{"id":13849,"date":"2018-12-14T15:39:52","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T15:39:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=13849"},"modified":"2018-12-14T15:39:52","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T15:39:52","slug":"jerry-gana-now-sdp-presidential-candidate-as-court-rules-out-duke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=13849","title":{"rendered":"Jerry Gana now SDP presidential candidate as court rules out Duke"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An FCT High Court in Maitama on Friday declared, a former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, the winner of the presidential primary election of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) conducted on Oct.6.<br \/>\nThe party had declared a former Governor of Cross River, Mr Donald Duke, the winner of the election and its flag bearer for the 2019 General Elections.<br \/>\nThe party said that Duke\u00a0 polled 812 votes while\u00a0 Gana had 611.<br \/>\nHowever, Gana went to court seeking that it would\u00a0 declare him the winner in line with the zoning and rotation formula of the party\u2019s constitution.<br \/>\nIn his judgement, Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf held that the regulations contained in the party\u2019s constitution were\u00a0 binding on every member and must be obeyed.<br \/>\nHe held that the zoning and rotation formula as contained in the party\u2019s constitution stipulated that both the chairman of the party and the flag bearer should not come from the same zone.<br \/>\n\u201cIn this instance, the party\u2019s Chairman, Chief Olu Falae, is from the South and Duke is from the South too; the law is clear; there is nothing to write in-between.<br \/>\n\u201cThe law has crystallised that political parties should abide by the regulations which they have made by themselves.<br \/>\n\u201cThe claimant laid sufficient evidence to have the judgment in his favour; it is a clear violation of the party\u2019s constitution; the court cannot wave right over illegality,\u201d he held.<br \/>\nThe judge, therefore, declared Gana the winner of SDP presidential primary election conducted on Oct. 6.<br \/>\nHe also declared Duke\u2019s 812 votes null and void, and ordered SDP to forward Gana\u2019s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the party\u2019s flag bearer for the 2019 presidential election.<br \/>\nIn addition, he ordered that Duke should stop parading himself as the party\u2019s flag bearer for the\u00a0 elections.<br \/>\nGana had joined SDP, its National Chairman, Chief Olu Falae; National Secretary, Alhaji Shehu Musa Gabam; Chairman, SDP Presidential Screening Panel\/ Deputy National Chairman, South, Prof. Tunde Adeniran; Duke and INEC as defendants in the suit.<br \/>\nGana sought a declaration that Duke was not eligible to stand as a candidate in the party\u2019s presidential primaries held on Oct. 6, in Abuja.<br \/>\nHe also sought a declaration of the court that he ought to have been declared the winner of the SDP presidential primary election, having polled the highest valid votes in the said election.<br \/>\nThe former minister wanted an order of the court declaring him the validly elected flag bearer of the party for the 2019 General Elections.<br \/>\nGana also sought a perpetual injunction restraining Duke from parading himself as the SDP presidential candidate for the elections, among other reliefs.<br \/>\nHe had argued that under Article 15(3) of the SDP Constitution, the office of the national chairman of the party and\u00a0 the presidential candidacy shall rotate between the northern and southern parts of the country.<br \/>\nBy <strong>NAN<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An FCT High Court in Maitama on Friday declared, a former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, the winner of the presidential primary election of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) conducted on Oct.6. The party had declared a former Governor of Cross River, Mr Donald Duke, the winner of the election and its flag bearer [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}