A Federal High Court sitting in Ilorin, on Tuesday adjourned hearing on the case filed by some aggrieved members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the right candidate for the Kwara State local government election till October 28.

Ahead of the local government election on Saturday 26th, three chairmanship aspirants loyal to the Bamanga Tukur-led PDP had approached the court to challenge the mode of selecting the candidates in the forthcoming local government election. They claimed that the candidates’ emergence was in gross violation of the PDP’s constitution as no primary was held.

The plaintiffs are Alhaji Ademola Yusuf, Alhaji Adebayo Jimoh and Prince Haliru Dantosho Mahmud, while the defendants are the state PDP, Senator Bukola Saraki and chairman of the state PDP, Alhaji Ishola Balogun-Fulani.

Also joined in the case are all the chairmanship candidates of the councils, Kwara state Independent Electoral Commission (KWSIEC), Inspector-General of Police and Director-General, Department of State Service (DSS).

Counsel to the old PDP, Abiodun Dada on Tuesday said that the emergence of the candidates without conducting a primary was antithetical to the party’s constitution.

Plaintiffs’ counsel, O.J Adeseko had complained to the court that state PDP was trying to evade service of summons, arguing that the court Bailiff was at the PDP state secretariat severally last week to serve the court summons to no avail.

Mr. had wanted hearing of the interlocutory injunction slated for the day to continue.

But, the presiding Judge, Justice Olayinka Faaj said the inability of the Ballif to serve the summons in a day was not a sufficient ground to continue the case.

He therefore adjourned the case to October 28th in which the state PDP would have been sufficiently served.

Dada had earlier filed a counter affidavit against the affidavit sworn to in support of the originating summons

Mr. Dada added that he had the consent of the PDP national legal adviser, Mr. Victor Kwon that “the foundation for the conduct of same local government is the conduct of primary by all the interested candidates.”

Parts of the 10-paragraph affidavit deposed to read: “That no primary was conducted by the PDP (1st defendant) in the state to warrant the conduct of local government election by KWSIEC (19th defendant); that as a matter of fact, it is the responsibility of the national executive committee to formulate guidelines and regulation for the nomination of candidates for election into public offices at all levels including all the local government councils in the state; that as a matter of fact, the national executive committee of the 1st defendant shall sent representatives to the state and monitor the conduct of such primary; that the 1st defendant at the state executive level will in turn send the names of the successful candidates at the primary to the national executive committee who will in turn send same to the 19th defendant endorsed by the national chairman and secretary of the 1st defendant respectively; that all the above stated procedures for the conduct of primary by the state executive committee of the 1st defendant in Kwara state were not followed; that as a matter of fact, the council chairmanship candidates (4th- 18th defendants) are not known as candidates of the PDP into the said local government election or any other election and as a matter of fact, a primary election is required to be properly conducted in line with the 1st defendant’s constitution before an election can be held into the local government areas of the state.”

The affidavit further reads “that the interest of justice will be better served if the candidates are restrained/stopped from parading themselves to KWISEC as the chairmanship candidates of the PDP for the said Kwara state local government election; that it is in the interest of justice to refrain KWISEC from conducting the said election on October 26th, 2013 and that it is the utmost interest of justice to restrain security agencies from providing security for the said election.”