By METROWATCH Reporter
The Chief Dan Orbih-led legacy group of the Edo State chapter of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has been declared authentic group to submit list of candidates for the state house of Assembly and the National Assembly elections.
The Court ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC to Recognise only candidates that emerged from the primaries it Monitored.
This pronouncement was made by Justice Inyang Ekwo of Federal High Court 5, Abuja.
Justice Ekwo had struck out the preliminary objections raised by Gov. Godwin Obaseki’s faction of the Party for lack of merit.
In the substantive matters, the Justice Ekwo said that all evidences show that the primaries held by Dan Orbih’s faction were duly monitored by INEC as organized by the PDP.
Justice Ekwo affirmed that the Obaseki’s faction had no documented evidence that their primaries were monitored by INEC which is a vital aspect of the New Electoral Act, 2022.
He then made a declaration that INEC must only recognize the candidates produced from the primaries of PDP which they monitored.
The implications of this is that the candidates of the Legacy PDP are and remain the authentic candidates for the 2023 general elections.
At the time of this JUDGEMENT, the Obaseki Group had no valid JUDGEMENT as the Federal High Court JUDGEMENT in Benin had been struck out by the Appeal Court in Benin on the 23rd November, 2022.
