Court Sacks Delta Senator-elect, Nwaoboshi

A Federal High Court in Abuja yesterday sacked the Senator-elect representing Delta North senatorial district, Peter Nwaoboshi.

But in a swift reaction, Nwaoboshi has appealed to his teeming supporters and the people of Delta North to remain calm in the face of what he described as judicial rascality that would not stand the test of time when appealed against.

Justice Ahmed Mohammed in a judgment delivered held that Nwaoboshi who is a serving senator was not the winner of the October 2, 2018 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primary held to select candidate for the 2019 general election.

Justice Mohammed subsequently ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to publish the name of Ned Nwoko as candidate of the PDP, having established that Nwoko scored majority of the lawful votes at the primary election.

The court also ordered Nwaoboshi to stop parading himself as the candidate of the PDP for the senatorial zone.

Nwoko through his counsel Ahmed Raji (SAN), had dragged INEC, PDP and the senator before the court praying for an order to stop INEC from publishing or further publishing the name of Senator Nwaoboshi as the candidate for Delta North senatorial district.

Nwoko also asked for another order compelling the PDP to forward his name to INEC as the authentic candidate of the party for the senatorial district in the 2019 general election.

The plaintiff who predicated his suit on seven grounds, which were supported by a 20-paragraph affidavit evidence and five exhibits, claimed that he was screened and cleared for the Delta North senatorial district by the PDP Electoral Committee.

He claimed among other things, that at the end of the primary election, he scored 453 votes to defeat his closest rival, Nwaoboshi who scored 405 while Paul Osaji came third with 216 votes.

Nwoko, however, claimed that to his surprise, the PDP jettissoned the result of the primary election and forwarded Nwaoboshi’s name as its candidate for the senatorial district.

He disclosed that all efforts to redress the injustice through the party’s appeal panel were unsuccessful. In their defence, the respondents faulted the suit of the plaintiff on the grounds that it was statute-barred since it was not filed within the 14 days provided for by law.

They also claimed that the suit constituted an abuse of court process since the plaintiff had earlier filed a similar suit at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, which was struck out.