By Nahum Sule Taraba State Correspondent, in Jalingo)
Nigeria's apex court, the Supreme Court of Nigeria, on Friday, explained the legal grounds upon which it affirmed Col. Kefas Agbu as the authentic governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Taraba state.
Delivering the court's judgement, the lead panel judge, Justice Emmanuel Egim, held that the appellants acted in breach of Sections 84 and 87(9) of the Electoral Act by failing to make use of the primary election dispute mechanism as contained in the party’s guidelines.
Egim also stated that both appeals were deemed premature and lacking in merit as they were instituted without exploring the internal party options to seek redress before heading to the court.
The Supreme court dismissed the suit seeking disqualification of Col. Kefas Agbu as the governorship candidate of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state.
Agbu's challenger, Professor Jerome Nyameh had taken the Supreme Court victor, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the PDP to court on the grounds that Agbu was not qualified to participate in the May 25, 2022 governorship primary election of the party.
Nyameh, who was also a governorship aspirant of the party, had urged the court to disqualify the party’s candidate on the grounds that he was the party’s state chairman before the primary.
The judgment of the apex court put on by Justice Emmanuel Agim kept to the decision of the Court of Appeal sitting in Yola, Adamawa state that dismissed two different suits challenging the eligibility of Kefas to contest the governorship primary election of the PDP in Taraba state.
The twin appeals dismissed by the apex Court were those by two contenders for the governorship ticket, Hilkiah Buba-Joda, and Jerome Nyameh. NNL.