by Azubuike Azikiwe
Governor-elect of Rivers state, Nyesom Wike, can no longer run from being served election petition by the All Progressives Congress.
At the inaugural sitting of the Rivers State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal in Apo, Abuja on Wednesday, the petitioners alleged through their counsel, Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), that Wike had been evading service of the processes of their election petition seeking the nullification of the results of the poll.
He said the efforts to serve the court papers on the governor-elect failed due to the non-cooperative attitude of the people in Wike’s Port-Harcourt and Abuja homes.
Akeredolu said that the court bailiff had on a number of occasions visited Wike’s residences in Abuja and Port Harcourt but was always turned back at the gate by the governor-elect’s agents when they found out the bailiff’s mission to serve court processes.
He then urged the court through an ex parte application to allow the petitioners to serve Wike through a substituted means of pasting the process on the wall of his house to avoid unnecessary delay of proceedings.
In response, the Justice Muazu Pindiga-led tribunal, granted the request of the petitioners and ordered that substituted service be effected on the respondent either by pasting the court processes on the gate of his house or that of the PDP secretariat in Rivers State or in Abuja.
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