By Tony Edike
THE legal battle at the Court of Appeal, Enugu, over  control of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, structure in the state resumed Tuesday, even as some stakeholders of the party from the three senatorial zones of the state left for Abuja to attend a meeting summoned by the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, to seek ways of resolving the political crisis.

The Appeal Court had, after granting an injunction restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and the National Chairman of PDP, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, from conducting fresh congresses in Enugu State, fixed for Tuesday hearing of the motion brought by the faction loyal to Governor Sullivan Chime.

But a mild drama ensued at the resumed sitting of the court as Justice Audu Aboki, leading the three-man panel handling the matter, tackled Chief Mike Ajogwu, SAN, counsel to PDP for complaining against the length of time sought by counsel to the plaintiffs, Mrs. Justina Offia, SAN, to enable her reply to the counter motions filed by PDP and INEC.

Counsels for PDP and INEC had challenged the injunctive order by the Appeal Court stopping the conduct of fresh congresses in the state and asked the court to vacate the order, just as the Federal High Court had earlier done to enable the congresses go on.

But contrary to the expectation of the camp of Nwodo and others that the Appeal Court would be vacated yesterday, Offia filed a fresh motion to counter the PDP and INEC’s counter-motions against the interim injunction.

Counsel to INEC, E.E.Ogbodu, told the court that “we had filed a counter affidavit on 15/11/2010 to the motion on interlocutory injunction, but this morning, I was served with a fresh motion in support of the motion for interlocutory injunction and I may need to file further counter- affidavit”.

Consequently, counsel to PDP, Ajogwu told the court that since the matter was urgent in view of the coming elections and the primary elections that would take place before the general elections, he would need just two days to file the addresses for the second respondent to cover the motion seeking a discharge of the interlocutory injunction.

The INEC counsel also said he needed three days, but when it came to her turn, Offia stated that she needed seven days to reply to the other counsels’ written addresses, a situation that made Ajogwu complain bitterly over the length of time sought by the plaintiffs’ counsel.

Ajogwu complained to the court that when Offia filed the motions, she did so much within hours and wondered why she now required seven days to reply to the addresses.

This poser apparently did not go down well with Justice Aboki who took on Ajogwu and told him it was wrong for a SAN to criticize another SAN in court, saying it would be setting bad example for the younger counsels.

He said the defence counsel should have gone to her office to settle such a matter, but the seemingly perplexed Ajogwu, who remained standing while Justice Aboki spoke, tacitly protested, saying the thought of drawing the attention of the court to the situation in the open court was the right thing to do instead of taking it elsewhere.