Court Dismisses Suit Challenging Adeleke’s Nomination as Osun PDP Guber Candidate

Alex Enumah in Abuja

Justice Obiora Egwuatu of the Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out a suit challenging the nomination of Senator Ademola Adeleke as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the just concluded governorship election in Osun State.

Justice Egwuatu in a judgment delivered yesterday struck out the suit seeking Adeleke’s disqualification from the July 16 governorship poll for being incompetent and lacking in merit.

According to the judgment, the plaintiff, an aggrieved member of the PDP, Mr. Lukman Awoyemi, lacked the necessary locus standi (legal authority) to initiate the legal action in the first place.

The court, while holding further that the suit lacked merit, stated that the case have not been filed within the stipulated time allowed by the law for a pre-election matter, and has become statute barred and liable for dismissal.

In the suit marked: FHC /ABJ/ CS/469/22, the plaintiff had asked the court to disqualify Adeleke from participating in the July 16 governorship poll on the grounds that the submission of his nomination as candidate of the PDP in the online portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did not fall within the stipulated time directed by the electoral umpire.

Defendants in the suit are the INEC, PDP and Adeleke as first, second and third defendants respectively.

According to the plaintiff, the PDP has sent Adeleke’s nomination to the online portal of INEC on March 11, days outside the March 14 to 18 as contained in INEC guidelines for the conduct of the Osun State governorship poll.

He argued that the action of the PDP breached INEC guidelines; hence the court should set aside Adeleke’s nomination as PDP governorship candidate in the poll.

However, delivering the judgment, Egwuatu agreed with the submissions of PDP and Adeleke that Awoyemi does not have the necessary locus standi to challenge Adeleke’s nomination in the first place.

According to the defendants, Awoyemi was not an aspirant in the governorship poll, and even not a member of the PDP.

Justice Egwuatu also agreed that the case of the plaintiff was statute barred as it was filed 28 days after the cause of action.

Egwuatu said the cause of action arose on March 11 when PDP submitted the nomination of Adeleke to INEC online portal and not March 24, when INEC published the form EC9 of Adeleke.

While Section 285(9) provides that a plaintiff must institute his case within 14 days of the cause of action, Awoyemi had filed his case on April 7, clearly 28 days from March 11, which the court held was the date of the cause of action.

The judge accordingly dismissed the suit for being incompetent and lacking in merit.

Recall that INEC had on July 17 declared Adeleke of the PDP as the winner of the governorship election held in Osun State.

According to INEC Chief Returning Officer for Osun State, Mr. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, the PDP candidate scored 403,371 votes to emerge victorious as against the 375,027 votes by the runner-up, incumbent Governor, Gboyega Oyetola, of the All Progressives Congress (APC).