On Monday, a Federal High Court sitting in Benin City, the Edo State capital, upheld Olumide Akpata as the Labour Party (LP) candidate in the forthcoming Edo gubernatorial election.
In its judgement, the court also dismissed a lawsuit filed by Kenneth Imansuagbon challenging Akpata’s candidature.
News About Nigeria reported that, in his prayer to the court, Imansuangbon through his lawyer, A. A. Malik (SAN), pleaded with the court to declare him as the winner of the Labour Party’s primaries, noting that Akpata violated the electoral act and guideline of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and as such is not qualified to stand as the LP governorship candidate.
Imansuangbon who hinged his plea on the allegation that Olumide gave false information concerning his acquisition of citizenship of another country in the documents he submitted to INEC also accused him of name discrepancy.
He argued that Akpata, while filling INEC form EC 9 “stated his name to be Akpata Olumide Anthony, which is different from and not the same as Akpata Olumide Osaigbovo” which he earlier stated on oath to be his name and under which he contested and won the primary election of the LP.
Delivering judgement on the matter today, Justice Babatunde Quadri dismissed Imansuangbon’s suit on the grounds that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain it because Imansuangbon failed to exhaust internal dispute resolution mechanisms within the Labour Party before seeking legal action, hence robbing the Court of Jurisdiction.
Also, the court held that the suit lacked merit and was based on speculation as there is no substantial evidence to support Imansuangbon’s claims.
Justice Quadri, therefore, declared the lawsuit premature ruling that Akpata remains the candidate of the LP in the Edo poll.
