The Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt has dismissed an appeal by the Tony Okocha-led faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) over a Rivers State High Court order restraining the party from conducting its ward, local government and state congresses, leaving intact the lower court’s decision nullifying the disputed exercises.
The appeal, filed in Suit No. CA/PH/523/2024, was dismissed by a three-member panel led by Justice Elfreida Williams-Dawodu, which delivered its judgment virtually via Zoom. The court also struck out the appeal for being incompetent.
The decision affirmed an earlier ruling by Justice Godswill Obomanu of the Rivers State High Court, delivered on December 20, 2024, concerning the congresses that produced the Okocha-led state executive committee.
At the centre of the appeal was an ex parte order by the High Court restraining the APC from conducting the congresses. The Okocha-led faction proceeded with the exercises despite the order, prompting a legal challenge. The Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s jurisdiction to issue the restraining order.
The ruling, however, must be distinguished from a final determination of the substantive leadership dispute. The immediate legal outcome is that the challenge to the lower court’s order failed and that order remains undisturbed.
The dismissal of the appeal as incompetent does not, by itself, establish that the appellate court conclusively determined every question concerning the legitimacy of the rival executive committees or the validity of all subsequent party decisions.
The rival Emeka Beke-led faction interpreted the judgment more broadly, maintaining that it invalidated actions, nominations and decisions taken by the Okocha-led executive from December 20, 2024, onward.
That assertion represents the Beke faction’s position on the consequences of the ruling. Whether every such action is legally invalidated depends on the precise terms and scope of the operative court orders and any further decisions in the substantive proceedings.
In response, Okocha faction Publicity Secretary Chibike Ikenga said the ruling concerned an interlocutory appeal and that the faction’s legal team was studying the judgment. He added that the substantive matter remained ongoing.
An interlocutory appeal concerns a decision made during the course of a case rather than necessarily resolving the underlying dispute in its entirety. In this instance, the distinction is important: the Court of Appeal’s decision leaves the challenged restraining order intact, but the full legal consequences for the rival APC leadership claims must be assessed against the actual orders made by the courts and the status of the substantive case.
The judgment therefore marks a significant procedural setback for the Okocha-led faction in its challenge to the congresses, while the broader implications for the party’s leadership and subsequent decisions remain subject to the terms of the court’s orders and the further course of the litigation.
