The Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, late Friday, dismissed an application by Hon. Chijioke Edeoga, a 2023 governorship aspirant in Enugu State on the platform of the Labour Party seeking to be joined as an interested party in the appeal case brought by Labour Party challenging an earlier judgement by a lower court, which nullified a purported gubernatorial primary held on August 4, 2022 by the party.

The primary election of Labour Party produced Edeoga as the candidate of the party.

In its judgement delivered at exactly 5:25 pm on Friday, December 30th, 2022 in concurrent agreement by a 3-man panel of judges led by Justice Zama Senchi, of the Court of Appeal, ruled that Edeoga’s application was “incompetent” and “time barred”, and therefore an “academic exercise”.

Edeoga’s application was made on December 2nd, 2022, which is a period of 10 days outside section 205 of the Electoral Act which stated that Appeals on such matter should be made within 14 days of the initial judgement which was, in this case, delivered on Wednesday November 9, 2022.

The judge added that no court in Nigeria has power to grant the prayer of Edeoga, in the sense that his appeal did not comply with the requisite time limit provided by the extant electoral law.

He specifically stated in the ruling that Edeoga brought his application 10 days later after the 14 days period allowed by the electoral law had elapsed.

Therefore, the application, according to the court, came 24 days after the appropriate period allowed by law, which makes Edeoga’s prayer statute barred and therefore incompetent.

The court in rejecting Edeoga’s application for leave, also said the applicant failed to attach the certified true copy (CTC) of the decision of the trial court at the lower court and that this failure had rendered his application as lacking in merit and incompetent to appeal to the court as an interested party in the Labour Party’s Appeal case.

The judge quoted an earlier Supreme Court ruling in similar case and circumstance which described such late application/appeal as legally ultra vires, incompetent, statute barred and a mere academic voyage.

Justice Senchi however informed the court that his two other co-panel of judges (Justice Tsamani and Justice Williams) who were absent from the judgement proceedings, sent in their contributions affirming the judgement. He also directed the parties concerned to obtain the details of the judgement subsequently from the court.

The Street Reporters Newspaper recalls that a Federal High Court, Abuja, presided over by Justice Maha, had on Wednesday November 9, 2022 in a suit filed by a major guber aspirant in the Labour Party, Chief Evarest Nnaji (popularly known as Odengene) challenging the purported primary conducted by the party in Enugu State on August 4, 2022, ruled that the evidences before it shows that there was no valid governorship primary held by Labour Party involving the aspirants and consequently ordered a fresh primary to be conducted by the party within 14 days of that judgement.

The said controversial governorship primary affirmed Hon. Chijioke Edeoga as the candidate of Labour Party for the governorship election in Enugu State in March 2023 guber poll.

But apparently dissatisfied with what he was convinced was a kangaroo primary exercise in which he was surreptitiously schemmed out from participation, Chief Everest Nnaji (aka Odengene) first approached the High Court in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, to protest the action of Labour Party on the basis of injustice against him but later abandoned it for the Federal High Court Abuja, on August 16.

Nnaji, among his reliefs sought in court, urged the Abuja Federal High Court to declare him as the bonafide guber candidate of Labour Party in Enugu State, claiming that Chijioke Edeoga was a kind of interloper who is not a valid aspirant in the party for the 2023 guber election.

He insists that the court should declare him as the authentic and validly nominated Labour Party’s consensus governorship candidate in Enugu State.

Nnaji also asked the Federal High Court to declare that Labour Party be stopped from submitting the name of any other person other than his to INEC as the candidate of the party.

He equally prayed the court to declare that the Enugu State Labour Party gubernatorial primary purportedly conducted on August 4, 2022 is null, void and of no effect whatsoever.

Another relief Nnaji sought, is a court declaration that INEC should accord him recognition, deal only with him and publish his name as the authentic and validly nominated Labour Party’s governorship candidate, and, an order directing the party to submit his name to INEC as gubernatorial candidate of the Party; an order directing INEC to accept and recognise him forthwith as the gubernatorial candidate of the Party.

