent, it, therefore, has no authorship.
He then urged the court to strike out the affidavit, saying that a signature was vital in any document before the court.
INEC’s counsel, Adeyemi, while aligning with Durosaro’s submission, said standing down the matter wouldn’t serve any purpose, adding that the error or omission of the signature couldn’t be cured.
Reacting, Adetumbi said there was no need to stand down the matter and doing so would amount to nullity.
In his ruling, the judge said that having an unsigned affidavit was a serious fundamental error beyond reform.
Akintola thereby ordered Ukala to tidy up and refile his processes, ruling that the court’s earlier order granting PDP to proceed with its national convention in Ibadan stands.
He said the court would determine whether to vacate the order or not on the next adjourned date.
He then adjourned the matter till Friday for the hearing of the pending applications. (NAN)
