*EDO PDP ADHOC DELEGATES...APPEAL COURT SHIFTS RESPONSIBILITY TO SUPREME COURT*

By Amb. Tony Okonigene

The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja 25 July 2022 shifted the responsibility of determining authentic ad-hoc delegates of the Edo PDP to the Supreme Court. In it's ruling today on the Federal High Court Abuja, judgment the recognized the adhoc delegates produced by the Legacy PDP, the Appeal Court ruled the issue of delegates of a party is a domestic affair of the party. The Appeal Court unlike the Federal High Court did not make a definite pronouncement as to who are the authentic delegates of the Edo PDP thereby leaving the responsibility for the Supreme Court to determine.

It will be recalled that the Appeal Court had earlier fixed judgement for the case on Friday 22nd July 2022 before shiftng it to Monday 25th July 2022 by 11am. The Court later shifted to 3pm giving room for speculations that the judges were under external pressure.

However, some legal minds reacting to the judgement said that the judgement was delivered out of time as the allowed 60 days limit by law expired  Sunday 24th July 2022. The Appeal Court was expected to have delivered it's judgement within 60days.

All these will be laid to rest by the Supreme Court before the 28th of September, 2022 which is the deadline for INEC to publish the final lists of all the candidates of the political parties.