By Raphael Okhiria
Again, the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, on Friday, affirmed Dr. Asue Ighodalo as the duly nominated and authentic governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State, dismissing the appeal against the PDP candidate regarding a forged voter’s card.
Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court had earlier dismissed the case by Arthur Esene and Anselm Ojezua for being statute-barred.
Justice Omotosho had held that not only did they fail to prove their claim that Ighodalo forged his voter’s card, but non-possession of voter’s card did not constitute a disqualifying factor under the Constitution and the Electoral Act to deny a candidate from contesting election.
In the lead judgment of the Court of Appeal on Friday, Justice Hamma Barka affirmed the judgment by Justice Omotosho and held that the suit filed before the Federal High Court by Ojezua and four others was filed out of time and was statute barred.
Delivering the judgement in the Appeal with case no, CA/ABJ/CV/863/2024, the Appeal Court ruled that the “suit was filed after the time limit and is therefore dismissed.”
According to Justice Hamma Barka, “Jurisdiction is a threshold issue and a pre-election suit filed after the 14-day limit and any breach (even by one day), means that the court is without jurisdiction.”
The Court further held that “Even on the merits, the court further held that the allegation of forgery was not proven at all by the Claimant as they woefully failed to prove the elements of the alleged forgery.”
Justice Barka therefore proceeded to strike out the appeal for being without merit and awarded N1 million costs each to PDP and Asue Ighodalo to be paid by the appellants.
With the ruling, all doubts and allegations surrounding the eligibility of Dr. Asue Ighodalo to contest for the September 21 governorship election have been cleared.
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