Mr Kenneth Imansuangbon had approached the Federal High Courts in Benin and Abuja, challenging the nomination of Olumide Akpata as the party’s candidate for the Sept. 21 governorship election.
Imansuangbon’s challenge is on the grounds of LP not following the electoral guidelines in the primaries and Akpata not filling and signing the indemnity form among other grounds.
After two adjournments, the case eventually came up for hearing on Tuesday with counsel to the parties adopting their written addresses.
Imansuangbon’s lead counsel, A.A. Malik (SAN), alleged that the first defendant (Akpata) violated critical elements of the electoral processes and party constitution.
Malik pointed out that his client had disclosed reasonable cause of action on the matter and urged the court to throw away the submission of the first defendant.
He also prayed the court to declare and return the plaintiff as the winner, or, on the alternative, void and nullify the primary election, ordering a fresh election.
He alleged that the conduct of the LP primaries was marred with overvoting, which ran contrary to the party guidelines and the constitution.
Meanwhile, the defence counsel, Kadiri Asamah (SAN), who doubles as Akpata’s running mate, described the plaintiff’s submission as baseless; one that couldn’t be litigated by the court.
He added that it was a pre-primary issue and as such be dismissed by the court.
Asamah, while adopting all the arguments contained in his written addresses, urged the court to dismiss the written addresses of the plaintiff as an abuse of court processes.
The LP primaries were conducted on Feb. 23.
