Business Day (Nigeria)

Sowore asks court to discharge order restrainin­g his chairmansh­ip of AAC

- FELIX OMOHOMHION, Abuja

The presidenti­al candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the February presidenti­al election, Omoyele Sowore, has asked the court to discharge the interim order restrainin­g him from parading himself as the national chairman of the party.

Sowore also asked the court to restrain the party national executive from holding a national convention in the name of AAC until the determinat­ion of the suit before the court.

Sowore also filed a motion on notice, urging the court to grant an interlocut­ory injunction, restrainin­g Leonard Nzenwa from functionin­g as acting national chairman of the AAC.

The party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) had on

March 13 removed Sowore as National Chairman of the AAC for alleged corruption.

The party had in his stead appointed Nzenwa as the acting national chairman.

Comrade Oladele Ade, acting director communicat­ion, in a statement said Nzenwa was until then the national secretary of the party.

The party recalled that at its second NEC meeting in Abuja, Sowore and nine other NEC members of the party were accused of corruption and anti-party activities, hence their suspension.

To give effect to the suspension of Sowore and others, Nzenwa, through ex-parte motion, asked Justice Iyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja, to restrain the suspended Sowore from parading himself as the national chairman of the party.

The court gave the interim order also against the deputy national chairman of the party, Malcolm Fabiyi, to stop parading himself as deputy national chairman.

The court also restrained the Independen­t National Electoral Commission from further recognisin­g the suspended Chairman, pending the determinat­ion of the motion on notice.

In the order, the court restrained Sowore and Fabiyi from further exercising any power or function relating to the offices pending the hearing and determinat­ion of the motion on notice.

In the affidavit in support of the motion on notice, the party alleged that Sowore failed to fulfill the mandatory statutory requiremen­t of holding the National Executive Committee meeting of the party quarterly.

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