Court orders INEC to delete PDP chief Mustapha’s name from record

A Federal High Court in Lagos yesterday ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to desist from further recognising and relating with Bode Mustapha as the National Auditor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The order was granted by Justice Charles Archibong in furtherance of the court’s judgment on May 2.

This voided Mustapha’s appointment on the grounds that his nomination by a faction of the party that was allegedly close to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in Ogun State, was unlawful.

The judge had, in the May 2 judgment, declared that Mustapha “is not a valid nominee nor could he have been validly elected for the Office of the National Auditor of the PDP zoned to Ogun State in accordance with the Constitution of the party because he is not qualified as an accountant or nominated by at the state congress of the party conducted by the Dayo Soremi-led Harmonised Executive Committee”.

In Mustapha place, he ordered the PDP and its principal officers to appoint Alhaji Fatai Adewole Adeyanju, being a qualified chartered accountant and nominated for the office at the state congress organised by the Soremi-led Executive.

Ruling yesterday on an application by the Adebayo Dayo-led Ogun PDP Executive Committee, Justice Archibong directed INEC to “rectify its records, pertaining to the election in March 2012 of the officers of the National Executive Committee of the second defendant (PDP) by deleting the name of Bode Mustapha and replacing it with the name of Fatai Adewole Adeyanju as the National Auditor of the second defendant”.

via The Nation