With barely two weeks after the Peoples Democratic Party primaries held in Minna, the Niger State capital, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Monday struck out a suit filed by one of the gubernatorial aspirants, Hannafi S. Sudan, who contested and lost in the primaries of December 8, 2014.
The court turned down the request by the plaintiff (Hannafi Sudan) for a restraining order against the submission of the name of Alhaji Umar Mohammed Nasko, who won the primaries, to the Independent National Electoral Commission as the candidate of the PDP in the 2015 governorship election for Niger State.
In its ruling, the court, presided over by Justice Ahmed Mohammed, held that neither the plaintiff nor his agent raised objection to the electoral process as announced by the electoral panel at the time of the conduct of the election.
That on the counter affidavit deposited by the agent to Nasko, it was clear that in the 57 votes garnered by the plaintiff (Hannafi S. Sudan), the delegates gave their ballot paper to his (plaintiff’s) agent to write his name for them and those ballots were subsequently counted as valid and in his favour.
In view of these, the court then ruled that the prayer by the plaintiff seeking to strip Nasko of the right to contest as the duly elected candidate of the PDP in Niger State governorship election in 2015 is thrown out.
In the same light, the plea to the court to declare him (Hannafi S. Sudan) as the duly elected candidate of the PDP in the December 8, 2014 primaries was turned down.
The court then directed that the PDP should forward the name of Nasko to INEC as its candidate for the governorship election in Niger State in 2015.
In a swift reaction, Nasko said: “This judgement couldn’t have come at a better time than now.
“It further strengthens our believe in the judiciary and the rule of law.”
He then called on his co-contestants to join hands with him so as to win the election with a landslide in February 2015.