September 06, (THEWILL) – The Abuja division of the Court of Appeal has again struck out the appeal seeking to disqualify Asue Ighodalo, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), from the September 21 governorship election in Edo State.
THEWILL recalls that the appellate court had earlier affirmed Ighodalo as a validly elected candidate of the PDP for the Edo State gubernatorial election.
Arthur Esene and Anselm Ojezua, two PDP aspirants, had in the appeal marked: CA/ABJ/CV/863/2024, prayed the appellate court to set aside the April 17 judgment by Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja which dismissed their suit for being statute barred.
In a unanimous judgement on Friday, a three-member panel of the appellate court, including Justices Usman Musale, Okon Abang and Hamma Barka, held that the suit filed before the Federal High Court by Ojezua and four others was filed out of time and statute barred.
In the lead judgment of the Court, Justice Hamma Barka also agreed with the finding of the Federal High Court that not only did Ojezua and others fail to establish their claim that Ighodalo forged his voter’s card, but 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.
Justice Barka held that the appellants failed to contradict the ruling 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 State and that INEC issued a voter’s card to Ighodalo.
Consequently, the court struck out the appeal for being without merit and awarded N3 million cost against the appellants and in favour of Ighodalo, PDP and INEC.
