Breaking: Court Delivers Final Judgment On Ize-Iyamu’s Edo APC Waiver

Edo High Court has ruled that the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nigeria’s ruling party, did no wrong in granting its Edo Governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, a waiver to contest its primary.

Naija News reports that Justice Emmanuel Ahamioje of Edo High Court 6 in Benin City, the Edo State capital, who delivered the judgment, dismissed the suit for lacking merit and he described the matter as an internal affair of APC

The presiding judge of Edo High Court 6 affirmed Ize-Iyamu as a duly registered member of APC in his ward, saying he was qualified for the waiver.

Kenneth Asekomhe a factional Deputy Chairman of Edo APC, Kenneth Asekomhe, who was expelled for anti-party activities by NWC of the party and three stalwarts of APC, Benjamin Oghumu, Mathew Ogbebor and Unweni Nosa, filed the suit.

Reports have it that the factional Deputy Chairman of the Edo APC and the three stalwarts of APC are all loyalists of Governor Godwin Obaseki who had since dumped the APC for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria’s main opposition party after he was disqualified for the Edo 2020 APC primary by the Screening Committee.

APC, its suspended National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Ize-Iyamu, who are defendants in the suit, insisted that the court had no jurisdiction to meddle in the internal affairs of the party, in line with the Constitution of APC.

Justice Ahamioje earlier refused to grant the exparte application by the allies of Obaseki, seeking to restrain APC from recognising the 2016 governorship candidate of the PDP (Ize-Iyamu), who defected to the party in December last year, as an aspirant on APC’s platform.