The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal by the Chief Dan Orbih faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State, arising from the conduct of the party’s primary elections.
A five-member panel of the apex court held that the appeal filed by Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama was incompetent having been hinged on issues that did not form part of the judgment of the Court of Appeal which he had appealed.
Justice Centus Nweze, in the lead judgment, held that an appeal must be based on issues contended at the lower court to qualify for a review.
Justice Nweze added: “Any ground of appeal that does not challenge issues raised at the lower court is incompetent. I enter judgment in favour of the respondents.”
The judgment in the appeal marked: SC/CV/1575/2022 was applied to about eight other Appeals relating to the dispute in Edo PDP over which faction conducted a valid primary, from which the party’s authentic candidates emerged.
With the dismissal of the Court of Appeal, the judgement of the trial court, which upheld that the primary election conducted by the Governor Godwin Obaseki faction, becomes extant.
The trial court had held among others, that the primary which produced the candidates of the Orbih faction was illegal, having been conducted by the state’s leadership of the party.
Justice S. M. Shuaibu of the Federal High Court in Benin held that only the National Working Committee (NWC) of a political party has the power to conduct party primaries.
Justice Shuaibu said: “There is nothing before the court to show that the primaries in which the fourth to 39th defendants participated was conducted by the National Working Committee of the PDP.
“Rather, their primaries were conducted by the Edo State chapter of the PDP.”
The judge added: “In my view, the power of INEC under Section 84 of the Electoral Act is limited to monitoring of party primary elections and does not extend to preparing or declaring the results of that election. This remains the law.
“In light of the foregoing, the fourth defendant, INEC, cannot rely on results prepared by the first defendant, Edo State PDP.”
On appeal to the Court of Appeal, the court dismissed the appeal filed by the Orbih for being incompetent on the grounds that the appellant failed to transmit the complete record of proceedings at the trial court,” which informed their appeals to the Supreme Court.
(Courtesy: The Nation, excluding headline)
