The establishment of a caretaker committee to handle the business of the Peoples Democratic Party in the state has been overturned by an Ekiti State High Court in Ado Ekiti.
Justice Olusegun Ogunyemi reinstated the party’s State Working Committee, chaired by Alaba Agboola.
In June of this year, the PDP National Working Committee dissolved the party’s executives in Ekiti State and formed a caretaker committee led by Sadiq Obanoye.
Dissatisfied with the dissolution, the Agboola-led SWC filed a complaint under the case number HAD/90/2023 against the PDP interim National Chairman, Umar Damagun, and two other individuals.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Justice Ogunyemi declared the party’s dissolution of the Ekiti State Executive Committee null and unconstitutional and dismissed the NWC-appointed caretaker committee.
The judge granted an order of perpetual injunction
“restraining Damagun and the PDP, their agents or any person or body of persons acting pursuant to the directives or instruction of the 1st and 2nd defendants from recognising or further recognising the 3rd defendant (Obanoye) and the other members of the Ekiti State PDP Caretaker Committee as persons entitled to the affairs of the Ekiti State Chapter of PDP.”
The court also granted an order of perpetual injunction “restraining Obanoye (3rd defendant) and other members of the Ekiti State PDP Caretaker Committee from parading themselves as Ekiti State Caretaker Committee of the PDP as well as running the affairs of the Ekiti State Chapter of the PDP.”
Reacting to the judgment, Agboola said,
“The next step is to make sure that we bring the PDP back to winning ways, bring everybody together and follow the rules of law and the constitution of the party in our decisions. That is the only way the PDP, as a body, can move forward.
“We are a democratically elected exco; we were dissolved without reason. We felt that our only saviour was the court of law.
“Whatever happens, we are committed to the progress of the party; we are loyal to the national body and we are ready to operate with it in any way or form to move the party forward. We are always ready, we are only upholding the rule of law and the constitution of the party,” Agboola said.