Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports
Ahead of the 2023 elections, the Supreme Court on Friday, September 23, 2022, declared that no part of Nigeria has been short-changed following the decision of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to throw its presidential primary election in May open.
PDP stalwart, Cosmos Ndukwe, had instituted a suit against Atiku, seeking the zoning of the presidential ticket to the South-East region. But the Panel of Justices said this morning that its decision to strike out the suit was on the grounds that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction to entertain ‘a matter that is an internal affair of the PDP’.
Expressing his delight with the Supreme Court’s verdict, Senator Dino Melaye, the presidential spokesperson of the PDP Presidential Campaign, asked all parties in the PDP to “in the interest of the party, embrace the party and her very saleable and capacity-driven candidate Atiku Abubakar”.
Atiku, 75, has had other unsuccessful contests for the presidential seat under both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and his current party, the PDP. The Adamawa-born politician also secured the ticket of the PDP in 2019 but lost at the general elections to the incumbent, President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC.
The former vice-president will face the likes of Bola Tinubu (APC), Peter Obi (Labour Party), Rabiu Kwankwaso (New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP), Professor Christopher Imumolen (Accord Party), and Omoyele Sowore (African Action Congress, AAC).
