Edo guber: I’ve been vindicated, says Philip Shaibu on court sacking of Ighodalo as PDP candidate

• Shaibu said the verdict was in consonance with his position on the conduct and outcome of the primary election.

Immediate past Deputy Governor of Edo State, Phillip Shaibu, says the ruling of a Federal High Court in Abuja on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship primary election in Edo State has vindicated him.

Within Nigeria had reported earlier that the court voided the primary election because it didn’t satisfy the requirements for free, fair and credible primary poll.

The court ruled that the primary election that produced Asue Ighodalo as PDP’s governorship candidate is illegal as it’s marred by manipulations and irregularities.

Consequently, the presiding judge, Justice Inyang Edem Ekwo, annulled the primary election that was conducted on February 22, 2024.

He ruled that the primary election is invalid because 378 delegates who were supposed to vote at the primary election were unlawfully excluded by PDP

In a reaction on Thursday to the judgment, Shaibu said the verdict was in consonance with his position on the conduct and outcome of the primary election.

He claimed that what PDP tagged as a primary election on February 22, 2024, was nothing but a tea party with no force of law.

He said he had repeatedly raised alarm about the abject lack of internal democracy in the PDP with the fraudulent ways its purported primary election was conducted at the Samuel Ogbemudia stadium in Benin.

The former Deputy Governor insisted that those who voted for him at his parallel primary election were the authentic delegates lawfully chosen by the people to nominate the governorship candidate for PDP.

On the move by the All Progressives Congress, APC, for him to defect to the party, Shaibu claimed that there was nothing wrong as long as democracy remains a game for the vast majority of people.

“When you see a political party wooing people to its group, that party wants to win but when you see a party chasing people away as in the case of the PDP, that party is planning nothing but rigging of election.

Justice Inyang Edem Ekwo had in his judgment invalidated the February 22 PDP primary election on the ground that 378 delegates who were supposed to vote in the election were unlawfully excluded.

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