The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Thursday refused to disqualify Osun State Governor, Adegboyega Oyetola, from joining in on the Saturday governorship election in the state on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress -APC.
The presiding judge, Justice Inyang Ekwo who announced the verdict in a lawsuit filed by a chieftain of the party in the state, Moshood Adeoti, reported that the plaintiff failed to establish a reasonable cause of action to warrant Oyetola’s disqualification from the election on Saturday.
Adeoti had filed the suit asking the court to invalidate Oyetola’s nomination as the flag-bearer of the APC for the election, however, in his judgment, Ekwo declared that the suit lacked merit and deserved to be dismissed.
In the originating summons, Adeoti who had also contested the primary election that declared Oyetola as the party’s candidate had hoped the court to nullify Oyetola’s candidacy because the governor contested in the February 19 primary elections as a member of the APC’s National Caretaker Extraordinary and Convention Planning Committee -CECPC.
The summons had also asked for Oyetola’s disqualification because by failing to resign from the CECPC, he had contravened the provisions of Section 222 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and Article 31(iii) of the APC, October 2014 (as amended).
But in dismissing the suit, the presiding judge held that CECPC was not officially recognized by the APC’s Constitution upon which anybody could be disqualified but only a mere ad-hoc body put in place in the absence of the National Executive Committee -NEC, known to the law.
