Court order didn’t invalidate Ighodalo’s candidacy, says Edo PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaign organisation in Edo says the judgment of the federal high court in Abuja nullifying the outcome of the party’s governorship primary is a “strange development”. 

On Thursday, Inyang Ekwo, presiding judge, invalidated the PDP primary election that produced Asue Ighodalo as flagbearer for the forthcoming gubernatorial poll in Edo.

Ighodalo, a lawyer, had won the primary conducted on February 22.

In a statement, the Edo PDP campaign organisation said “the claim in question and the judgment which arose therefrom did not in any shape or form invalidate or even challenge the outcome of the party primaries  which produced the candidate of the PDP for the forthcoming elections”.

Ekwo held that from the exhibit tendered in court, the returning officers who prepared the result sheets only sat in one place to falsify the outcome of the poll.

He said the exclusion of the 381 delegates, including the plaintiffs, was against the provisions of the law.

The campaign organisation said the party is confident that the court order will not “survive the test of appeal”.

The campaign organisation argued that legal precedents on similar issues have shown that “ward congresses and the choice of delegates are purely internal affairs of political parties outside the jurisdiction of any court”.

“The net result therefore is that contrary to the stories making the rounds, spread by mischief makers, the PDP primaries held on February 22, 2024, were not set aside and neither was any order given affecting the outcome of the same,” the statement reads.

“Members and supporters of the PDP as well as the good people of Edo State are enjoined to remain calm and ignore the antics of mischief makers as the falsity of their assertion will be made clear in the fullness of time and upon release of the actual judgment for public consumption.”