The last leg of the legal fireworks on who becomes the governorship candidate the Labour Party in Enugu State has commenced.
Everest Nnaji popularly known as Odengene, had gone to court to challenge the listing of Chijioke Edeoga as the candidate of the party in the 2023 general election by the Independent National Electoral Commission. The applicant said the party didn’t conduct any election in the state. He further argued that there was no notice anywhere either to him or the general public to show that the party conducted a primary election.
On November 9th, 2023, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja sacked Edeoga as the candidate of the Labour Party.
Justice Evelyn Maha of Court 11, Federal High Court, dismissed the primary election as a hoax and ordered the party to conduct a fresh primary election withing 14 days.
The court also agreed that only Odengene met all the requirements to be an aspirant should the Labour Party conduct any primary election as he had all the necessary documents to that effect.
Justice Maha, however, declined to declare the Nkanu-East born philanthropist winner of the election.
Dissatisfied with the ruling of the High Court, both Labour Party and Edeoga headed to the Appeal Court. While the case of Edeoga was dismissed by the court, the Appellate Court in the appeal by Labour Party, declared Edeoga the candidate of the Labour Party.
Odengene in pursuit of what has been described as miscarriage of justice, is in the Supreme Court, asking the apex Court to set aside the judgement of the appeal court and either declare him the candidate of the Labour Party or direct the party to conduct a fresh primary election with him as the sole aspirant.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday, fixed February 27th as the date to hear the Appeal by Nnaji.
Odengene is challenging the ruling of the appeal Court on three grounds.
On one of his grounds for appeal at the apex Court, Odengene said the judgement of the appeal court was made without hearing his brief. He said that he was served in his village and not his known regular address. This he said was cunning and made to achieve a particular objective because there’s no proof that he tried dodging service and the court bailiff didn’t swear affidavit.
He prayed the court to set aside the ruling of the appeal court because it was given without their brief after failing to serve them appropriately.
On the second ground of appeal, Odengene prayed the apex court to declare him the candidate of the party based on the judgment of the lower court. The Federal High Court said the evidence before it shows that Nnaji is the only aspirant for the Labour Party governorship ticket as he was the only one that purchased the necessary forms and made the required payments. Odengene is insisting that if the Trial court agrees he was the only one that qualifies to aspire for the candidate of the party, the apex court should either declare him the candidate of mandate the party to conduct an affirmative primary election for him.
He’s praying the apex court to consider this as it wasn’t considered by the appeal court because it was in their brief and the judgment was given without it.
The final appeal is that the apex court should set aside the judgement of the appeal court because they didn’t give them enough time to file their brief because the process through which they were served was faulty.
