Ondo APC Gov. Rotimi Akeredolu on Monday lost his appeal at an appellate court in Abuja where the justice dismissed his stay of proceedings application in a case a governorship aspirant in the last election brought to challenge Akeredolu’s election.
Olusegun Abraham is seeking an order to nullify Akeredolu election, claiming the primaries that led to the governor’s candidacy were flawed.
Abraham, an anointed candidate of the APC leader Bola Tinubu, came second in the primaries.
He claimed an investigative committee set up by the APC confirmed the irregularities, and recommended a re-run.
The committee’s recommendation, however, polarised the party. The party chair, John Odigie-Oyegun, with the support of cliques from the presidency and southeast, backed Akeredolu, and insisted the process was fair enough.
Tinubu’s loyalists in the party, mainly from the southwest, were unable to turn the table. The party-wide crisis nearly pitted Tinubu against President Muhammadu Buhari who was there to campaign for Akerdolu to win the election.
Abraham had been in court ever before the guber election.
In October last year, the Federal High Court in Abuja presided over by Justice Nnamdi Dimgba, ruled that the application for interim injunction sought Abraham sough had merit.
The court then ordered Akeredolu to appear before it on October 28, 2016, but he appealed the ruling and also filed a stay of proceedings.
The appeal court however ruled that the appeal and the application for stay of proceeding lacked merit.
The court has now ordered the governor to put up a defence as one of the respondents to the suit, which is marked FHC/ABJ / CS/788/2016 at the Federal High Court in Abuja.
Abraham, excited after the ruling, said it was a quit notice to Akeredolu and his supporters, adding that Nigeria’s democracy is maturing.
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