Also, he sought for an Order of injunction restraining Labour Party from submitting any name other his name to INEC as the gubernatorial candidate of the party.

Part of Nnaji’s reliefs also included an Order of Injunction restraining INEC from accepting, acting on, according recognition to, or in any way or manner dealing with any person other than him as the gubernatorial candidate of the Party. In the alternative, he urged the court to issue an order directing Labour Party to conduct a fresh gubernatorial primary election in Enugu State within a reasonable time from the date of the order, at which he (Everest Nnaji) and other eligible aspirants in the party shall participate and contest for the gubernatorial candidacy of the party.

Chief Nnaji, however, swore in his supporting affidavit, that Labour Party had assured him that a payment N25 million by him for the expression of interest, nomination form and waiver, would guarantee him a sure status privilege of a consensus candidate of the party in the Enugu State gubernatorial race.

He informed the court that he indeed paid the N25 million to Labour Party on July 13, 2022, which was a fulfillment of all the requisite conditions for that consensus deal.

He told the court that Labour Party promised/assured him that “the Party would conduct a primary election for me, at which I will be declared as the consensus candidate.”

Nnaji equally stated to the court that despite his agreements with the party, he was utterly surprised when on August 5, 2022, news on the radio reached him that Labour Party had purportedly conducted a gubernatorial primary election for Enugu State the previous day, on August 4, 2022.

Nnaji told the court that he had to quickly contact the Enugu State secretariat of the party to verify the news and confirmed it to be true.

He told the court that the Party held the primary “without any prior notice publicly published or given to me and thereby excluded me from participating in the primary, despite having issued me INEC Nomination form.”

Nnaji enjoined the court that granting the reliefs he sought “will enhance internal democracy in Labour Party and accord with the dictates of the rule of law.”

However, on Wednesday November 9, 2022, Justice Maha delivered a judgement ordering a fresh guber primary to be conducted by Labour Party within 14 days of her judgement.

Reacting swiftly to that judgment by the Abuja Federal High Court same November 9, an elated Chief Evarest Nnaji (Odengene) described the judgement as nothing more than a “triumph of truth over trick”.

He pointed out that the judgement was “well considered” and that the “judiciary has not only reaffirmed itself as agents of truth and justice, but as the ultimate hope of the unjustly treated and defender of our fledgling democracy”.

Nnaji continued: “I have always had a strong faith in the judiciary, it was this faith that inspired me to seek redress against the travesty that defined the process leading to the Party primaries in which I was wrongfully excluded.

“The outcome of the case we brought against Labour Party and INEC is a manifestation of the determination of the judiciary to bring sanity to our democratic process and make it more transparent and credible.

“It is in the overall interest of our nation, that political parties at all levels, should adhere to internal democracy, laid down party rules and guidelines.

“By virtue of the need to promote and entrench justice and fair play in our democratic process, I sincerely encourage all parties to the case, to view the outcome, not as an individual set back, but as an opportunity to discard wrong and do what is right in the eyes of the law and before God”, Odengene said.

However, in a clear disagreement with the November 9, 2022 Federal High Court judgement ordering a fresh primary, the Labour Party appealed the ruling at the Abuja Division of the Appeal Court, basing its arguments on what it’s Counsel told the Appellate Court was “father Christmas” on the part of the lower court which Labour Party claimed awarded a relief not sought for Chief Evarest Nnaji.

In a counter legal tackle, Nnaji
(aka Odengene) also approached the Appeal Court with a cross appeal of four (4) pleas, prominent among which is that, since the lower court of competent jurisdiction (Federal High Court, Abuja) had acknowledged in it’s November 9, 2022 judgement that the man who was said to be parading himself (Hon Chijioke Edeoga) as the authentic product of the contentious primary (governorship candidate of Labour Party) was not a valid aspirant for the party’s governorship race in Enugu State, he (Nnaji) (ought to have been declared by the court in that pronouncement as the only aspirant for the rescheduled primary.