Bayelsa PDP Guber Primary: Court dismisses Alaibe’s suit against Diri

Uche EmmanuelMarch 10, 2020

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The Federal High Court sitting in Owerri has dismissed the suit filed by Chief Timi Alaibe challenging the primary election of 30 September, 2019 that had produced Senator Duoye Diri as the Party’s candidate for the Bayelsa gubernatorial Candidate lacks merit.

The judgment in the suit filed by for former managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and one-time Presidential Adviser on Amnesty Programme, Chief Timi Alaibe, who is not only challenging the legality, constitutionality, and appropriateness of the entire exercise that threw up Diri but also calling for the voiding of Diri’s candidature on grounds that it was illegally, inappropriately and ineligibly procured.

Chief Alaibe who is also urging the court to declare him(Alaibe winner) because he complied with the eligibility and legal requirements known to law and the party guidelines for emergence of governorship candidates, posits that Diri, on the contrary, violated those provisions known to Law and the party guidelines.

Alaibe is said to anchor a major plank of his case on grounds that the PDP consequently committed electoral, and constitutional illegality by blatantly allowing local government chairmen, councilors, and all shades of ineligible persons to vote during the PDP governorship primaries in sharp contrast, and utter violation of the party’s guidelines which do not permit elected chairmen and councilors elected within 90 days to the election, to vote during governorship primaries.

Chief Alaibe who came second in the disputed PDP primaries that produced Diri as PDP candidate is generally perceived as a strong, authentic and solid material that may have been shortchanged by political racketeering allegedly engineered by former governor Seriake Dickson.

Meanwhile, the bid of Chief Timi Alaibe to up turn the gubernatorial primary that produced Sen. Duoye Diri as the gubernatorial candidate of the party suffered a setback on as the suit was dismissed by a Federal High Court Owerri.

Dismissing the suit, Justice G.T Ringim of the Federal High court Owerri said that the suit filed by Chief Timi Alaibe challenging the primary election of 30 September, 2019 that had produced Sen. Duoye Diri as the Party’s candidate for the Bayelsa gubernatorial Candidate lacks merit.

Justice Ringim stated in the judgement that the plaintiff could not prove that the gubernatorial primary election had contravened the Constitution of the Peoples Democratic party, PDP.