Justice of the Federal High Court, Abuja Obiora Egwuatu on Thursday struck out a suit challenging the nomination of Ademola Adeleke as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the July 16 governorship election in Osun State.
The Judge struck down the suit on the ground that the plaintiff lacked locus standi (legal authority) to institute the case.
The plaintiff in the person of Awoyemi Oluwatayo Lukman had dragged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), PDP, and Adeleke before the court seeking order to void and set aside the submission of Adeleke’s name to INEC on the ground of alleged unlawful action.
His grouse was that Adeleke’s name was submitted too early by PDP on March 11, 2022, as against between March 14 to 18 as required in the INEC guidelines.
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Because Adeleke’s name was not submitted within the period fixed by INEC, the plaintiff asked the court to declare the submission, illegal, null and void and be discarded.
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.
According to the defendants, Awoyemi was not an aspirant in the governorship poll and not even a member of the PDP.
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 and that the instant suit was filed after 28 days.
