The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has on Wednesday June 26th refused to disqualify the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Asue Ighodalo, from contesting the forthcoming governorship election in Edo State.
In a judgement delivered on Wednesday, Justice Obiora Egwuatu, struck out the suit that was brought before it by an aggrieved PDP gubernatorial aspirant, Anselm Ojeizu.
While stressing that the plaintiff failed to explore the internal dispute resolution mechanism of the party before instituting the action, it held that the suit, which was filed on March 6, was premature.
Justice Egwuatu agreed with Ighodalo’s lead counsel, Mr. Akinlolu Kehinde, SAN, that it was wrong and amounted to a breach of PDP’s mandatory rule, for the plaintiff to have sidelined the Appeal Panel of the party.
He held that since any aggrieved governorship aspirant must explore internal dispute mechanism resolution before approaching a court of law, the plaintiff was bound to comply with the rule like any other aspirant.
The Judge held, “In a matter of this nature, conditions precedents must be respected and complied with by any aspirant as had severally enunciated by the Supreme Court in all its decisions”.
He, therefore, struck out the suit.
Recall that Ighodalo had on February 22, emerged as the flag-bearer of the PDP for the impending governorship contest in Edo State.
Ighodalo, who is believed to be the preferred candidate of governor Godwin Obaseki, secured 577 votes to defeat the other aspirants.
He was declared winner by the Chief Returning Officer of the Edo PDP Gubernatorial Primaries, governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara state.
However, dissatisfied with the outcome of the primary poll, Ojeizu dragged Ighodalo, PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to court.
He, among other things, prayed the court to nullify the outcome of the primary election and void Ighodalo’s candidacy.
The plaintiff contended that provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and guidelines of the party were grossly violated in the conduct of the primary election that held at Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin.
He alleged that fake and adulterated delegates list was used in the conduct of the indirect primary election.
