Justice Ekwo Ekwo has given reasons for nullifying the candidacy of the Edo State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, Asue Ighodalo.
He stated that the evidence before the court established that Ighodalo did not emerge through a valid process.
Ekwo held that the exhibit presented by the PDP showed that the returning officers that prepared the result sheets merely sat at a place to manufacture the outcome of the exercise.
The court said there was no evidence that the necessary delegates took part in the primaries, stressing that the party failed to prove that the plaintiffs were not qualified to participate in the exercise.
According to the court, PDP’s failure to abide by the provisions of the relevant electoral laws and guidelines rendered as a nullity, the outcome of the said primaries it held at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin.
It dismissed PDP’s contention that the case was non-justiciable as the choice of delegates for the election was purely an internal affair of a political party, which no court has the jurisdiction to meddle into.
The judgment followed a suit brought before the court by three aggrieved plaintiffs, on behalf of 378 other ad-hoc delegates that ought to have participated in the primaries.
Cited as1st to 4th defendants in the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/165/2024, were the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the PDP, its National Secretary and its Vice Chairman, South-South.
Justice Ekwo, while deciding the matter in favour of the plaintiffs, noted that INEC failed to file any process in the matter, saying it would abide by the judgment of the court.
Specifically, the plaintiffs, who were said to be loyal to the impeached former deputy governor of the state, Philip Shaibu, had in the suit they filed on February 8, prayed the court to stop the defendants from excluding them from participating in the primaries.
Led by Kelvin Mohammed, Mr Gabriel Okoduwa and Mr Ederaho Osagie, the plaintiffs told the court that they were the authentic ad-hoc delegates from 12 local government areas and 127 wards in the state.