OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment): This appeal probes the correctness of the decision of the Federal High Court, Makurdi Division, presided over by A. O. Obaseki Adejumo, J., in suit No. FHC/MKD/CS/17/2012, delivered on 26/06/2012. The appellant and the respondents were the defendants and the plaintiffs respectively in the lower court.
The synopses of the facts of the case, which transformed into this appeal, are brief. The appellant, an electoral empire whose names mutated in almost of every Nigerian republic, via its predecessor, created the Otukpa State Constituency in 1979, then in Okpokwu Local Government Area, now in the 1st respondent. The appellant, in its delineation of constituencies, suppressed the Otukpa State Constituency in 1996. Subsequently, the appellant conducted elections in the reconstituted state constituencies in Benue State leading to election and swearing-in of members into the House of Representatives and the Benue State House of…