Senator representing Ogun East Senatorial District, Buruji Kashamu, has begged the Federal High Court in Abuja to nullify the disciplinary decisions taken by his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, against him.
He said all disciplinary steps, including his being queried on September 7, 2017, about his alleged actions and his referral to the Disciplinary Committee of the party, were in violation of the judgment of the Federal High Court, Lagos Division in suit FHC/L/CS/605/2016, and also the order of Justice Babatunde Quadri of the Abuja Division of the court, made in suit FHC/ABJ/CS/732/2017 on September 5, 2017.
He said, the PDP as a party in “serial disobedience of court orders… in the management of its affairs in the South-West and disdain for the rule of law”, unless the court intervened in the matter, the party would unjustifiably expel him or block him from seeking nomination for future elections on its (PDP’s) platform.
He also stated in his fresh suit marked, ‘FHC/ABJ/CS/866/2017,’ that some national leaders of the PDP were moving against him just because he insisted on observance of internal democracy in the management of the affairs of the party, particularly in the South-West zone.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, the Peoples Democratic Party and the Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee are the first three respondents to the suit.
The fourth to the sixth respondents are the Chairman of the PDP Disciplinary Committee, Chief Tom Ikimi; Makarfi; and another member of the Makarfi-led Caretaker Committee of the party, Ben Obi.
Kashamu had filed the suit after he was queried by the party on September 7 over his activities in the South-West zone of the party.
He stated in the affidavit filed in support of the suit that the PDP had queried him and some other prominent leaders of the party in the South-West for encouraging “aggrieved members of the party to approach the court to enforce their rights.”
He added that the PDP, Ikimi and Makarfi had accused him in the letter dated September 7, 2017 “of instigating the Nigeria Police to arrest and prosecute certain named members of the party for contempt of court and directed me to respond to the query within seven days upon the receipt of the letter.”
Denying the said allegation, Kashamu said he did not in any way instigate the police to arrest any member of the party, adding that the query was “a prelude to the actualisation of the plan of the second to the sixth defendants (PDP, the caretaker committee, Ikimi, Makarfi and Obi) to have me expelled from the party, suspended or disciplined for no justifiable reason other than my insistence on the upholding of internal democracy in the management of the affairs of the PDP, especially in the South-West zone.”
Begging for the court’s intervention, he said his close friends in the national leadership of the party had told him that “the plan is to either expel or suspend me and other leaders of the party or refuse to allow us to seek nomination to contest for political office in the forthcoming elections.”
He also accused INEC of failing to check the continued violation of court orders and judgments by the party.
Justice Nnamdi Dimgba on Friday fixed October 19, and alternative date of November 10 for the hearing of the suit.
INEC was not represented in court on Friday.
