Court sacks PDP Kogi East Senator

Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja on Wednesday sacked a Senator representing Kogi East Senatorial district of the People’s Democratic Party Senator Atai Aidoko.

The court also ordered the clerk of the National Assembly to withdraw all privileges being accorded to Aidoko.

In his judgement the court held that Aidoko was not properly nominated by the PDP for the March 2015 election.

He also ordered the immediate swearing of Air Marshall Isaac Alfa by the clerk of the National Assembly of the PDP.

He said;”I hearby order the clerk of the National Assembly to swear in AVM Alfa as the newly elected Kogi East to immediately replace Aidoko

”The plantiff has proved that the result of the primary election which he produced are genuine and he scored the highest number of votes in the election”The judge held.

The court also ordered the electoral empire to issue a fresh certificate of return to Alfa being the winner of the December 7 2014 PDP primaries into the National Assembly election.

However the court awarded a cost of N1.5M against PDP and Senator Aidoko respectively.

The trial judge also condemned the ways and manner in which the PDP subverted the result of the primaries held that rogue documents were used by the PDP to submit Senator Aidoko’s name to INEC.

The purported nomination of Aidoko by PDP to INEC was an exercise in futility to rob the plaintiff the fruit of his election in the primary.

While delivering his judgement Justice Kolawole said that from the totality of the evidence placed before the court, it was clear that Sheidu Idoma was the Returning Officer for the Senatorial election and not Umar Sanusi, and that this was corroborated by key witnesses in their statements made on oath

The judge also said the fact that the sacked senator refused to call his agent at the primary election, Mallam Farouk Adejo, left a credibility gap on the side of Aidoko.

Earlier, Justice Kolawole had dismissed the preliminary objection by Aidoko challenging jurisdiction of the court to entertain the matter.

He described the preliminary objection as an abuse of court process employed by Aidoko to delay the trial.

He held that the challenge of the court’s jurisdiction was an abuse of court process because it had earlier been resolved both at the Court of Appeal and the Supreme court against the senator.