A frontline aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bayelsa State, Preye Aganaba, has asked the High Court sitting in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, to void the primaries that produced Chief David Lyon as the candidate of the party for the Novermber 16 governorship election in the state.
Aganaba, a founding member of the APC in Bayelsa, dragged the APC, Lyon and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to the court as defendants in a suit he personally filed on September 12.
The aspirant urged the court to make a declaration that the primaries scheduled for September 4 across the 105 wards in the eight local government areas of the state did not take place.
He also asked the court to make a declaration that since there were no primaries, the declaration of results that produced David Lyon as the candidate of the party was illegal, unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect.
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The aspirant further demanded an order setting aside the results of the APC primary election, which returned Lyon as the candidate of the party for November 16 election.
He further asked the court to make an order “restraining the APC from presenting Lyon or submitting his name to INEC as candidate of the APC”.
Other reliefs are: “An order restraining INEC from receiving, acting on, publishing or listing the name of Lyon as the governorship candidate of APC.
“An order restraining Lyon from parading himself as or holding himself out as the candidate of the APC in the forthcoming Bayelsa State Governorship election”.
Speaking at the court premises after filling the suit, Aganaba said he stood on his earlier statement that the APC primary election in Bayelsa was mockery of democracy.
He said: “There was no primary election in Bayelsa and since there was no primary poll, there won’t be a candidate.
“It is only a primary election that produces a candidate for an election. And if anybody is parading himself as a candidate without a primary poll, the person is simply wasting his time.
“We have made our point clear but since they failed to address our complaints that there were no primaries in Bayelsa, we have decided to approach the court to interpret to us whether what happened in Bayelsa could qualify for a primary of a political party.
“I was at my ward. There were no party officials to conduct the primary. That means I didn’t even have the privilege of voting for myself. The same with other aspirants.
“Yet they allocated ridiculous figures to us. Such abnormality can’t stand and we appealing to the court to do justice to it”.