Court dismisses Otti’s request to join Ikpeazu/Ogah governorship dispute

ABIA STATE GOVT: Court dismisses Otti’s request to join Ikpeazu/Ogah governorship dispute

The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal on Friday dismissed a motion by Dr. Alex Otti of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, seeking to join an ongoing case which saw Governor Okezie Ikpeazu removed by two judgments of the Federal High Court in Abuja delivered on June 27.

Also dismissed by the appeal court on Friday was a similar joinder motion filed by KOWA Party’s governorship candidate in the last year’s election, Dan Onyeonagu.

In a unanimous‎ judgment delivered by Justice Abubakar Yahaya, the appeal court held on Friday that the two applicants failed to establish their interest in the issue which constituted an internal affair of the Peoples Democratic Party.

The court held that the subject of litigation between Dr. Samson Ogah and Governor of Abia state, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, who are both members of the PDP, was based on the primary of the party conducted on December 8, 2014.

The appeal court held that Otti and Onyeonagu being members of political parties different from the PDP, had no locus standi to question the issues relating to PDP’s primary.

Justice Yahaya also held that the applicants failed to give circumstantial reasons to sway the court to exercise its judicial discretion in their favour.

Among others, the court held that the two applicants failed to transmit the proceedings of the trial court, the Federal High Court Abuja, to the Court of Appeal where their interest was supposed to have been established but merely relied on affidavit depositions to join the case at the level of appeal.

The appellate court further held that allowing the applicants to join the dispute would amount to attempting to change the nature of the suit from an intra-party to an inter-party which was not an issue before the court.

The court described the two applicants as meddlesome interlopers, busy bodies, aliens and strangers to the dispute between Ikpeazu and Ogah.

Justice Yahaya further held that from the documents placed before the court, the applicants were not deprived of any right, since they did not participate in the PDP primary.

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