On Friday, the Abuja Court of Appeal rejected an appeal seeking to disqualify Asue Ighodalo from the race for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship nomination in Edo State.
A three-member panel led by Justice Hamma Barka dismissed the appeal, identified by case number CA/ABJ/CV/863/2024. The appeal was filed by governorship contenders Arthur Esene and Anselm Ojezua.
In their legal challenge, Esene and Ojezua aimed to overturn an earlier decision made by Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court in Abuja on April 17, which had dismissed their case on the grounds of being time-barred.
Justice Barka concluded that the case brought by Ojezua and four other plaintiffs was indeed time-barred and submitted after the permitted timeframe. He affirmed that they did not provide adequate evidence to support their claims that Ighodalo had manipulated his voter card information.
Moreover, the judge ruled that their case was fundamentally flawed, as it was based on the erroneous assumption that a candidate’s failure to present a voter card automatically disqualifies them from participating in elections.
Barka noted that the appellants failed to challenge the trial court’s finding that Ighodalo had properly applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to transfer his voter registration from Lagos State to Edo.
Consequently, the judge dismissed the appeal, citing its lack of merit, and ordered the appellants to pay N3 million in costs to Ighodalo, the PDP, and INEC.
