- Says party’s waiver in order
BY SEGUN ADEBAYO – On a day the emergency National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) endorsed him as the party’s flag-bearer for the Edo State governorship election, an Edo High Court sitting in Benin further added to Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu’s joyous moments by declaring him as an authentic member of the ruling party.
According to the presiding judge, Justice Emmanuel Ahamioje, the APC acted in accordance with the law when it granted Pastor Ize-Iyamu, waiver to contest in its primaries on Monday, June 22, 2020
Dismissing the suit for lacking in merit, Justice Ahamioje of Edo High Court 6, Benin, described the matter as an internal affairs of APC and affirmed Ize-Iyamu as a duly registered member in his ward.
The Judge, who noted that Pastor Ize-Iyamu was eminently qualified for the waiver, had earlier refused to grant the exparte application by the plaintiffs seeking to restrain APC from recognising Ize-Iyamu as an aspirant on its platform after he defected to join the party in December last year.
The suit was filed by a factional Deputy Chairman of Edo APC, Kenneth Asekomhe, expelled for anti-party activities by the Party’s NWC and three other APC members, Mathew Ogbebor, Unweni Nosa and Benjamin Oghumu. All four are considered loyalists of Governor Godwin Obaseki, who has defected to pursue his second term ambition on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s platform.
Joined as defendants in the suit were APC; its suspended National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and Ize-Iyamu whose counsel insisted that the Court had no jurisdiction to meddle in the Party’s internal affairs, in line with its Constitution.
