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In order to begin an expedited hearing on a lawsuit regarding the validity of the state’s most recent local council election, the Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt has postponed the hearing until October 8, 2025.

Candidates for local government chairmanships from the Emeka Beke-led All Progressives Congress, APC faction filed the lawsuit against the recently elected council chairmen chosen by Tony Okocha’s party camp.

Another respondent in the lawsuit is the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission, RSIEC.

Following a ruling by the Rivers State High Court, which was presided over by Justice Sika Aprioku, Dagogo Fubara, the APC’s candidate for chairmanship for Bonny LGA, along with 19 other people, are in court to get an interpretation of who is the party’s genuine state chairman between Beke and Okocha.

Additionally, the plaintiffs are requesting that the court declare the Okocha-led APC’s primary election and the candidates that came from it—who have already been proclaimed the winners in 20 LGAs around the state—to be invalid.

The Beke faction’s APC chairmanship candidates are pleading with the court to order RSIEC to formally proclaim them the winners of the Rivers State council elections on August 30, 2025.

According to the DAILY POST, the court observed that RSIEC had no legal representation when the case was heard on Monday.

In response to requests from the other parties in attendance, presiding court Justice Stephen Jumbo postponed the case until October 8 in order to provide for an expedited hearing.

According to ZINGTIE, the Beke wing of the APC wrote to RSIEC, requesting that the Commission not recognize anyone who did not win the party’s primary under his direction. They insisted that he was still the legitimate state chairman of the party in accordance with the law.

In response, RSIEC insisted that it did not keep an eye on the Beke-led APC’s primaries or acknowledge its candidates.

Recall that the seven-member APC Caretaker Committee in Rivers State, headed by Okocha, was discharged by a Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt on August 12, 2024. The committee was chosen by the party’s National Working Committee, NWC.

In a decision in a lawsuit brought by Sam Sam Etetegwung, Banarth Ezemoye, Ezekiel Ubom, and others on behalf of the state’s democratically elected APC executive, Justice Aprioku restored Beke’s executive as the party’s official head in Rivers State.

The Okocha-led caretaker committee was given a permanent injunction by the court, which forbade them from meddling with the Beke-led administration until the conclusion of their four-year term.

The court also ordered the national leadership of the APC to recognize the Beke-led executive as the party’s legitimate leadership until the end of their term, and prevented them from recognizing the Okocha-led committee.

The court cautioned that political party leaders must follow their own constitutions and refrain from acting irresponsibly, and it chastised the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for endorsing the dissolution of the democratically elected APC administration.

The APC National Working Committee was found to have violated the party’s and Nigeria’s constitutions by failing to provide an explanation for their acts, according to Justice Aprioku.

Consequently, the court granted N300,000 in costs to the Beke-led APC executive.

The defendants’ initial objections to the reasoning and the request for joinder by other parties were rejected by the judge.

The appointment of the seven-member caretaker committee under Okocha was declared illegal by Justice Aprioku, who also claimed that the committee members lacked legal standing.

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