By Ozioruva Aliu

BENIN CITY – AN aspirant in the Labour Party (LP), Kenneth Imanusagbon has dragged the candidate of the party, Olumide Akpata, the party and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to the Court of Appeal over the decision of the Federal High Court in Benin City and another in Abuja that nullified Imansuagbon’s challenge of the party’s governorship primary election that produced Akpata as the candidate of the party.

In the notice before the Appellate Court Abuja with suit no FHC/ABJ/CS/472/2024, Imansuangbon stated that the trial judge in the Abuja case “erred in law and arrived at a perverse decision occasioning a miscarriage of justice to the plaintiff/appellant when he dismissed the plaintiff/appellant’s suit on the strength of the 1st defendant/respondent’s contention in his preliminary objection at the lower court.

“That the suit was statute-barred, without considering Section 285(13A) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (fifth alteration) act, (No. 10), 2023, to which the attention of the lower court was drawn at the hearing of the suit.

Particulars of the ground being that “the learned trial judge found as a fact in his decision that the letter forwarding the personal particulars of the 1st and 2nd defendants/respondents as in INEC Form EC9 to 4th defendant/respondent(the Independent National Electoral Commission) was received by the 4th defendant/respondent on the 24th of March, 2024.”

Also, that “the learned trial judge further found as a fact that the commencement date of computation thereof, of time allowed for filling of pre-election matters in the circumstance, was the 24th of March, 2024.

“A simple arithmetical computation of the 14 days provided for under the law, from the date of submission of the said INEC Form EC9 of the 1st and 2nd defendants/respondents(that’s 24th of March, 2024), to the 12th of April, 2024, when the plaintiff/appellant filed his suit, reveals a total number of 18 days in between.”

Imansuangbon is seeking an order allowing the appeal and setting aside the decision of the lower court, an order directing the LP to immediately issue a certificate of return to him as the winner of the primary election organized on Friday, 23rd February, 2024.

Also challenging the ruling by the Federal High Court, Benin in the notice of appeal with suit no. FHC/ABJ/CS/472/2024, Imansuangbon set his appeal on nine grounds which include among others that “the learned trial judge erred in law when he failed, refused and or neglected to consider, pronounce upon, decide, one way or the other, the 1st defendant’s motion/application for extension of time to file his responsive processes to the originating summons which the plaintiff/appellant ferociously or vehemently opposed on the strength of the constitutional provision prohibiting extension of time in election related cases and thereby breached the plaintiff/appellant’s right to fair hearing.”

Reliefs that Imansuangbon seeks include an order setting aside the decision of the lower court, an order striking out all the processes filed by the defendants.