Court Strikes Out Suit Against Obanikoro
Justice Kazeem Alogba of a Lagos State High Court in Ikeja, on Thursday, strikes out a suit meant to bar Sen. Musiliu Obanikoro, from contesting for any electoral office in Nigeria.
Sen. Obanikoro was recently appointed the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs II by President Goodluck Jonathan.
The suit, which was filed by three members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was dismissed by the judge base on the fact that the basis of the summons lacked merit and was defective.
The suit was filed on November 2014 by Babatunde Ogun, Suleiman Saheed and Wasiu Adeniyi Odusan; all PDP members.
Joined in the suit as respondents were the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the PDP.
The ex parte motion which sought to stop Sen. Obanikoro from taking part in the PDP Lagos governorship primaries, which was eventually won by Mr. Jimi Agbaje, had already been dismissed by the court earlier.
However, moving the substantive application, the plaintiffs’ counsel, Mr. Wahab Shittu, argued that Obanikoro was not eligible to contest for any political position in Nigeria.
He said this was based on the provision of Paragraph 4 (a) of Part iv of the Electoral Guidelines for primary Elections, 2014 of the INEC.
It was alleged that the former Minister of State for Defence has dual citizenship and also presented a forged birth certificate to the INEC in December 2006.
Justice Alogba, in his ruling, held that the originating summons lacked admissible evidence because all the documents tendered by the applicants were not certified true copies.
