Supreme Court affirms Odii Ifeanyi as Ebonyi PDP gubernatorial candidate

The Supreme Court on Wednesday affirmed Chukwuma Odii Ifeanyi as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Ebonyi State in the 2023 general election.

The Apex Court set aside a Judgment of the Court of Appeal delivered in favour of Senator Joseph Obinna Ogba on account of illegality.

In a judgment delivered by Justice Mohammed Lawal Garba and endorsed by the other four Justices, the Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal ought not to have listened to Ogba because he did not obtain leave of court before filing his appeal in the Court of Appeal.

Justice Garba held that, since Senator Ogba was not a party to the Federal High Court suit, he ought to have applied and secured the permission of the Court of Appeal before joining the matter.

He said the Abuja Court of Appeal lacked the jurisdiction to have entertained the suit in the first instance since Ogba was not a party in the entire proceedings conducted by the trial court (a Federal High Court sitting in Abakaliki).

The judge said that the entire proceedings conducted by the appellant court were found to be without jurisdiction and described it as an exercise in futility.

“You cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand; it will definitely collapse,” Garba said and added that he found merit in the appeal filed by Odii and was hereby upheld.

Garba consequently set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal delivered on June 19, declaring Ogba as the validly elected candidate of the party and also held that the appeal filed by Ogba, the 1st respondent, before the appellant court was done without legal backing.

Justice Amina Augie and other justices on the panel also backed Garba’s judgment, describing the decision as meritorious.

Odii and Sen. Ogba were engaged in a legal battle over who was validly elected as the party’s candidate for the 2023 poll in the party’s primaries that took place at different occasions in the state.

The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja had, recently, declared Ogba as the governorship candidate of the party in the state, while setting aside the judgment of the trial court sitting in Abakaliki that pronounced Odii as the PDP candidate.

But Odii, unsatisfied with the court decision, filed an appeal marked: SC/CV/ 939/2022 at the apex court, where-in, he joined Ogba, PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as 1st to 3rd respondents.

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