THE Appeal Court, Ibadan Division, on Monday, November 28 restored Oladipupo Adebutu as the validly elected governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ogun State.
The court also reinstated the three senatorial, nine House of Representatives and 26 House of Assembly candidates of PDP who emerged through the party’s primaries conducted by its National Working Committee (NWC) and monitored by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Recall that Justice O.O. Oguntoyinbo of the Federal High Court in Abeokuta had on September 27 voided the primaries that produced Adebutu and the others and directed the party to conduct fresh primaries within 14 days.
But dissatisfied, the PDP appealed the judgment, praying the appellate court to set aside the lower court’s decision.
Adebutu also filed an appeal against the judgment.
In its ruling, the appellate court, in a judgment read by Justice Nimpar Yargata, said the trial court fell into error by nullifying the primaries that produced Adebutu, having been conducted by the NWC of the party.
Justice Yargata said Taiwo Olabode Idris and others who instituted the case at the lower court were not aspirants of the party and consequently had no locus standi to challenge the outcome of the primaries, adding that the court’s decision in APC versus Umar, which the respondents relied heavily upon in their submissions before the court, had been overtaken by the current provision of the Electoral Act, 2022 that only aspirant can query the outcome of primaries elections.
The Justice declared that only the NWC of the party and not the State Working Committee has the power to conduct primaries, as spelt out in Section 221 of the 1999 Constitution, pointing out a contradiction in the respondents’ relief of a declaration to pronounce Jimi Lawal as the governorship candidate.
She held that those who filed the initial suit had no stand in law to so do, as the issue of primary was not a human rights matter, noting that the trial court “went on a frolic on its own” by voiding the primaries of Adebutu, whose appeal she described as meritorious.
She, therefore, resolved all issues in favour of Adebutu and set aside the judgment of the Federal High Court, with all the orders it made.
On three earlier judgments of the same court in the appeals by the PDP and the cross appeals by the respondents in the suit filed at the lower court by Prince Segun Seriki against the PDP, Justice Folasade Ojo of the same appellate court had earlier, in a judgment, nullified the parallel primaries conducted by Seriki and others.
