The court case between some members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu State, and the Enugu State government took another dimension on Thursday as an APC chieftain, Hon. Hyacinth Nsude was arraigned before an Enugu Chief Magistrate Court.
Nsude was docked by the police for allegedly committing perjury against his own party, the APC.
It was gathered that Nsude was arrested by the police on Wednesday night following a petition by two persons who claimed to be acting on behalf of APC, alleging that Nsude committed perjury against the party.
After investigation, the police arraigned him in Court on a one-count charge of perjury.
When the charge was read to Nsude, he pleaded not guilty when the charge was read to him before the presiding Chief Magistrate, Nnena Madu.
Making submissions before the Court, counsel to the defendant (Nsude), Ik Ozor argued that the charge should be dismissed as the supposed complainant was not in court and was not represented by anybody.
Ozor equally asked the Court to grant the defendant bail, which the Court obliged.
The Court further ordered that APC should appear in Court on the next adjourned date to indicate whether it was aware of such complaint for which Nsude was being prosecuted.
The matter was however adjourned to March 11 for further hearing.
It could be recalled that Nsude and other APC members in Enugu State are before the Enugu State High Court challenging the decision of the State Government to constitute caretaker committees for the 17 local government areas in the State, instead of conducting local government elections to elect chairmen and councilors for the councils.
The tenure of the last council administration elapsed on January 5 this year.
Meanwhile, members of the APC in Enugu State are pointing accusing fingers on the state government over Nsude’s prosecution.
“You can see that the so-called complainants were not in court; so this is political prosecution by the state government to make us withdraw the case”, one of them said.
When contacted, the APC chairman in Enugu State, Barr. Ben Nwoye said he had no hand in the matter.
He added that he would not make further comment since the matter was in court and insisted that the law should take its course.
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