BY Bolanle Olabimtan
The supreme court has affirmed Kefas Agbu as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Taraba state.
The apex court on Friday upheld the decision of the court of appeal sitting in Yola which dismissed two suits challenging the eligibility of Kefas to contest the party’s primary.
Dismissing the appeals filed by Hilkiah Buba-Joda, and Jerome Nyameh, two governorship aspirants, Emmanuel Agim, a judge, who read the lead judgment of the supreme court held that the contenders failed to explore internal party mechanisms to resolve the issues before heading to court.
Agim said the appellants were in breach of Sections 84 and 87(9) of the electoral act by failing to make use of the primary election dispute mechanism in the party’s guidelines.
The apex court also stated that the failure of the appellants to include other aspirants who took part in the primary at the early stages of the trial robbed them of the right to a fair hearing
Consequently, both appeals were dismissed for being premature and lacking in merit.
“In the light of this, both appeals were deemed premature and lacking in merit as they were instituted without exploring the internal party options to seek redress before heading to court,” Agim said.
“Failure of the appellants to include other aspirants who took part in the primary at the early stages of the trial robbed them of rights to a fair hearing.”
Agbu was declared the winner of the PDP governorship primary election which was held on May 25, after polling 443 votes out of the 517 votes cast.
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