By Sylvanus Okpe
The Rivers State Governorship Election Tribunal has struck the petition filed by the African Action Congress (AAC) and it’s governorship candidate in the just concluded 2019 general election in Rivers State, Biokpomabo Awara challenging the emergence of Bar Nyesome Wike as the governor of the PDP as the winner of the election.
The petition also had the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Governor Nyesom Wike and Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) as respondents.
the tribunal had earlier rejected the applications by the AAC Governorship Candidate, seeking that he be separated from all joint applications previously made with the party.
Recall that the AAC recently adopted Mr Henry Bello to represent it at the tribunal after the former counsel, Tawo Tawo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria withdrew from the matter, with a notice of change of counsel presented to the tribunal.
This application came in after the AAC brought in another counsel to handle its matter at the tribunal.
The three man panel led by Justice K. A Ojiako, after going through arguments in the Awara, AAC suit against Governor Wike ruled that all applications filed by the 1st Petitioner (Tawo Tawo, former AAC counsel) are struck out.
The parties in the matter had argued that the application be dismissed on the ground that it was improperly filed.
Ojiako noted that the application by the petitioner ( counsel for Awara; Mustafa Ibrahim) has been found to be an abuse of court process.
The panel also struck out the application filed by the petitioner for pre-hearing of the matter.
The import of this ruling is that the petitioners, Mr Awara and the AAC currently have no subsisting petition against governor Wike and the PDP in the State election petition tribunal.
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