Monday, 22 December 2014

GOV PRIMARY: PDP REPLIES OBANIKORO TUESDAY.

The Peoples Democratic Party is expected at a Federal High Court in Abuja on Tuesday to respond to the suit ‎filed by a former Minister of State for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, challenging the conduct of the party's governorship primary election held in Lagos state on December 8.
‎Obanikoro with 343 votes came second behind Mr. Jimi Agbaje who polled 432 votes to clinch the party's ticket. Three other aspirants participated in the poll.
But the former minster is through his suit filed on December 15, 2014, urging the court to nullify the primaries and order a fresh one to be conducted on the grounds of alleged electoral irregularities that marred the primary.
He accused a PDP leader in the state, Chief Olabode George, and Agbaje, of recruiting armed thugs to disrupt the primary and took advantage of the situation.
‎It was learnt on Monday that the PDP had filed its counter-affidavit in opposition to Obanikoro's suit but the documents, as of the time of filing this report, could not be obtained by our correspondent.
The former minister alleged in his suit that the election was marred by electoral irregularities such as over-voting, intimidation of his delegates by thugs loyal to George and Agbaje as well as improper accreditation of delegates.

He said, "there were 806 delegates accredited for the primary but surprisingly from the 806 accredited delegates, the electoral officers returned a total number of 866 votes."
He added that the accreditation of delegates which ought to last between 8am and 12noon as stipulated by the Electoral Guidelines published by the PDP, did not start until  6.30pm.
The presiding judge, Justice Ahmed Mohammed, had on December 17 asked the PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission to appear in court on Tuesday to show cause why the court should not grant an interim order restraining them from sending or accepting Agbaje's name as the party's governorship candidate in Lagos State.
The court gave the directive after Obanikoro's counsel, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), moved an ex parte application, to ask the court to grant an interim restraining order against the two defendants.

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