The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja removed a House of Representatives member, Micheal Enyong as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Akwa Ibom State.
Delivering judgement on Tuesday, Justice Hamma A. Barka, restored Umo Eno, a former Commissioner for Land.
Earlier, his nomination by the party was set aside by a Federal High Court in Abuja on January 20, 2023.
However, the appellate court upheld the appeal of the PDP and vacated all orders made by the Federal High Court judgement in favor of Michael Enyong.
Furthemore, the court ordered the House of Representatives member, representing Uyo Federal Constituency to pay a sum of one million naira to the appellant as cost of litigation.
The justice agreed with the counsel to the PDP, Paul Usoro SAN and Uwemedimo Nwoko SAN, that the Federal High Court’s judgement was delivered in error and that the court was misled by the plaintiff in the matter to arrive at an unjust conclusion.
On that grounds, the court voided the judgement of the Federal High Court and set it aside stating that it was predicated on errors.
Justice Barka also agreed with Usoro that only the National Working Committee of a political party had power to conduct primary elections for the purpose of nomination of candidates for general election.
The appellate court held that the issue of statutory delegates who voted at the primary election, was an internal affair of the party and that the lower court ought not to have inquired into the issue.
The appellate court further held that since the lower court had no jurisdiction to inquire into the internal affairs of PDP, the judge had no discretion in law to exercise in the matter.
