By DADA AYOKHAI
All claimants to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP ticket in Edo State for the National and State Assemblies election for the 2023 elections will have to wait for the country’s apex court, Supreme Court to legitimatize their candidacies .
The decision to tarry a while and wait for the judgment of the Supreme Court on the matter is borne out of the inability of the Appeal Court to take a definitive stand on which of the disputing faction candidates should be recognised by the election umpire, INEC.
Recently, the Appeal Court sitting in Abuja gave a non-commital judgment in which it opined that the issue of party delegates is strictly an internal affair of a political party and, therefore, washed its hands off.
Observers have looked at the verdict and described it as neither here nor there because the amended 2022 electoral act stipulates the methods by which political parties can conduct their primaries, even as the same law also mandates INEC to monitor such exercises to ensure they comply substantially with the provisions of the law. By implication, therefore, any party primary held without the presence of an INEC official is an exercise in futility.
During the party’s primaries in June, it became most glaring that the PDP in Edo State was deeply factionalised as each faction held separate primaries which ended up producing different candidates for the same elective positions.
The Federal High Court in Abuja had previously ruled in favour of the Chief Dan Orbih’s faction and proceeded to accord recognition to the candidates who emerged therefrom.
With the INEC deadline for the submission of the list of the candidates for the various elections offices fixed for September 28, it is obvious that the two factions in the center of the battle for supremacy are in a race against time
At the heart of the intractable crisis is a battle of wits and ego between the former state party chairman, Chief Dan Orbih and the Governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki.
Each faction is staking claims to being the one “recognised” by the election umpire, INEC.
