From Kayode Lawal, Abuja.
The Supreme Court on Thursday in Abuja dismissed an appeal filed by a former Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, seeking to disqualify Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party as presidential candidates of their political parties.
The Apex Court threw away the suit on the ground that it was statute barred, and had no life support and legs to stand upon.
Justice John Inyang Okoro who presided over a more than five man panel of Justices of the Court while dismissing the appeal however did not award cost against the former Minister for withdrawing his case when informed that the case was filed outside the time prescribed by law.
Nwajiuba and a civil group, the Rights for All International, a non-governmental organisation, had asked the Supreme Court to cancel the processes that produced Tinubu and Abubakar as candidates of their political parties.
He had lost at the Federal High Court and the Court of Appea,l both in Abuja, on the same ground – that his case lacked merit that could make the court look into it.
The Supreme Court, by its decision, affirmed the two previous decisions by the Court of Appeal and Federal High Court, both Abuja.
Nwajiuba had, in his suit before the Federal High Court, sought among others the voiding of Tinubu’s candidacy on the grounds that he and his part, the All Progressives Congress (APC) allegedly failed to disclose the source of the
N100 million he paid for the nomination and expression of interest forms, relying on the provision of ection 84(13) of the Electoral Act 2022.
In the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1114/2022, Nwajiuba prayed the court, among others, to declare him as the presidential candidate of the APC on the grounds that he was the only aspirant who disclosed the source of the N100m he paid toe the party for his nomination and expression of interest forms.
Listed as defendants in the suit are Tinubu, APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
In a judgment on November 23, 2022 Justice Zainab Abubakar of the Federal High Court, Abuja upheld that preliminary objection filed by the defendants – Tinubu and APC – and held that Nwajiuba’s suit was statute barred
by virtue of the provisions of section 285(9) of the 1999 Constitution.
Nwajiuba appealed the decision at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, and in its judgment on February 24, 2013 a three-member panel of the court dismissed the appeal and affirmed the judgment of the Federal High Court.
The Court of Appeal held that the trial court rightly held that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain the
suit as the suit was filed outside the statutorily mandated and allowed
period of 14 days.
It noted that appeal is a process of rehearing a case, and the trial court , having been
robbed of jurisdiction, the Court of Appeal lacks the jurisdiction to entertain it.
The court added: “The persuasion that this Court should overturn the Supreme Court as
stated in Okechuckwu v INEC will not succeed this court being an
intermediary court.
“That decision is binding on even the Supreme Court until set aside, more so when same was delivered by the current Chief Justice of Nigeria.
“The appeal is lacking in merit and is hereby dismissed,” the court said.
It awarded a cost of N3millon against Nwajiuba, requiring him to pay N1m to each of the three respondents – Tinubu, APC and INEC.
