The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has approached a Federal High Court in Abuja seeking the dismissal of a suit filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for his disqualification from the 2023 presidential election.
VANTAGE NEWS had reported that the PDP had filed a suit seeking the disqualification of Obi and the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Party (APC), Bola Tinubu for nominating Doyin Okupe and Ibrahim Masari as vice presidential placeholders respectively.
The PDP had dragged Obi to court over his decision to replace Okupe with Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed as his running mate for the 2023 election.
VANTAGE NEWS reports that the PDP had asked the court to bar the LP presidential candidate from replacing Okupe.
Counsel to Obi and Okupe, Alex Ejesieme (SAN), while responding, prayed the court to dismiss the suit of the PDP on four grounds.
He said, “The plaintiff has not disclosed any reasonable cause of action to activate the jurisdiction of this court. The subject matter of the plaintiff’s suit is not situated within the jurisdictional confines of the Federal High Court. The plaintiff’s suit is a gross abuse of court process.”
Ejesieme added that, “Assuming it is established that the 3rd (Tinubu) and 6th (Obi) defendants did indeed make media publications indicating the alleged placeholder status of the 4th (Kabiru Madari) and 7th (Okupe) defendants, does that in its own right constitute a wrongdoing sufficient to activate the cause of action on the plaintiff?
“Is the conduct of the elections for which the defendants are to contest in, bound by the statements made in the media? Obviously not, my lord.”
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