- Safiu Kehinde
The Court of Appeal has sacked Sen.Samuel Anyanwu as People’s Democratic Party National Secretary.
The was disclosed in a post shared on X on Friday.
According to the post, the Appeal Court had in a sitting at Enugu affirmed the initial judgement of the High Court which dismissed Anyawu as the PDP National Secretary while declaring Ude Okoye as the new national secretary to complete the remaining tenure created by the automatic vacancy in the office when sen. Samuel Anyanwu left the post to run for governorship.
The court upheld the nomination by South East PDP Executives, which nominated Rt. Hon.Ude Okoye as replacement to Anyawu as PDP Secretary.
In the lead judgement delivered by Justice Ridwan Abdullahi, the appellate court described Anyawu’s claim to PDP secretaryship despite contesting and emerging as PDP governorship candidate as a grave violation of the PDP constitution.
Justice Abdullahi declared that his Appeal against the lower court judgement lacked merit .
Reacting to the development, PDP’s Opposition Lawmakers Coalition, in a statement signed by their spokesman, Hon. Ikenga Ugochinyere, hailed the judgment as dawn of a new era in the party and am end to the shameless politics of sabotage , betrayal, political materialism and sellout which Anyawu represented.
The lawmakers described the judgment as the beginning to the end of Damagun/Anyanwu’s evil politics against PDP as they call for the oust of the Acting National Chairman.
Ugochinyere, in the statement, noted that they are in full support of the judgment, pledging loyalty to Ude Okoye as the substantive national secretary.
“We want to salute the courage of the Appeal Court to have ended this madness by first of all upholding the judgment of Enugu State High Court that recognizes the decision of South East PDP leaders that nominated Ude Okoye as substantive national secretary to complete the remaining tenure created by the vacancy in the office by the resignation of Samuel Anyanwu as the National secretary when he went to run for governorship.
“The Appeal Court has restated the principle of PDP constitution that anyone elected to the executive committee of the party at any level may resign his or her office by giving 30 days’ notice in writing to the executive committee, except in cases of vying for an elective office which shall be effective within the period stipulated by NEC.
“The law has said that you should resign. When you choose to run for the election, you have chosen to resign.
“We thank the Appeal Court; the opposition lawmakers are one hundred percent with our new National secretary Ude Okoye
“We support and accept the decision, the opposition lawmakers coalition is happy.” He said.