Court orders Lyon to file defence within seven days

The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja gave the Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bayelsa State, Chief David Lyon, and other defendants in a suit instituted against them by Preye Aganaba to file their defence within seven days.

Aganaba, a frontline aspirant in the just-concluded governorship primaries and founding member of the APC in Bayelsa, dragged the APC, Lyon and his running mate Degi Eremienyo including the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to the court in a suit he personally filed on September 12.

The aspirant , who moved the case from the Yenagoa division of the court to Abuja recently secured an order of substituted service against the defendants from the Federal High Court 5 presided over by Justice I.E. Ekwo.

But when the matter came up again on Wednesday, the defendants, who were in court acknowledged that they had been served the court processes and pleaded for seven days to file their defences.

The judge, who reportedly granted them the request, remarked that if they failed to comply after seven days, their action would be treated as abandonment of defence.

Ekwo adjourned the matter to November 4 for hearing.

Aganaba is asking the court to make a declaration that the primaries scheduled for September 4 across the 105 wards in the eight local government areas of the state did not take place.

He is praying the court to make a declaration that since there were no primaries, the declaration of results that produced David Lyon as the candidate of the party was illegal, unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect.

The aspirant is further demanding an order setting aside the results of the APC primary election, which returned Lyon as the candidate of the party for November 16 election.