{"id":7213,"date":"2025-04-15T13:34:43","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T13:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213"},"modified":"2025-04-15T13:34:44","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T13:34:44","slug":"breaking-finally-court-delivers-judgment-in-defection-suit-against-27-pro-wike-lawmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: Finally Court Delivers Judgment in Defection Suit Against 27 Pro-Wike Lawmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n\n<p>The Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt has struck out a suit challenging the defection of 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly.&nbsp;<br><br>The case, instituted by the Labour Party, sought to have the lawmakers\u2019 seats declared vacant over alleged defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The presiding judge, Justice Emmanuel A. Obile, delivered the ruling on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Obile cited a recent Supreme Court decision, which he said had already addressed the issue of defection raised in the suit.<br><br>The judge held that he lacked the jurisdiction to adjudicate on a matter that had been conclusively determined by the apex court.<br><br>Martins Nwachukwu, an aide to Speaker Martins Amaewhule\u2014one of the principal defendants in the matter, confirmed the court\u2019s decision via a social media post.<br><br>Counsel for the defendants had urged the court to dismiss the suit, citing a recent Supreme Court judgment. They presented a Certified True Copy of the apex court\u2019s decision, which the defendants said reaffirmed the leadership of the Assembly under Amaewhule and noted that Governor Siminalayi Fubara had withdrawn the allegations of defection in a separate case at the Federal High Court in Abuja.<br><br>Labour Party counsel, Clifford Chukwu, however, argued that the issue of defection remained a \u201ccollateral matter\u201d and urged the court to proceed with the case, referencing the body of evidence already before it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt has struck out a suit challenging the defection of 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly.&nbsp; The case, instituted by the Labour Party, sought to have the lawmakers\u2019 seats declared vacant over alleged defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[761],"class_list":{"0":"post-7213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics-2","8":"tag-breaking-finally-court-delivers-judgment-in-defection-suit-against-27-pro-wike-lawmakers"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v20.10 (Yoast SEO v24.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>BREAKING: Finally Court Delivers Judgment in Defection Suit Against 27 Pro-Wike Lawmakers - Moon Ray News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BREAKING: Finally Court Delivers Judgment in Defection Suit Against 27 Pro-Wike Lawmakers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt has struck out a suit challenging the defection of 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly.&nbsp; The case, instituted by the Labour Party, sought to have the lawmakers\u2019 seats declared vacant over alleged defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Moon Ray News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-04-15T13:34:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-15T13:34:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_8835.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"650\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"350\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Online Editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Online Editor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213\",\"name\":\"BREAKING: Finally Court Delivers Judgment in Defection Suit Against 27 Pro-Wike Lawmakers - Moon Ray News\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_8835.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-15T13:34:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-15T13:34:44+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/a32838fdffd6e8f96ecad7d48449cff6\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_8835.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/IMG_8835.jpeg\",\"width\":650,\"height\":350},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"BREAKING: Finally Court Delivers Judgment in Defection Suit Against 27 Pro-Wike Lawmakers\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/\",\"name\":\"Moon Ray News\",\"description\":\"...in view of restructuring.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/a32838fdffd6e8f96ecad7d48449cff6\",\"name\":\"Online Editor\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8884e1ba8bd630f2bc99a7de9548ca4a?s=96&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8884e1ba8bd630f2bc99a7de9548ca4a?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Online Editor\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"BREAKING: Finally Court Delivers Judgment in Defection Suit Against 27 Pro-Wike Lawmakers - Moon Ray News","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/moonraynews.com\/?p=7213","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"BREAKING: Finally Court Delivers Judgment in Defection Suit Against 27 Pro-Wike Lawmakers","og_description":"The Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt has struck out a suit challenging the defection of 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly.&nbsp; 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