The FHC’s Chief Judge, Hon. Justice John Tsoho, has directed that the proceedings pertaining to the 25 state legislators in Rivers State who defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) be transferred.
Tsoho ruled that the cases be moved from Justice Steven Dalyop Pam’s Federal High Court 4, Port Harcourt, to Justice E. O. Obele’s Court Two.
Hon. Martins Amaewhule, the defendant in the case, petitioned the CJ to transfer the cases against him to a different court, and the CJ granted his request.
Two lawsuits have been filed: one by civil society organizations in the state against Amaewhule and others, based on the defendants’ defection to the APC, and another by the BOOT Party and others as plaintiffs in suit number FHC/PHC/269/2024.
Upon the court’s Monday hearing, it was presented with a petition signed by Martin Amaewhule, which was sent to Hon. Justice John Tsoho, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, asking for the case to be transferred to a different court.
The petitioner, Amaewhule, was pleading with the Chief Justice of the High Court to halt the hearing process after the petition was read aloud by the presiding judge, Justice Steven Dalyop Pam.
Following the reading of the petition, Mr. Reuben Wanogho, the plaintiff’s attorney representing BOOT Party, told the court that the petition sought to halt the current legal proceedings and begged the court to disregard it.
However, Ferdinand Orbi, the attorney representing the first through twenty-five defendants in the lawsuit, denied being aware of the petition filed by his client and asked the court to uphold the petition and halt any additional proceedings in the event that the letter was sent to the court’s chief justice.
The sitting court, Justice Pam, did point out that Amaewhule, the petitioner, is not yet identified in the case and does not have a motion or counter-affidavit in front of him in the first instance.
