Justice Obiorah Egwuatu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on Wednesday declined to disqualify the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Asue Ighodalo, from the September 21 governorship election in Edo State.
The judge dismissed the suit filed by an PDP gubernatorial aspirant, Anselm Ojeizu, for lack of merit.
Egwuatu held that the suit filed on March 6 was premature.
He stressed that the plaintiff failed to explore the internal dispute resolution mechanism of the party before he instituted the action.
Justice Egwuatu agreed with Ighodalo’s lead counsel, Akinlolu Kehinde (SAN) that it was wrong and a breach of PDP’s mandatory rule for the plaintiff to have sidelined the party’s appeal panel.
He held that since any aggrieved governorship aspirant must explore internal dispute mechanism resolution before approaching a court of law, the plaintiff was bound to comply with the rule like any other aspirant.
The Judge said: “In a matter of this nature, conditions precedents must be respected and complied with by any aspirant as had severally enunciated by the Supreme Court in all its decisions.”
He dismissed the suit for lack of merit.
Ighodalo, who is the preferred candidate of the Edo State Governor, Godwin Emefiele, won the February 22 primary election in the state.
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