Obaseki’s Edo PDP Faction Win Supreme Court Judgement

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court dismissed Dan Orbih’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) faction’s appeal, which sought to challenge the party primaries that produced the current Edo state governor, Godwin Obaseki.

Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama’s appeal against the emergence of Godwin Obaseki was declared inadmissible by a five-judge court panel because it was founded on justifications unrelated to the Court of Appeal ruling he had appealed.

Justice Centus Nweze observed in the main judgment that an appeal must be based on grounds presented to the lower court for it to be eligible for review.

According to Justice Nweze, any appeal reason that doesn’t address issues raised by the lower court is ineffective. Hence, he rendered a decision in favor of the respondents.

“Any ground of appeal that does not challenge issues raised at the lower court is incompetent. I enter judgment in favor of the respondents”, the judge declared.

Around eight other appeals were affected by the appeal marked SC/CV/1575/2022, which dealt with the disagreement within the Edo PDP over which group staged an official primary where the party’s actual candidates were picked.

The trial court’s ruling upholding the primary election held by the Governor Obaseki group becomes definitive with the Court of Appeal’s dismissal.

The primary that produced the candidates for the Orbih faction was declared illegal by the trial court among other things because it was overseen by the party’s state leadership.

Party primaries can only be planned by a political party’s National Working Committee (NWC), according to Justice S. M. Shuaibu of the Federal High Court in Benin.