ASABA/Nigeria: Senator Ned Nwoko’s legal challenge against the emergence of former Delta State Governor, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the Delta North Senatorial District election has suffered a major setback after a Federal High Court in Abuja struck out the case.
Justice Mohammed Umar, in a ruling delivered on Monday, held that the suit was incompetent from the outset because it was not personally instituted by Nwoko as required under Nigeria’s electoral laws.
The senator had asked the court to invalidate Okowa’s emergence as the APC candidate, naming the party, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the former governor as defendants.
However, the court found that the action was initiated through an attorney acting on Nwoko’s behalf rather than by the senator himself, a procedure the judge ruled was inconsistent with constitutional provisions governing pre-election disputes.
An attempt by Nwoko to amend the court processes and regularise the action was also rejected. Justice Umar held that a defective originating process could not be corrected after filing, maintaining that only a competent suit can be amended.
The court further held that the right to institute a pre-election action belongs solely to an aspirant who participated in the party primary and cannot be delegated to an attorney or representative.
With the application to amend dismissed, the court struck out the substantive suit for lack of jurisdiction, leaving Okowa’s emergence as the APC’s Delta North senatorial candidate unchallenged before the Federal High Court.
