…As the legal team celebrates with candidates at Government House
A Federal High Court sitting in Benin, the Edo State capital, has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognize and publish the names of candidates loyal to Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as standard-bearers of the party in the forthcoming 2023 general elections.
In a judgement delivered this Tuesday, September 27, 2022, by Hon. Justice S.M Shuaibu, the Court granted all the reliefs sought by the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs include the party’s candidates for Edo South Senatorial District, Matthew Iduoriyekemwen; Sunny Aguebor for Oredo Federal Constituency and the flag bearer for Akoko Edo Federal Constituency, Hon. Kabiru Adjoto, among others.
Amongst the reliefs sought by the plaintiffs is an Order of Court mandating the fourth defendant, INEC, to publish the names of the plaintiffs as the validly elected candidates of the Edo PDP for the 2023 general elections.
The Judge noted that based on past decisions by the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, the state chapter of a political party is not empowered by law to conduct party primaries and that only the National Working Committee (NWC) of a political party has the power to conduct party primaries.
According to him, “there is nothing before this Honourable Court to show that the primaries in which the 4th to 39th defendants participated were conducted by the National Working Committee of the PDP. Rather, their primaries were conducted by the Edo State Chapter of the PDP.”
The Judge held, “In my view, the power of INEC under Section 84 of the Electoral Act is limited to monitoring of party primary elections and does not extend to preparing or declaring the results of that election. This remains the law.”
“In the light of the foregoing, the fourth defendant, INEC, cannot rely on results prepared by the first defendant, Edo PDP,” he noted.