Court sustains nullification of APC congresses that produced Okocha, others

By Davies Iheamnachor

A division of the Court of Appeal sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has affirmed the order of a Rivers State High Court which nullified the Congresses of the All Progressives Congress, APC, that produced Tony Okocha and other executives of the party in the state.

It would be recalled that on the 20th of December, 2024, Justice Godswill Obomanu of the Rivers State High Court had issued an ex parte order restraining the All Progressives Congress from conducting its congresses in the state.

But the party had carried on with the said congresses, which saw the emergence of Tony Okocha as party chairman alongside others as executives.

The Court has, in its judgment, nullified the congresses of the APC, citing disregard for the orders of the court.

Following the development, Mr Okocha had filed an appeal with appeal number CA/PH/523/2026, arguing that the High Court had no jurisdiction in the matter and, as such, was not empowered to make the said order.

However, the three-man panel of the Court of Appeal led by Justice Elfreida Oluwayemisi Williams-Dawodu in a unanimous judgment upheld the decision of the Rivers State High Court nullifying the Congresses that brought Tony Okocha-led executive.

Meanwhile, one of the respondents’ counsels, Emenike Ebete, said the judgment meant that every correspondence signed by Okocha from 2024 till the date of the judgment is null and void, including the last local government elections which produced council chairmen, their vice and councillors, have been voided.

An appeal was filed by Tony Okocha exco against the order of Justice Obomanu that nullified the congresses that were conducted by APC while the matter was in court. Now, before those congresses were conducted, the court gave an ex parte order restraining them from conducting those congresses. They disobeyed the order of court, went ahead and conducted local government, state, and ward congresses. So we went back to the high court and prayed that those congresses be nullified, having disobeyed the court order, and the court nullified the congresses.

Ebete said: “They appealed to the court of appeal against the ex parte order, and in that appeal they were saying that the court has no jurisdiction to make any order at all and that the court should strike out the suit for want of jurisdiction. If that had happened, then the order nullifying the congresses would’ve all gone.

“That appeal was dismissed because the court said the appeal was incompetent. We’ve not gotten the full text of the judgment, but the good news is that the court said their appeal was incompetent. and struck it out, meaning that the order the High Court made nullifying their congresses still stands.”

Reacting, APC in the state said it is aware of the judgement, but that the court only handled an Interlocutory Issue on Jurisdiction of the High Court to here the matter on congresses of the party.

The Publicity Secretary of the party, Chibike Ikenga, in a statement in Port Harcourt, noted that there is no threat to the existence of the executive of the party in the state.

Ikenga said: “The Leadership of the All Progressives Congress, Rivers State, are aware of the judgement of the Court of Appeal, Port Harcourt dated Friday, 29th May, 2026 in an Interlocutory Appeal and Matter sent back to the Court of first instance for full trial in(APPEAL NO: CA/PH/523/2024: APC & ANOR. V OKWU JOEBROWN NDIKE filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) challenging the jurisdiction of the High Court directing the parties to ‘maintain status quo’ and also challenging the competence of the suit before the Rivers State High Court.

“There is no threat to the status of the EXCO pending full trial. Our Lawyers will study the full judgment and advise on the next step.

“We advise party faithful to remain calm and not panic by the deliberate misrepresentation of the facts and circumstances of the judgement by those who lack in-depth knowledge of what transpired in the Court.”

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