The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has dismissed an appeal seeking to disqualify Asue Ighodalo as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State.
A three-member panel of the Appeal Court, led by Justice Hamma Barka, dismissed the appeal marked CA/ABJ/CV/863/2024 on Friday, September 6, 2024.
The appeal was filed by governorship aspirants Arthur Esene and Anselm Ojezua.
Esene and Ojezua had, in the appeal prayed the Court of Appeal to set aside the April 17 judgement by Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja which dismissed their suit for being statute barred.
Justice Barka held that the suit filed before the Federal High Court by Ojezua and four others was filed out of time and statute barred.
A’Court fines Shaibu N1m, affirms Ighodalo as Edo PDP guber candidate
He agreed with the judgement of the Federal High Court that Ojezua and others failed to establish their claims that Ighodalo forged his voter’s card.
The judge further 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.
Justice Barka said the appellants failed to appeal the findings of the trial court that Ighodalo applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission for the transfer of his registration from Lagos State to Edo State and that INEC issued a voter’s card to Ighodalo.
Justice Barka therefore struck out the appeal for being without merit and awarded a cost of N3 million against the appellants, in favour of Ighodalo, PDP, and INEC.
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