Court consolidates INEC, PDP applications over Wammako’s candidacy

Lanre Adewole, Abuja - 16.05.2008

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Thursday consolidated the preliminary objections of both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) challenging a suit seeking to stop Aliyu Wammako as the candidate of PDP in the re-run governorship election in Sokoto State.

The Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) was asking the court to hold that the former governor was not qualified to be a candidate in the fresh election scheduled for May 24.

Wammako was removed from office by the Court of Appeal, which voided his election in the April 14, 2007 poll over the procedural error in his emergence as the candidate of the PDP.

Hearing, however, could not go on in the matter on Thursday, with the insistence of counsel to the respondents that he would not file any processes until the plaintiffs are through with their pleadings.

The plaintiffs were contending that since the Court of Appeal had held that “Wammako’s candidature was unlawful, it means that he was not a candidate in the April 14 election and cannot be a candidate in the re-run election since the lawful candidates are those ordered to participate in the fresh election.”

They were asking the court to declare that Wammako, by virtue of the judgment sacking him from office, could not be a candidate in the fresh election, which would also rob the PDP the opportunity of presenting a candidate for the election.

The plaintiffs also wanted the court to stop INEC from conducting the fresh election with Wammako as a candidate pending the determination of suit.

Co-respondents in the matter, PDP and INEC, were challenging the locus standi of the plaintiffs to bring the action.