The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, experienced a setback on Monday at the Federal High Court in Abuja in its legal battle to have the candidates for governorship and the National Assembly from the Labour Party, LP, and the Young Progressives Party, YPP, disqualified from running in the general elections of 2023.
Due to a lack of rigorous prosecution, the court dismissed the contentious lawsuit.
Through its attorney, Egwuaba Reuben, the PDP brought the Labour Party, the Young Progressives Party, and INEC before the court, pleading for the complete disqualification of their candidates for governor and National Assembly.
The PDP complained that the LP and YPP had not held primary elections prior to submitting the names of its candidates to the electoral authority.
PDP claimed specifically that the LP and YPP violated sections 29, 82, and 84 of the Electoral Act 2022 during their separate primaries that produced the candidates for the general elections in 2023.
PDP asserted, among other things, that the two parties did not provide INEC with the legally needed 21 days’ notice prior to executing each of their respective supposed selection processes.
In order to prove that the two parties never held primary elections to choose or nominate candidates whose names were allegedly published by INEC to run in the 2023 elections, PDP asked the court to issue a declaration.
The PDP asked the court to nullify the names of the two parties’ candidates that had been published in the lawsuit with the file number FHC/ABJ/CS/1899/2022, as well as to require INEC to remove the names of the candidates that had been published.
The party also requested a second order declaring the supposed primaries’ result sheets unlawful for being unconstitutional, illegitimate, and meaningless.
However, neither the PDP nor its attorney attended Monday’s sessions, and no excuse was given for their absence.
Following a request to have the lawsuit dismissed, Justice Inyang Edem Ekwo agreed that PDP had not handled the delicate case with due diligence.
The lawsuit was later dismissed by the judge, who also mandated that each party pay their own legal fees.
