The Federal High Court sitting in Calabar, Cross Rivers State, South-South Nigeria has adjourned hearing on case between Senator John Owan Enoh and Senator Bassey Otu, on who is the authentic candidate of the All Progressives Congress APC for the March 2023 Governorship election.
Presiding judge, Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu ruled that the matter was adjourned to Thursday to allow parties in the matter produce their thoughts on the matter.
A Senior Advocate Of Nigeria, Mike Ozekhome led the counsel of APC and its Governorship candidate in the suite number FHC/EA/CS/106/2022 brought before the court by Senator John Owan-Eno challenging the candidacy of Senator Bassey Otu over his West African Examination Council, WAEC school certificate
Explaining what transpired in court, defence counsels, Mike Ozekhome and Essien Andrew noted that Awa Kalu who is counsel to the plaintiff, Senator Owan-Eno moved and got a subpoena to have a representative of WAEC to give oral testimony in court but they opposed it on point of law.
They say the witness from WAEC was to be brought without telling the Court why he was coming to testify which negated Order 4 Rule 1 of the Federal High Court in pre-election matters practice which makes it clear that one can only come to court by way of originating summons, which must be brought by way of affidavit evidence.
The plaintiff’s counsel however argued that to be qualified to run for the party primaries, an aspirant must be screened by the party committee and cleared to run for the exercise, which was a major criterion for aspirants’ participation in party primaries.
Owan-Eno came a distant second at the Governorship primary held on May 26, 2022, scoring 84 as against Senator Otu who polled 877 delegate votes.
(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
