A Federal High Court sitting in Umuahia today November 4th, 2022, dismissed the suit seeking to nullify the Abia PDP primaries and thereby disqualify all PDP candidates for the 2023 election on the grounds that the congresses conducted by the PDP to elect delegates for the primary election that produced the candidates did not hold.
The seven plaintiffs Ndudi Nwagbara and six others had sued the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC; the PDP; and the Party’s National Chairman, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, as the first, second and third defendants respectively.
The plaintiffs, had among other prayers, asked the court to sack all the Abia PDP candidates because the three-man delegates election which produced them never held.
Delivering judgement on the matter, the presiding Judge, Justice Evelyn Anyadike, held that the conduct of Party delegate congress was entirely an internal affair of a political Party and not justiciable in law. The court held that “no law gives delegates right of action” in court to challenge the conduct of delegate congress.
According to Justice Anyadike, the suit can only be justiciable in the court if it were brought by an aspirant who participated in a primary election.
The court subsequently dismissed the suit after resolving it in favour of the defendants, declaring that the plaintiffs lacked locus to sue.
Meanwhile, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP in Abia state says the judgement is not only a victory to the candidates and the PDP but also the victory for democracy, justice and Abians in general.
In a press release signed by the Abia PDP Vice Chairman/Acting State Publicity Secretary, Elder Abraham Amah, the judgement has again, as usual, deepened the belief of all peace-loving and fair-minded people that the judiciary remains the last hope of the common man.
According to Ama, the plaintiffs had by that singular suit, in a grand conspiracy hatched by enemies of the State, the PDP and the people it serves, sought to embarrass the Party and disqualify the most credible governorship candidate in the race and other candidates of the PDP at all levels and enthrone mediocres for their selfish ends.
He called on all PDP faithful to remain steadfast and resolute in their determination to enthrone good governance, accountability and transparency in government by ensuring that they do all they can to secure the victory of the PDP at all levels the polls.
To our compatriots who lost at the court, the PDP also enjoined them to be magnanimous in their loss as they are in their victory as the party uses this opportunity to extend their clean hands of fellowship to them and ask them to join them in building an Abia that everyone would be proud of.
