The Supreme Court yesterday affirmed the decisions of an Abuja Federal High Court and Court of Appeal Abuja, which upheld the expulsion of the founding National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Chekwas Okorie from the party.
Delivering judgement in an appeal filed by Okorie against the Chief Victor Umeh-led National Executive Committee of the party, the apex court in its unanimous decision dismissed the appeal for lacking in merit and for being frivolous.
Justice Dahiru Musdapha in the lead judgement ordered Okorie to pay N50,000 as cost to the respondents.
He said: “the Court of Appeal in my view rightly agreed with the lower court that Okorie was validly expelled from the party and consequently, the appellants, having asked for the relief, cannot now claim that nobody prayed for it. It was the appellants’ prayer for the court to determine one way or the other whether the 2nd appellant (Okorie) was validly expelled or removed from the party. And the court, by relying on the evidence adduced, came to the inescapable conclusion that the 2nd appellant was validly removed as the chairman of the party.
“It was the appellants who went to court seeking certain reliefs. There was no counter-claim. And at the end of the day, the trial court and as confirmed by the Court of Appeal merely affirmed the decision of the trial court in dismissing the appellant’s suit, as it was devoid of any merit,” he added.
