The Federal High Court in Abuja has restrained the National Executive Committee (NEC) and Board of Trustees (BoT) of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) from removing Umar Damagum as the Acting National Chairman of the party.
Justice Peter Lifu ordered that no person other than Damagum should be recognised as PDP national chairman until the party’s national convention scheduled for December 2025.
Justice Lifu issued the restraining order against PDP NEC, BoT, and others while delivering judgment in a suit instituted against them by Senator Umar El-Gash Maina.
The judge held that in line with Articles 42, 47, and 67 of PDP, it is only at the national convention of the party that national officers can be elected.
According to him, PDP members are bound by the party’s constitution and must always act in line with it.
The plaintiff, who claimed to be chairman of PDP in Yobe State instituted the suit against PDP and eight others alleging that some of the party’s stakeholders have been holding clandestine meetings to forcefully remove Damagum from office in gross violation of the party’s constitution.
He said that a former Deputy Governor of Kogi State, Phillip Salawu, was being pushed forward as Damagun’s replacement.
Maina claimed that upon becoming aware of the plan, two letters complaining about the clandestine meetings were delivered to the party’s National Secretary, Samuel Anyanwu.
He also claimed that despite acknowledging the letters, Anyanwu and BoT members have never deemed it fit to act on them.
In the suit instituted on his behalf by Joshua Musa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, the plaintiff prayed the court to invoke articles 45, 47, and 67 of the PDP constitution to stop the move to replace Damagum as the Acting National Chairman.
The plaintiff specifically asked the court to declare that the national chairmanship of the PDP is rotated between the north and south regions and not through any other procedure not enshrined in the PDP’s Constitution.
In his judgment after perusing the PDP’s Constitution and exhibits, Justice Lifu agreed with the plaintiff that Damagum can only be replaced at the national convention of PDP or through an order of a court.
Justice Lifu also held that any attempt to truncate the four-year tenure of the northern region, which has not been completed, without the national convention will amount to an affront to the PDP constitution.
Earlier, the judge had dismissed the opposition of the defendants to the suit on the grounds that the plaintiff had no locus standi to bring the case and that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear it.
Justice Lifu held that the plaintiff predicated his suit on the protection of the PDP Constitution from being violated and the northern region where he is from is being short-changed.
Justice Lifu said that the plaintiff having displayed his PDP membership card before the court and having raised the fundamental issue of protection of PDP’s Constitution had sufficient interest and justiciable cause to institute the case.
The judge therefore declared that PDP NEC and BoT are bound by the party’s Constitution and that Damagum as national chairman can only be replaced through the national convention of the party.
He also held that Damagum having been appointed from the northern region where a former national chairman Iyorcha Ayu hailed from is entitled to serve out the remaining tenure of the national chairman.