A Federal High Court has, on Tuesday, sacked the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the forthcoming House of Representatives election, Hon. Bode Ayorinde.
Ayorinde is the incumbent member of the House of Representatives, representing Owo/Ose Federal Constituency of Ondo State.
The presiding judge, Justice Abdul Dogo, in his judgement, ordered the National Secretariat of the PDP to remove Ayorinde’ s name as the candidate of the party.
Justice Dogo ordered that the name of Mr. Sodiq Obanoyen be forwarded to the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] as the rightful candidate.
Obanoyen, who defected from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) last year was declared winner of the House of Representatives primary in the Owo/Ose Federal constituency.
During the primary which held in Owo in October, 2018, Obanoyen reportedly scored 107 votes while Ayorinde polled 73 votes.
However, the party sent Ayorinde’s name to the INEC as the party’s candidate for the election and disqualified Obanoyen.
Obanoyen, however, challenged the action of the party at the court with PDP, chairman of Ondo State PDP, Clement Faboyede, Ayorinde and INEC as first, second, third and fourth defendants respectively.
Ruling, Justice Dogo struck out the prayers of the first and third defendants for lack of merit.
The court also held that the plaintiff duly tendered his resignation letter before obtaining the form and thereby qualified to contest the election.
He said: “The first defendant ( PDP) is hereby ordered to forward the name of the plaintiff to the fourth defendant as the candidate of the first defendant in the election.
“Also, the third defendant ( Ayorinde) is hereby restrained from parading himself as the candidate of the first defendant in the election.
“The fourth defendant is hereby restrained from recognising the third defendant as the candidate of the first defendant in the election.”
Counsel to Ayorinde, Barrister Tolu Babaleye, meanwhile, hinted that his client might appeal the judgement.
