Justice A. I. Nwabughiogu, presiding over an Umuahia High Court, on Wednesday struck out the suit brought by Concerned Correspondents against the Abia State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Correspondents Chapel to end the over three years legal tango arising from the outcome of the May 2012 elections of the Correspondents Chapel.

The judge struck out the case with suit Number HU/97/2012 following a notice of discontinuance filed by the claimants.

Some “Concerned Members of the Correspondents” had dragged the union to court following the disqualification of one of the chairmanship candidates, Emma Acha of the News Agency of Nigeria, for not meeting the required age of practice before vying for the position. His rival, Emmanuel Ugwu of Thisday newspapers, was returned unopposed.

They claimants had prayed the court to nullify the election on the grounds that the chairmanship candidate who had their sympathy was disqualified from the contest.

The case was initially assigned to Justice Lilian Abai. Following an application for transfer of the matter by the NUJ through its counsel, Dr ACB Agbazuere, the case was reassigned to Justice A. U. Kalu. In apparent protest against the reassignment, the Concerned Correspondents also applied for the transfer of the suit to another court. Following that application, the matter was adjourned sine die by Justice A. U. Kalu in December 2012.

After years of dormancy, the claimants moved to withdraw the matter from court. This time, the case was assigned to Justice Nwabughiogu and the parties went back to court on February 25, 2016. But the case was adjourned to March 16, 2016.

At the resumed sitting, Justice Nwabughiogu, struck out the matter since the claimants have expressed the desire to discontinue with the case, adding that he would not go into technicalities of the matter since both parties agreed that the issue at stake was a “family matter.” The judge awarded no costs to any of the parties.

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