- Dismisses ex parte motion seeking to stop RSIEC
BY ONYEKACHUKWU IBEZIM – With less than 48 hours to the Local Government elections slated for Saturday, August 30, 2025 in Rivers State, a State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt on Thursday declared that the poll should go ahead uninterrupted.
Dismissing an ex parte motion seeking to stop the elections in the state, the Presiding Judge, Justice Stephen Jumbo, said the application for motion ex parte lacked merit and is thereby dismissed it.
Justice Jumbo gave the ruling in a suit filed by a Port Harcourt-based legal practitioner, Williams Abayomi-Stanley, against President Bola Tinubu, the Attorney General of the Federation, the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC), and its Chairman,
However, the judge granted a motion ex parte order for substituted service to the defendants but directed that the conduct of the August 30th LG elections should go ahead as scheduled and adjourned till September 10, 2025, for a hearing on the substantive suit.
Addressing newsmen outside the courtroom, counsel to the claimant, Godsent Elewa, said his client was in court to seek for interpretation of a section of the RSIEC law and the Constitution of Nigeria as amended if the president has the powers to appoint a Chairman and members of the commission to conduct local LG polls in the state.
Though unhappy that his application was dismissed, Elewa welcomed the Court’s ruling which granted one of his motions and expressed his readiness to continue with the proceeding on the next adjourned date.
He said, “My client, Williams Stanley-Abayomi, is a Constitutional lawyer and an indigene of Rivers State from Emuoha LGA. The applicant basically is in Court to seek the interpretations of some Sections, particularly section 2 sub 1 and section 3 sub 1 of the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission Law number 12, 2018 and Sections 197, 198 and 200 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as altered.
“However, we have nothing against the Court ruling, especially as one of the prayers of my client was granted.
“We have two motions ex parte, the first was the motion ex parte for an interim injunction to restrain the conduct of the August 30 local government elections.
“Unfortunately, the Court dismissed that motion as it lacked merit and adjourned to the 10th of September for all the parties to be served with our substantive processes and for us to argue the main application.
“The second order was an order for substituted service to be effected on the first and the second defendants, which are President Bola Tinubu and the Attorney-General of the Federation. So these were the two orders the court granted today.”
