Court Reserves Judgement in Suit Determining Adebutu’s Candidature

The Presiding Judge of the Federal High Court sitting in Abeokuta, Justice Abubakar Shittu, has reserved judgement for Wednesday, March 6, 2019 in the suit filed by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against Senator Buruji Kashamu and others to determine whether the State or National executive of a political party is entitled by law to submit names of candidates to INEC for elections.

The suit when determined in favour of PDP will confirm the candidature Hon. Ladi Adebutu as the Ogun Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship flagbearer.

At about 11:30pm last Thursday, 21st February, 2019, the court adjourned further hearing on the matter till today, Monday, for parties to adopt their processes.

According to the judge, the court took the pain to listen to the matter up till the wee hour of the Thursday to forstall any further delay in the case. The judge discountenanced in strong terms the delay in delivery of judgement in the case.

At the resumption of hearing today, Counsel to Senator Buruji Kashamu argued that the current suit is an abuse of court process and window shopping, as similar court judgements had been obtained before.

Emeka Etiaba SAN who led Hon. Adebutu’s legal team discountenanced that the cases cited by the counsels to the defendants are not the same as subjects, and persons and issues of the current matter.

The National Secretariat of PDP had approached the court seeking to declare the primaries that produced Senator Buruji Kashamu and others enlisted by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as flagbearers of the party as null and void.

Ruling on the application today, the judge adjourned the sitting till March 6. He however noted that information would be passed to the counsels if the ruling would come earlier.

Signed
Afolabi Orekoya