From: GODWIN TSA, Abuja
The Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal on Friday dismissed the applications by the governorship candidates of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Dr. Alex Oti and KOWA party, Dan Onyeonagu respectively seeking to join in the Abia State governorship tussle pending before the court.
In a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice Abubakar Dati Yahaya, the appellate court held that the two applicants failed to establish their interest in the internal affairs of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The court held that the subject of litigation between Dr. Samson Ogah and Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, who are all members of the PDP, was the primary election of the party conducted on December 8, 2014.
The two applicants, the court held, being members of different political parties have no locus standi to question the primary election of the PDP.
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 to the Court of Appeal, where their interest was supposed to be established, but merely relied on affidavit depositions.
The appellate court further held that allowing the applicants to join the dispute will amount to attempt to change the nature of the suit from an intra-party to an inter party, which was not an issue before the court.
Describing the two applicants as, meddlesome interlopers, busy bodies, alien and strangers to the dispute between Ikpeazu and Ogah, the court said they cannot have interest recognisable in law in the domestic affairs of another party.
Justice Yahaya further held that from the documents placed before the court, the applicants were not deprived of anything belonging to them since they did not participate in the PDP primary election, adding that nothing has been taken away from them with the outcome of the said election.