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Supreme Court Orders Fresh Trial At High Court

The crisis rocking the Ogun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has taken a different turn as the Supreme Court on Monday ordered a fresh trial of the case pertaining to the emergence of the party’s governorship candidate.

Naija News reports that the apex court ordered yesterday that the suit instituted by a PDP governorship aspirant, Jimi Lawal, be remitted to the Federal High Court for a fresh trial.

Justice Ibrahim Saulawa, in a judgment in the appeal of the Ogun PDP, said the Federal High Court was wrong in declining jurisdiction in the matter of Lawal.

Justice Saulawa, therefore, dismissed an appeal filed before it on the nomination of the party’s governorship candidate.

Naija News recalls that Lawal, who is a governorship aspirant in the May 25 governorship primary election of the PDP in the state had dragged the Ogun PDP to court to contest the process that produced Ladi Adebutu as the party’s governorship candidate for the 2023 general election.

Lawal had alleged that an unlawful delegate list was used by the party to conduct the election, and therefore prayed for the High Court to cancel the primary election and order for the conduct of another primary with the authentic ad hoc delegates.

But Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court, on July 29 declined to hear Lawal’s suit and dismissed it because she agreed that the primary election was a domestic affair of a political party.

Lawal further appealed the High Court’s judgement, praying for the Court of Appeal to void and set aside the judgement on the ground of miscarriage of justice.

In favour of Lawal, a three-person panel of justices of the Court of Appeal on September 30, set aside the High Court’s judgement and ordered that the suit be heard on its merits.

The Ogun PDP then appealed the judgement of the Court of Appeal at the Supreme Court, praying that the judgment of the Federal High Court be upheld to the effect that the conduct of the primary election was its domestic affair.

However, Naija News gathered that Justice Saulawa of the Supreme Court disagreed with the PDP, holding that by virtue of Section 285 of the 1999 Constitution and Section 84 of the Electoral Act of 2022, the Federal High Court had the power to hear Lawal’s case.

The court ordered the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court to reassign the case to another judge for retrial on its merits.

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