Court sacks Ondo lawmaker as PDP candidate

A Federal High Court, Akure, has ordered a member of the House of Representatives, Bode Ayorinde, to stop parading himself as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the forthcoming National Assembly election.

Ayorinde, who was until last year a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), had defected to the PDP represents Owo/Ose Federal Constituency of Ondo State.

The court ordered the PDP National Secretariat to remove Ayorinde’s name and replace same with the name of Mr. Sodiq Obanoyen and then forward it to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the authentic candidate of the party.

Obanoyen, who was said to have won the House of Representatives primary in the Owo/Ose Federal constituency, held in Owo in October, 2018, had scored 107 votes while Ayorinde polled 73 votes.

Accordingly, the PDP had sent Ayorinde’s name to the INEC as the party’s candidate for the election, while it disqualified Obanoyen.

Obanoyen however challenged the action of the party at the court.

Defendants are the PDP, the chairman of the Ondo State PDP Clement Faboyede, Ayorinde and the INEC as first, second, third and fourth defendants.

Counsel to the third defendant ( Ayorinde), Mr. Tolu Babaleye, in one of his prayers, asked the court to uphold the disqualification of the plaintiff on the grounds that the Obanoyen did not resign his appointment as a legislative aide to the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekeremadu before obtaining the form to contest,saying the action was said to be against the party’s election guidelines.

The plaintiff’s legal team, led by Remi Olatubora, however, presented the evidence that showed the appropriate resignation of its client to the court.

Delivering judgment, Justice Abdul Dogo struck out the prayers of the first and third defendants for lack of merit and held that the plaintiff duly tendered his resignation letter before obtaining the form and thereby qualified to contest the election.

“The first defendant (PDP) is hereby ordered to forward the name of the plaintiff to the fourth defendant as the candidate of the first defendant in the election.

“Also, the third defendant (Ayorinde) is hereby restrained from parading himself as the candidate of the first defendant in the election.

” The fourth defendant is hereby restrained from recognising the third defendant as the candidate of the first defendant in the election”, the Judge said.

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