2023: Support Groups Jubilate As Court Clears Akwa Ibom PDP Candidates

Ahead of the forthcoming 2023 general elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Akwa Ibom State has been thrown into jubilant mood, as a Federal High Court in Abuja, on Thursday, gave the party’s governorship candidate, Pastor Umo Eno, and other contestants for various positions, a clean bill of health to contest the elections.

The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, presided over by Justice O. A. Egwuata, affirmed that the primary elections that produced Eno and all PDP candidates in the State were valid and in line with both the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the Electoral Act 2022.

Delivering the judgement in suit No; FHC/ABJ/CS/750/2022, which had Jeremiah Otu Inyang, Moses Akpanusoh and Umoffia Monday Peter as Plaintiffs, with INEC, PDP, Rt. Hon. Ekong Sampson, Hon Aniekan Umanah and Rt. Hon. Kufre Edidem as Defendants, the court held that the case was “baseless on the basis that it was an internal affair of the party and the Plaintiffs were neither accommodated under the narrow confines of Section 251 of the Constitution nor under Section 84(14) of the Electoral Act, 2022.”

According to the particulars of the case, the Plaintiffs had, among others, asked the court to “nullify all PDP primaries which nominated all its candidates in Akwa Ibom State on the ground, inter alia, that Statutory Delegates were not allowed to participate in the primaries.”

But the court rejected the position of the Plaintiffs.

Meanwhile, a Coalition of several political groups has reckindled its faith in the ruling PDP, assuring that it was in a better position to retain the State in 2023.

Describing the judgement as “victory for democracy, justice and equity”, the leader of the new coalition group, Alliance for Sustainable Peace In Akwa Ibom (ASPA), Comrade Akan Williams, urged party supporters to be in the vanguard of “maintaining peace through PDP in Akwa Ibom.”

“The plot was designed to fail and it has failed. Now is the time to reposition the party along the path to victory, because since the return of the democracy in 1999, the party has remained a unifying force ethnic harmony, peace and development of the 35-year-old state,” he stressed.