Ondo 2020: APC chieftain asks court to disqualify Akeredolu

An APC chieftain, Mr Kalu Agu, has asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to disqualify the party and its governorship candidate, Akeredolu, from participating in the Ondo State governorship election.

The plaintiff, in the suit filed on October 9, 2020, and marked, FHC/ABJ/CS/736/2020, also urged the court to stop the party’s senatorial candidates for Lagos East, Mr Abiru Tokunbo, and Imo North, Mr Frank Ibezim, from participating in the bye-elections to hold in the states.

Agu, a youth leader of the party in Abuja, who had a pending suit challenging the dissolution of the Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee of the party on June 25, 2020, asked the court in his fresh suit to stop the party from fielding candidates for any election until the old suit challenging the disbandment of the NWC was determined.

The defendants sued by the plaintiffs include INEC, the APC, Chairman of the APC Caretaker Committee and Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni.

Others defendants are members of the caretaker committee which include Isiaka Oyebola, Ken Nnamani, Stella Okorete, Niger State Governor Sani Bello, Dr James Lalu, Senator Abubakar Yusuf, Akinyemi Olaide, David Leon, Prof Tahir Mamman, Ismail Ahmed, and Senator Akpan Udoedehe as the 1st to 14th respondents respectively.

The plaintiff, through his lawyer, Mr Ukpai Ukairo, claimed that the nomination of candidates for an election by law ought to be by no other person than the chairman and secretary of the party and not by a caretaker committee, which is currently running the APC.

He stated in an affidavit filed in support of the suit that “there is no lawful provision for a caretaker committee to run the affairs of a political party at all, including the 2nd defendant”.

He also averred that INEC did not receive any notice of primary election for the selection of APC’s candidates in the governorship election in Ondo as well as the senatorial bye-elections in Lagos and Imo states duly “signed by the National Chairman and Secretary of the 2nd defendant/respondent.”

He added that as of the time the caretaker committee was inaugurated by the National Executive Committee of the APC, the NWC had barely spent two years out of the four years it was elected to be in office.

In a separate motion, the plaintiff sought an interlocutory injunction pending the determination of the substantive suit restraining INEC from acting on any document submitted by the APC in relation to any election it was conducting as long as such documents were signed by the caretaker committee.

He further prayed the court for another order restraining INEC from placing the APC in the ballot for any election it is conducting, “or where already placed from ascribing any vote to the APC in so far as the names and particulars of any such candidate were submitted to INEC by or under the hands and signatures of the 3rd to 14th respondents.”

He also prayed the court to restrain INEC from ascribing any vote to Akeredolu, Tokunbo, and Ibezim in the governorship and senatorial elections respectively.