As PDP rejects INEC officials from Imo, Kogi for Edo polls
Again, the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, on Friday, affirmed Dr. Asue Ighodalo as the duly nominated and authentic governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State, dismissing the appeal against the PDP candidate regarding a forged voter’s card.
This is just as the party’s candidate, Dr Ighodalo has rejected a move by INEC to deploy electoral officers from Imo and Kogi States to supervise the poll saying that he does not have confidence in the capacity of electoral officers to conduct a free and fair election.
Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court had earlier dismissed the case by Arthur Esene and Anselm Ojezua for being statute-barred.
Justice Omotosho had held that not only did they fail to prove their claim that Ighodalo forged his voter’s card, but non-possession of voter’s card did not constitute a disqualifying factor under the Constitution and the Electoral Act to deny a candidate from contesting election.
In the lead judgment of the Court of Appeal on Friday, Justice Hamma Barka affirmed the judgment by Justice Omotosho and held that the suit filed before the Federal High Court by Ojezua and four others was filed out of time and was statute barred.
Delivering the judgement in the Appeal with case no, CA/ABJ/CV/863/2024, the Appeal Court ruled that the “suit was filed after the time limit and is therefore dismissed.”
According to Justice Hamma Barka, “Jurisdiction is a threshold issue and a pre-election suit filed after the 14-day limit and any breach (even by one day), means that the court is without jurisdiction.”The Court further held that “Even on the merits, the court further held that the allegation of forgery was not proven at all by the Claimant as they woefully failed to prove the elements of the alleged forgery.”
Justice Barka therefore proceeded to strike out the appeal for being without merit and awarded N1 million costs each to PDP and Asue Ighodalo to be paid by the appellants.
With the ruling, all doubts and allegations surrounding the eligibility of Dr. Asue Ighodalo to contest for the September 21 governorship election have been cleared.
Ighodalo rejects Imo, Kogi INEC officials for Edo polls
Meanwhile, Speaking in an interview, Ighodalo said, “We are hearing rumours that INEC wants to come to our election with officials from Imo and officials from Kogi.
“We will please implore INEC that we in Edo State want fresh officials from places that have run electoral processes that are free and fair and not places where polls have been questioned. “I will please appreciate if INEC doesn’t bring Kogi officials or Imo officials into Edo State.”
On why he doesn’t want officials from the two states, he said: “Question marks have been placed on the processes in those two states. Edo State people are peace-loving, they know light from darkness, so they don’t want any process that is going to be subverted or subversive. We want a level-playing field so that the wishes of the people of Edo State are realized on September 21.”
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