Supreme Court strikes out suit seeking PDP to zone presidency to South East

Tamarauemi Ebimini

The Supreme Court, on Friday, struck out a suit seeking to compel the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to zone its nomination of presidential candidate to the South East Geopolitical Zone of the country.

The court, in a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice Adamu Jauro, struck out the suit on the ground that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain the suit.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Cosmos Ndukwe, a presidential aspirant of PDP and former Deputy Speaker, Abia State House of Assembly, had sued the PDP; the Chairman of the party’s Primary Election Planning Committee and the National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu and others, praying that the scheduled primary election of the party is halted.

He had prayed for an order to compel the PDP to uphold its zoning and rotatory policy.

Ndukwe, specifically, sought an order of the court to compel the PDP to zone the nomination of its presidential candidate to the South East Geopolitical Zone.

However, Justice Jauro held that the suit was not justiciable on the ground that the nomination of candidates for election is an internal affair of political parties.

Jauro invoked Section 22 of the Supreme Court Act to give a final resolution of all issues raised in the suit to prevent them from becoming statute barred.