Edo gov’ship: Court strikes out Ojezua’s suit, okays Ighodalo’s candidature on PDP platform

The Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out a suit seeking to disqualify Barrister Asue Ighodalo as governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the forthcoming Edo State governorship election.

Justice Obiora Egwuatu on Wednesday struck out the suit instituted by an aggrieved PDP governorship aspirant, Anselm Ojezua, on the grounds that it was premature at the time it was filed on March 6.

Delivering judgement in the suit, Justice Egwuatu held that the plaintiff [Anselm Ojezua] failed to explore the mandatory internal mechanism of PDP to ventilate his anger before rushing to Court.

Justice Egwuatu agreed with lead counsel to Ighodalo, Mr Akinlolu Kehinde, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, that it was wrong and a breach of PDP mandatory rule on the part of Ojezua to have sidelined the Appeal Panel of PDP in the resolution of his dispute before filing the case.

Ojezua had sued Ighodalo, PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) praying for an order cancelling the February 22 primary election that produced Ighodalo as PDP’s gubernatorial candidate.

His grouse was that the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and guidelines of PDP were grossly violated in the conduct of the primary election at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin City.

Specifically, the aggrieved governorship aspirant alleged that fake and adulterated delegates’ list was used in the conduct of the indirect primary election.

But Justice Egwuatu held that since it was mandatory for any aggrieved governorship aspirant to explore internal-resolution mechanism before approaching court of law, Ojezua was bound to comply with the rule like any other aspirant.

“In a matter of this nature, conditions precedent must be respected and complied with by any aspirant as had severally been enunciated by the Supreme Court in all its decisions”, the Judge said.

Ighodalo, a lawyer and investment banker, had on February 22 emerged as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), having defeated other aspirants in a primary election at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium.

Ighodalo, who is believed to be Governor Obaseki’s preferred aspirant scored 577 votes to beat Barrister Anselm Ojezua , Arthur Esele, Osaro Onaiwu, Martins Uhomoibhi, Hadizat Umoru and Felix Akhabue who all scored zero vote, while six votes were voided out of the 585 accredited delegates.

He was declared the winner by the Chief Returning Officer of the Edo PDP gubernatorial primary election and  governor of Zamfara State, Alhaji Dauda Lawal.