By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA — Justice Ishaq Bello of an Abuja High Court sitting in Maitama, yesterday, refused to stay further hearing on the suit seeking to stop President Goodluck Jonathan from vying for presidency on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Three associates of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Ambassador Yahaya Kwande, Chief Dubem Onyia and Alhaji Lawal Kaita, had on December 8, 2010, sought an order of perpetual injunction restraining the PDP and its national Chairman, Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo, from presenting President Jonathan as the presidential flag-bearer of the party for the impending general elections in the country.

However, when the matter was called up yesterday, counsel to Jonathan, Mr Alex Iziyion, SAN, challenged the jurisdiction of the presiding judge to commence hearing on a matter he insisted was assigned to him before the high court proceeded on vacation.

“This court cannot hear a matter assigned to it before the vacation commenced except where consent of all the parties is secured or a certificate of urgency attached to the suit.

“Your appointment as the vacation judge has automatically put all the pending cases before this court in abeyance and going by the provisions of Order 47 Rule 4 and 5 of the rules of the FCT high court, the right procedure is to defer this matter till the end of the period stipulated for vacation by the Chief Judge.

“I urge your lordship to take judicial notice of the decided case-law in Itaye Bkaidere & others reported in 1978 LSCC page 485, and follow the appropriate procedure in a circumstance like this by allowing this matter to await the normal cause-list,” he pleaded.

While all the other defendants in the matter adopted the arguments of Jonathan, counsel to the plaintiffs, Chief Ricky Tafa, SAN, pleaded with the court to discountenance the oral application and proceed with hearing the substantive suit yesterday.

He argued that Jonathan’s application was legally defective in the absence of any supporting affidavit, even as he drew the attention of the court to the need for a quick dispensation of the suit.

After listening to both sides Justice Bello in his ruling, refused to either hands-off the suit or stay further hearing on the matter till the end of the vacation period as he was prayed.

Consequently, Justice Bello ordered counsels to both president Jonathan and the PDP, to appear before him on January 6, to argue separate preliminary objections they had earlier filed against the suit.

The defendants had in their notice of objection prayed the high court to strike out the suit, insisting that the plaintiffs lacked the locus-standi to institute the action.

PDP specifically urged the court to terminate the suit that it said was not only premature and non-justiceable but equally relate to the domestic affairs of a political party.

The party stressed that the high court was functus-officio having determined the same issue in a similar suit filed by one Aminu Dutsima.

The plaintiffs in their suit, contended that by virtue of the provisions of Sections 14(3), (3), 223 (b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, Section 87(9) and 10 of the Electoral Act 2010 and Articles 2 and 7.2 (c) of the party’s Constitution as amended in 1999, that President Jonathan not being a Northerner, is foreclosed from contesting presidency under the PDP in 2011.

They insisted that going by the resolution the national caucus of the party reached on December 2, 2002, that the Northern region of the country still have till 2015 to relinquish presidential powers to other regions.

They are therefore praying the court to further restrain the INEC from accepting any presidential candidate from both the PDP and its national Chairman who is not from the Northern Geopolitical Zone of Nigeria.