The court of appeal sitting in Ibadan, Oyo state, has reserved judgement
in the case between two factions battling for the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) governorship candidacy in Ogun state, till Tuesday.
In
the suit filed by the Ladi Adebutu faction of the party and heard on
Monday, the group asked the appeal court to set aside the orders of the
federal high court, Abeokuta, which ruled in favour of the Kashamu
faction.
On October 2, the federal high court in Abeokuta had
ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to accept
and process the list of candidates and delegates submitted to it by the
faction of Kashamu.
The commission had written Uche Secondus,
national chairman of the PDP, that it was only going to accept list of
candidates from Kashamu group.
Secondus had handed over the
party’s governorship ticket to Adebutu but the Kashamu faction also
unveiled the senator as their candidate.
At the court on Monday,
Emeka Etiaba, counsel to Adebutu, demanded that the case be assigned to
another judge at the federal high court.
But Alex Izinyon, counsel to Buruji, vehemently opposed the granting of the prayers sought by the appellants.
Etiaba
said a party in perpetual violation of positive and subsisting orders
of court cannot justifiably seek favour from the same court it had
treated with contempt.
He contended that the appellants had the
opportunity to state their case at the federal high court, Abeokuta,
after they were served and chose to stay away from the court on October
2.
After two hours of deliberations, the three-man panel of
justices of the court of appeal presided by Olukayode Bada adjourned the
case till Tuesday.
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