Ondo APC guber ticket: Abraham asks court to stop INEC from recognising Akeredolu

JUSTICE Nnamdi Dimmer of a Federal High Court in Abuja will tomorrow, (October 28), hear an ex-parte motion filed by Dr Olusegun Abraham, one of the governorship aspirants of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the September 3, 2016 governorship primary of the party in Ondo State.

Abraham, in the motion filed by his counsel, Professor Akinseyi George, on October 7, is  asking the court to prevent the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from accepting Rotimi Akeredolu as APC authentic candidate for the November 26, 2016 election in the state.

Akinseyi asked the court to give an interim order and interlocutory injunction stopping the commission from accepting Akeredolu’s name from the party as APC candidate, pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice already filed and served.

Attached with the exparte motion are 10 and 86 paragraphs affidavit deposed to by Abraham on October 7, with 15 annexures  to support the motion.

Akinseyi said: “In an urgent application of this nature, the court has a duty to prevent irreparable damage which will be done if the interim order sought is not granted.”

Joined as defendants in the case are the APC, Akeredolu and INEC.

According to Dimgba in a bench ruling, “In a matter of sensitive nature like this, it will be fair if all parties to the suit are present in court before an order is made.

“In my view, in the circumstances of the entirety of this case, it will not be proper granting the preservatory order sought without hearing from the other parties.

“It will be in the interest of justice to order the respondents to appear before me on October 28, 2016, by noon to explain why the preservatory order should not be granted.

“This motion is hereby adjourned till October 28, 2016 for the respondents to appear in court to explain why the orders sought by the applicant should not be granted,” he added.

Abraham came second in the September primary election of the party, in which Akeredolu emerged top, to fly the party’s flag.

However, some of the aspirants, aside Abraham, complained of irregularities during the primary election.

One of them, Olusola Oke, claimed that the final voting was marred by corruption and that the results that produced Akeredolu, who scored 669 votes to emerge the winner of the contest among the 24 aspirants, was marred with irregularities.

Oke, who polled 583 votes to come third during the poll, allegedly that the process and outcome of the primary election was corruptly rooted because the delegates’ list used for the exercise was allegedly doctored and injected with fake names.

According to him, 383 names were allegedly directly injected into the list thereby altering the main configuration list that would have produced a rancour-free governorship primary election of the party in the state.