6th September, 2024
By Edith Nwapi
Asue Ighodalo, the candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the September 2024 governorship election again overcame another obstacle to his candidacy at the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Friday.
A three-member panel of the appellate court, in a unanimous ruling, dismissed an appeal seeking to disqualify Asue Ighodalo as governorship candidate of the PDPD in the election in a suit filed by Arthur Esene and Anselm Ojezua who were former governorship aspirants of the party.
Esene and Ojezua had, in the appeal prayed the Court of Appeal to set aside the April 17 judgment by Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja which dismissed their suit for being statute barred.
But the three-member panel of the appellate court, led by Justice Hamma Barka, dismissed the appeal as it noted that the suit was ab initio filed out of time and thus, statue barred before when it was filed before Federal High Court by Ojezua and four others.
He also agreed with the judgment of the Federal High Court that, not Ojezua and others fail to establish their claims that Ighodalo forged his voter’s card.
In addition, the judge held that their suit was bereft of any merit because it was based on a flawed assumption that not possession of a voter’s card constitutes a ground to disqualify a candidate from contesting election.
He found that the appellants failed to appeal the findings of the trial court that Ighodalo actually applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the transfer of his registration from Lagos State to Edo and that INEC issued a voter’s card to Ighodalo.
Justice Barka therefore strike out the appeal for being without merit and awarded cost of N3 million against the appellants and in favour of Ighodalo, PDP and INEC.
The Appeal Court sitting in Abuja had also last month rejected an appeal to nullify the primary election that produced Asue Ighodalo as its candidate for the governorship Election in Edo.
The appellate court, in a unanimous decision by a three-member panel led by A. M Lamido, on Monday, dismissed the appeal filed by the embattled Deputy Governor of the state, Philip Shaibu.
Shaibu was earlier impeached from office but recently got reinstated by the court.
While dismissing the appeal marked: CA/ABJ/CV/642/2024, for want of merit, Lamido held that it found no reason to set aside the May 27 judgment of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
The court further ruled that the trial court was right for refusing to invalidate the outcome of PDP primary election based on the suit by the appellant.
It awarded a N1million cost against the appellant.
