On Monday, the Federal High Court in Jalingo, presided over by Justice Simon Amobeda, affirmed Lt. Col. Agbu Kefas (retd) as the People’s Democratic Party’s governorship candidate in the 2023 election.
The court ruled that the applicants could not prove their case against the defendant in a case filed by Prof. Jerome Nyameh and Hon. Hilkiah Buba Joda-Mafinda challenging his emergence as the party’s governorship candidate in a primary election held on May 17, 2022.
The plaintiffs who contested the primary election but lost to Agbu Kefas had approached the court challenging his emergence as the candidate, accusing him of violating Part Vii, Article 1 of the Electoral Guidelines for the Primary Elections of the PDP, having failed to resign as the state party chairman.
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The plaintiffs argued that Agbu Kefas only resigned six days before the election and many days after the screening of aspirants on April 28, when he was still the State Chairman of the PDP.
Earlier, the Court dismissed the application of the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Joseph Albasu Kunini seeking to be joined in the suit as an interested party.
The Court held that the Speaker was caught by section 285 of the Electoral Act which provided 14 days for an aggrieved party to file an action after the primary election.
“Having failed to do so, this application is statute-barred,” the court ruled.
