Appeal court declares Donald Duke presidential candidate of SDP

Former Cross River State governor, Donald Duke, has been declared as the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, (SDP) in the coming February 16, presidential election.

Duke was declared candidate of the party following a unanimous judgment by a three-man panel of Justices of the Appeal Court led by Justice Abdul Aboki.

SDP had declared Duke its candidate after he was announced winner of the party’s primary election held in October 2018.

However, Professor Jerry Gana, one of the aspirants had gone to court to challenge the outcome of the result and in its ruling on December 14, 2018, an Abuja Federal High Court declared Jerry Gana as the party’s authentic presidential candidate.

Not satisfied, Duke dragged the matter to the appellant court challenging the ruling that declared Gana, a former Nigerian Minister of Information, as the presidential candidate of the SDP based on arguments bothering on the zoning and rotation formula of the party.

In its ruling on Duke’s appeal, the appellant court held that Gana’s application was illegal and unconstitutional and ought not to have been entertained by the lower court.

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The Appeal Court therefore set aside the judgment of the lower court insisting that it was “perverse and wrong”.

According to it, the lower court’s verdict was a violation of Duke’s right to freedom from discrimination, adding that Gana was bound by an undertaken he signed to support any candidate that emerged from the presidential primary contest.

The appellant court went further the say that the purported zoning formula which the lower court based its judgment was “a mere political arrangement” to help SDP to win elections.

Noting that the arrangement had nothing to do with the qualification of a candidate, the Appeal Court added that “Gana’s complaint was not that there was any violation of the Electoral Act, but that Duke who is from the Southern part, was not qualified to contest the presidential election.

“Such a complaint does not disclose a cause of action”, Justice Aboki who read the lead judgment held.

It resolved all issues against Gana and ordered him to pay N500,000.00 cost to all the five Appellants in the matter.

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