The Supreme Court has affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal upholding the nomination of Governor Abiodun Oyebanji as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the June 20 governorship election in Ekiti State.
In a unanimous judgment delivered on Friday, a five-member panel of the apex court dismissed the appeal filed by aggrieved APC governorship aspirant, Mrs. Abimbola Olawumi, describing it as lacking merit.
The court held that the appeal was incompetent and ruled that the reliefs sought by the appellant could not be granted.
Olawumi had challenged the process that produced Oyebanji as the APC governorship candidate, arguing that she was unlawfully prevented from participating in the party’s primary election and urging the court to nullify the outcome.
Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Mohammed Idris upheld preliminary objections challenging the competence of applications filed by the appellant on July 16 and 23 to regularise her notice of appeal and appellant’s brief of argument.
The justice held that the written address accompanying the July 16 application was unsigned and that its pagination exceeded the limit prescribed under Order 4 Rule 1 of the Supreme Court Rules.
Consequently, the court struck out both applications and their accompanying written addresses.
Justice Idris further ruled that grounds one, two and three of the appeal were incompetent because they did not arise from the decision of the Court of Appeal.
He held that the issues formulated from those grounds were equally incompetent and liable to be struck out.
On the remaining grounds of appeal, the Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeal that Olawumi’s brief was incompetent despite her pending application seeking to regularise it.
The apex court also upheld the appellate court’s refusal to invoke its powers under Section 15 of the Court of Appeal Act to hear the originating summons as a court of first instance.
Justice Idris explained that the Court of Appeal could not exercise such powers after affirming the Federal High Court’s finding that the suit was statute-barred.
He added that the Supreme Court was equally unable to invoke its powers under Section 22 of the Supreme Court Act to determine the substantive originating summons because the 180-day constitutional time limit for the determination of pre-election matters had already expired.
