Kogi guber: Court to deliver judgement on authentic PDP candidate March 6

A High Court sitting in Lokoja would on 6 March 2020 deliver judgement on a matter brought before it to determine the rightful winner of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ticket in the September 3rd, 2019 PDP primaries.

Engr. Musa Wada emerged the candidate of the PDP for the governorship election held on 16 November 2019, an election which brought in Alhaji Yahaya Bello for a second term as governor of the state.

In a matter before the Lokoja High Court 4, Justice John Olorunfemi fixed March 6th to deliver judgement after counsels to all parties in the suit adopted their written addresses.

Adopting his address, Rowland Otaru, SAN, Counsel to the Claimant, Alhaji Abubakar Ibrahim, urged the court to grant the plea of the claimant.

According to Otaru, Alh. Abubakar Ibrahim won the PDP primaries.

He alleged the smuggling in of 600 votes while another 241 missing votes robbed Ibrahim of victory at the venue of the second primaries after gunmen had disrupted proceedings at the Confluence Stadium, Lokoja.

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He urged the court to invoke section 167, 146 of the Evidence Act to show that the documents tendered by the police were documents submitted in their official capacity, pointing out that the defendant even abandoned their plea to prove that they didn’t import in ballot papers, as their only witness failed to show up to deny the allegation.

He urged the court to rely on exhibits C13, C14 submitted by the police to give credence to the claimants’ plea, adding that the first defendant smuggled in ballot papers to make Engr Wada emerge winner of the PDP primaries.

While noting that the issues of party primaries are not a domestic matter as claimed by the defendant, he said as long as the claimant feels his rights have been injured, he has no choice but to seek legal redress.

Adopting his address, J.S. Okutepa, SAN, described the claimants’ petition as full with fury while urging the trial judge to dismiss the petition as it has a faulty foundation.

Okutepa who described the mathematical calculation of the claimant as an exercise in futility urged the court not to rely on exhibits C13, C14 as it cannot carry weight more than D3, which is the INEC report, as they are constitutionally empowered to observe party primaries.

In his adoption, the counsel to the PDP disclosed that the matter of primaries is an internal affair, pointing out that the claimants fail to prove that there was missing votes or smuggling in of alleged 600 votes.

He further asked the court to jettison the petition for lacking in merit in its entirety.