Appeal Court dismisses Omo-Agege’s application

A Court of Appeal sitting in Benin on Friday dismissed an application for joinder filed by Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, for the Delta APC annulment judgment for lack of merit.

Omo-Agege is the Senator representing Delta Central Senatorial District.

The Court also struck out an application for joinder by the lawmaker-elect for Ughelli North, South and Udu Federal Constituency, Francis Waive.

Omo-Agege and Waive had approached the Court for leave to be joined as parties to the suit in which the Federal High Court, sitting in Asaba, sacked the Jones Erue-led APC State Executive Committee, which conducted primaries where both of them emerged as candidates of the party for the 2019 National Assembly election.

In a unanimously decision read by Justice Philomena Mbua Ekpe, the court ruled that both applications filed by Omo-Agege and Waive lacked merit and subsequently dismissed the case with a fine of N300, 000 against the appellants (Omo-Agege and Waive).

The Appeal Court said the plaintiffs could not claim to be unaware of the case, hence they could not seek to be joined or challenged the judgement, at this moment.

The Court held that only Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) that were parties to the case could bring an application to appeal the Asaba Federal High Court annulment judgment.

Recall that Omo-Agege and Waive had through their Counsel, Alex Iziyon, SAN, while seeking the leave of the court to appeal the judgement, filed an exparte motion which was granted to enable them serve Chief Cyril Ogodo by pasting service at the state party secretariat in Asaba.

The Federal High Court 1, Asaba, in its March 18, 2019, judgement delivered by Justice Toyin Adegoke, sacked the Jones Erue-led State Executive Committee, and upheld the Cyril Ogodo faction as the authentic party’s State Executive Committee.

The court also in its judgement annulled all actions taken by the sacked Jones Erue-led executive committee, including party primaries and the list of candidates which emerged from their factional primaries declaring it null and void.