Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of Osun State on Thursday got a huge relief as the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja dismissed a suit seeking his disqualification of as candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the July 16 governorship election in the state.
The presiding Judge of the federal high court, Justice Inyang Ekwo, in his judgement, dismissed the disqualification suit on technical ground, declaring that the plaintiff, Moshood Adeoti, failed to support the process with relevant laws, and therefore, showed no cause of action in the suit, noting that this makes it a gross abuse of court process.
Justice Inyang maintained that the suit falls outside the scope of section 87(9) of the Electoral Act and Section 22 of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
Adeoti a governorship aspirant in the Osun APC lost to Governor Oyetola at the governorship primary election on February 19.
Adeoti in the disqualification suit against Oyetoal filed through his legal team led by Chiesonu Okpoko, SAN, requested the court in the originating summons, to nullify Oyetola’s candidacy on the grounds that the governor contested in the primary as a member of the party’s Caretaker Extraordinary and Convention Planning Committee (CECPC). He argued that this contravened the provisions of Section 222 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) and Article 31(iii) of the APC, October 2014 (as amended).
He had also argued that the governor ought to have resigned his membership of the APC’s CECPC and leave office as an officer of APC at least 30 days before the date of the Osun State primary election, to qualify for participation in the primary election.
Meanwhile, the judgment of the court has cleared the coast for Oyetola to concentrate on the Saturday governorship election.