The Court of Appeal in Abuja has upheld the nomination of Asue Ighodalo as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State in the forthcoming September 21 off-cycle election.
In a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice, A. M Lamido, in the appeal marked CA/ABJ/CV/642/2024, the court dismissed an appeal brought by former Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu challenging the May 27th judgement of Justice James Omotosho of Federal High Court, Abuja.
Justice Omotosho affirmed the nomination of Dr. Ighodalo as the rightful and duly nominated candidate of the PDP in Edo State.
In its ruling, the Appeal Court held that the trial court was right and unassailable in its ruling that the Appellant (Shaibu) did not satisfy the condition precedent before instituting the action, therefore the suit was premature.
The court also affirmed the trial court’s decision that the Appellant failed to prove his allegations of vote allocation against the Respondent, stating that the conduct of an election as well as results are presumed regular until the contrary is proved and there was no evidence from the affidavit of the Appellant to show votes were allocated to the 4th Respondent.
Consequently, the court dismissed Shaibu’s case and awarded N1,000,000 (One Million Naira) as a cost against him and in favour of the respective respondents.
