Benue State chapter of the Makarfi – led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has dragged the Benue State Independent Election Commission (BSIEC) before a Makurdi Federal High Court, seeking an injunction to restrain the election umpire from carrying on with the election.
The elections for chairmanship of the 23 LGAs and councillorship of the 276 council wards, has been scheduled to hold on Saturday, June 3rd, by the BSIEC.
Trouble, however, started a week ago, when the election umpire rejected the list of candidates earlier submitted by the PDP, under the leadership of Sir John Ngbede.
After issuing Bio-data forms to the party candidates, BSIEC later wrote to the party Secretariat, saying it had received another list of candidates from one Dan Ale, who had laid claims to the PDP in Benue, claiming to be working for Ali Modu Sheriff.
Irked by what the party tagged as “ploy by Governor Samuel Ortom to rubbish the party and pave way for APC’s candidates to be announced”, the leadership of the party, which was elected at the state congress last year, approached the court to seek justice.
When the matter came up, on Wednesday, for mention, the Presiding Judge, C J. Aneke, granted an order for service outside the jurisdiction, also an abridgement of time for the respondent to file their counter affidavit was granted.
The court further adjourned till 17th day of May 2017, for hearing of the substantive motion for an interlocutory injunction, pending the determination of the originating summons.
The court equally granted leave for the PDP and 23 applicants to serve the process in the parties within two days from today.
- A. R. Tombowua appeared for PDP and 23 others, who were duly returned as chairmanship candidates of the party from the primaries conducted across the 23 LGAs of the state.