A Federal High Court in Lagos on Wednesday gave Akinwunmi Ambode the go ahead to run for Lagos State governorship.
The court dismissed a suit seeking to stop the governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress in Lagos, Ambode, from contesting the April 11 poll.
Justice Mohammed Yunusa, the presiding judge, declared that the plaintiffs had no locus standi to institute the action. The judge also held that the plaintiffs failed to establish any reasonable cause of action to sustain their prayers.
“None of the plaintiffs in the instant suit is an aspirant to be conferred with locus standi,”
Yunusa held as he dismissed the suit.
The plaintiffs, Olorunfemi Oluwatosin and Dada Joseph, who are members of the APC, had approached the court seeking an order to restrain the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC from allowing APC to field any candidate for the coming Saturday’s governorship election in Lagos.
In the originating summons filed through their lawyer, Samuel Adeniyi, the plaintiffs were challenging their alleged disenfranchisement in the party primary that produced Ambode in December last year.
The plaintiffs claimed that the primary was fraught with and predicated on irregularities.
They also alleged that the party’s ward congresses, which were supposed to be conducted only in the 20 recognized local government areas of Lagos State, were also extended to the 37 Local Council Development Areas of the state.
The defendants in the suit were APC, the INEC and Ambode.
Yunusa, while dismissing the suit, upheld APC’s submission that the subject matter of the case was an intra-party affair and that the plaintiffs failed to show that they had sufficient interest to warrant the reliefs sought.
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