A lawsuit brought by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against the national assembly candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State was dismissed by the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was ordered to dismiss the APC’s national assembly candidates after the PDP filed a lawsuit seeking that order.
The case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction by the presiding judge, Hon. Justice Turaki Mohammed, in his ruling yesterday.
Mohammed claimed that the Court of Appeal’s rulings on the matter were binding on him and provided good cause to dismiss the case.
The plaintiffs were not charged with any costs, though, by the court.
The Federal High Court had in a judgement delivered on Tuesday, also struck out a suit filed by the PDP against the governorship candidate of the Accord Party, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs.
But, delivering judgement on the suit against Accord governorship candidate yesterday, Hon. Justice Stephen Daylop-Pam, struck out the suit for lack of jurisdiction.
Daylop-Pam based his judgment on the recent decision of Appeal Court in Lagos and Rivers State, which revealed that no court has jurisdiction to hear any case file by another political party bothering on internal party affairs.
The judge insisted that any attempt by him to interfere in the matter after appellate court had taken decision on the similar matter will amount to rascality and thereby upheld the objections of the counsels to the defendants and struck out the suits by PDP.