The Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly, Hon. Kabiru Adjoto yesterday lost his bid to claim the House of Representatives ticket for Akoko-Edo federal constituency as the Federal High Court sitting in Benin City said he did not exhaust internal mechanism of the All Progressives Congress (APC) before going to the court.
In his ruling, Justice Mukta Garba Umar struck out the case for lack of jurisdiction by the court and awarded the cost of N50,000 against Adjoto who said he was going to challenge the case at the Court of Appeal.
His counsel, Dele Igbinedion, said that the trial judge did not look at the merit of the case and said he was optimistic that the Court of Appeal would upturn the ruling of the lower court.
Read Also:
“The APC has 14 days for a complainant to file his case before a panel to look into its primaries and then within the same appeal to the National Working Committee, how is this possible and the judge did not look at the merit of the case. We are going to appeal the judgment and the Court of Appeal will do the right thing,” ge said.
He ruled that office of the national chairman of the party where Adjoto lodged his complaints is the same as the National Working Committee where the party’s constitution said appeals against the outcome of primaries should be lodged.
Adjoto had approached the Federal High Court Benin on October 19 last year challenging the alleged unlawful substitution of his name as Akoko-Edo federal constituency candidate of the APC in the 2019 National Assembly election.
