Justice Obiora Egwuatu of the Federal High Court in Abuja has dismissed a suit seeking to overturn the submission of Ademola Jackson Nurudeen Adeleke’s name as the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) governorship candidate in the July 26 election.
The suit was dismissed by the judge on Thursday because the plaintiff lacked locus standi to file it.
The plaintiff in the suit, Awoyemi Oluwatayo Lukman, had brought the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the PDP, and Adeleke before the court, seeking an order to void and set aside the submission of Adeleke’s name to INEC on grounds of alleged unlawful action.
The plaintiff’s complaint was that Adeleke’s name was hurriedly submitted by the PDP on March 11 as opposed to March 12.
The plaintiff complained that Adeleke’s name was submitted too quickly by the PDP on March 11, rather than between March 14 and 18, as required by INEC guidelines.
Adeleke’s name having not been submitted within the period fixed by INEC, the plaintiff asked the court to declare the submission, illegal, unlawful, null, and void and be set aside.
He claimed that INEC must be bound by its official guidelines and that anything done outside the guidelines is against the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022.
However, in his judgment, Justice Obiora Egwuatu struck out the suit on the ground that the said Awoyemi Oluwatayo Lukman lacked locus standi to have instituted the case.
The Judge held also that the suit was statute barred having been fixed outside the 14 days stipulated by Section 285 of the 1999 Constitution that all pre-election suits must be filed within 14 days whereas, the instant suit was filed after 28 days.