A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja and presided over by Justice Obiora Egwuatu has struck out a suit seeking to disqualify Barrister Asue Ighodalo as the governorship candidate of PDP in the forthcoming election in Edo State, The Judge dismissed the suit instituted by an aggrieved PDP governorship aspirant, Anselm Ojeizu, saying that the case was premature at the time it was filed on March 6.
Justice Egwuatu posited that the plaintiff, Anselm Ojeizu failed to explore the mandatory internal mechanism of PDP to ventilate his anger before rushing to Court while delivering his judgement on Wednesday while agreeing with lead counsel to Ighodalo, Mr Akinlolu Kehinde, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria SAN that it was wrong and a breach of PDP law on the part of Ojeizu to have bypassed the Appeal Panel of PDP in the resolution of his dispute before filing the case.
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It’s on record that Ojeizu had sued Ighodalo, The PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, calling for an order cancelling the February 22 primary election that produced Ighodalo as the PDP’s gubernatorial candidate, his reason was that the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and the guidelines of PDP were not adhered to in the conduct of the primary election in the state.
He particularly alleged that the delegate list used for the primary election was fake and adulterated.
In his judgement, Justice Egwuatu held that the plaintiff Ojeizu should have explored the internal dispute mechanism resolution of his party before going to court.
“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.” The Judge said.
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It’s would be recalled that Ighodalo, a lawyer and investment banker emerged the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), having defeated other aspirants in a primary election at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium on February 22 after scoring a whooping 577 votes to defeat other aspirants. He is believed to be the preferred candidate of Governor Obaseki.
The Chief Returning Officer of the exercise Alhaji Dauda Lawal declared him winner of the primary election.
