The Federal High Court sitting in Makurdi on Wednesday dismissed the suit filed by the defeated PDP governorship aspirant, Mr Terver Khaki, against Gov. Gabriel Suswam.<\/p>\n
Khaki had challenged Suswam\u2019s competence to have contested the January, 2011 PDP gubernatorial primaries.<\/p>\n
The plaintiff alleged that the governor forged his secondary school certificate.<\/p>\n
Khaki also wanted the court to set aside the primaries on the grounds that it was marred by fraud, describing the exercise as “charade and stage-managed\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n
Arguing the case, Counsel to Suswam and the PDP, Mr Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), said that the plaintiff failed to prove his case beyond reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n
Okutepa, who urged the court to give judgment in his client’s favour, submitted that the plaintiff did not tender any certificate to establish which of them was fake or genuine.<\/p>\n
He said that the witnesses called by the plaintiff made contradictory statements, which did not amount to any proof to warrant the court to grant any of the reliefs sought.<\/p>\n
According to him, the court has no jurisdiction to adjudicate over pre-election matters.<\/p>\n
Mr Samuel Kargbo, Counsel to the plaintiff, said that his client had proved the case as required by law.<\/p>\n
According to Kargbo, Kahki had demonstrated that the primaries were stage-managed, saying that that his client was not given a level-playing ground at the primaries.<\/p>\n
Kargbo urged the court to declare that the election was null and void, saying that there were 278 wards where election did not hold.<\/p>\n
He further prayed the court to disqualify the governor and declare his client the winner of the primaries.<\/p>\n
Delivering judgement, Justice Marcel Awokunlehin agreed with the counsel to the defendant that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain pre-election matters, pointing out that it was a
\nparty affair.<\/p>\n
On the certificate forgery, Awokunlehin stated that the evidence of the plaintiff was mere hearsay, which he observed, lacked quotative value and could not sway the court to agree with
\nhim.<\/p>\n
The judge likened the plaintiff\u2019s case to a boxer who was given a technical knockout on round zero, describing Khaki\u2019s claims as frivolous, unmeritorious, misconceived and malicious.(NAN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Federal High Court sitting in Makurdi on Wednesday dismissed the suit filed by the defeated PDP governorship aspirant, Mr Terver Khaki, against Gov. Gabriel Suswam. Khaki had challenged Suswam\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n