The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has dismissed a suit filed by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) seeking the disqualification of Mr. Peter Obi as the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP).

The president of the court Justice Monica Dongban-Mensan, in her judgment, dismissed the appeal because the appeal lacked merit and APM lacked the legal right to initiate the suit. The court awarded a cost of N200,000 against APM, in favour of the Labour Party and Peter Obi who are the 2nd and 3rd respondents in the suit. Obi is in the race alongside top contenders like Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

With less than three weeks to the February 25 presidential election, the northern region has become the toast of presidential candidates as contestants jostling for Aso Rock’s top job continue to flock to the North-West, North-East and North-Central geopolitical zones which make up the northern region for bloc votes which runs into tens of millions. Like others, Obi, a former governor of Anambra State in southern Nigeria, alongside his running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, who is from Kaduna in the north, have also taken their campaigns to the region.