It was decided that the delegates who claimed to have lost their voting rights in the PDP primary could not file any legal complaints.
The Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDPlegal) battle for the governorship of Ogun State resulted in four appeals, which the Supreme Court dismissed.
Jimi Lawal, who was running for governor, and a few ward delegates tried to file appeals, but they were turned down because they didn’t have the right to do so.
After the lawyers who had filed the appeals dropped them, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun led a panel of five judges that threw them out.
One of the appeals, brought by Tayo Olabode against Oladipupo Adebutu, the PDP candidate for governor of Ogun, was dismissed because the delegates who brought the action lacked the legal authority to do so.
As they were not candidates in the election, it was agreed that the delegates who claimed to have been denied voting rights in the PDP primary that produced Adebutu could not file any legal claims against the primary.
The Supreme Court ruled that only an aspirant in a primary election held to nominate candidates for office, and not any other party member, may constitutionally dispute the results.
In a different appeal, which was based on the failure to serve the defendant with the originating summons, the court determined that because the aggrieved defendant was involved in the case from the beginning to the end, the problem of service was no longer relevant.
Tayo Olabode, who was in charge of a group of the ward delegates, claimed in a lawsuit on their behalf that they were denied the right to vote in the governorship primary.
He especially asked the court to throw out the Adebutu-producing primary election because it was run by people who shouldn’t have been there.
During the day’s sessions, the Justices asked the lawyers for the appellants a number of questions, but they didn’t like the answers they got.
Even though the ward delegates were angry, it was decided unanimously in open court that they had no right to argue about a primary election in which they had not run.
