Anambra 2010: Court of Appeal dismisses suit against Soludo

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The Court of Appeal has upheld the decision of an Abuja High Court which affirmed  Chukuma Soludo as the candidate to contest the February 6 Anambra governorship election on the platform of PDP. Delivering judgement in Abuja on Tuesday, Justice Uwani Abba-Ali held that the court had no legal backing to rule otherwise. He stated that the exercise of nominating candidates for election were the prerogatives of political parties."Having studied the arguments made by counsel to parties in the matter, the court has come to a clear term with the decision of the lower court that it lacked jurisdiction on the matter."

Abba-Ali held that the Justice Danlami Senchi ruling on November 16, 2009, which struck out the preliminary application by the plaintiffs praying for the invalidation of Soludo's nomination, was flawless because it followed the path of law."The 2006 Electoral Act and the PDP constitution which are the practice directions for all parties involved in this case had empowered the leadership of the party to nominate its candidate in a process it considered best."

All the parties have agreed in their arguments that the nomination of Soludo, which has become a subject of litigation today, was done by the National Executive Council (NEC) of the party."We discovered that the plaintiffs did not exhaust all the internal processes to resolve the matter in line with section 17 of the party's constitution and section 85(1) of the 2006 Electoral Act, before approaching the court."

It beholds on the court to agree that not only did Soludo's nomination done by the NEC of the party, it is not the court's position to set aside the outcome of that exercise; the appeal is hereby dismissed for lack of merit,'' he added.

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