Breaking: Supreme Court reserves judgement on Kogi governorship election appeal
The Supreme Court of Nigeria on Monday reserved judgement on the electoral disputes that arose in the conduct of the November 11 governorship elections in Kogi State in N 2023.
The Court reserved its judgement after listening to parties in the appeal.
This judgement is coming on the heels of Ajaka and his party, SDP in an appeal marked: SC/CV/654/2024, praying the Supreme Court to set aside the concurrent decisions of the Court of Appeal and election tribunal, upholding the victory of Ododo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the election held on November 11 last year.
Earlier, Ajaka had urged the court to await the outcome of his request for a full panel to hear an issue raised in his appeal.
At the mention of the appeal on at the apex court, counsel to Ajaka and the SDP, Pius Akubo, SAN, told the court that his client has written the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) for the constitution of a full panel of the court to hear issues raised in Paragraphs 4.28 and 4.29, in page 16 of the appellants’ brief of argument.
Akubo said the appellants are by both paragraphs, praying the court to depart from its previous decisions in determining their appeal.
Lawyers to the respondents, Kanu Agabi (SAN) for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Joseph Daudu (SAN) for Ododo and Emmanuel Ukala (SAN) for the APC, all described the application as unnecessary and urged the court, as presently constituted, to proceed to hear the appeal.
In his ruling, Justice Mohammed Lawal Garba, who presided over the five-member panel, noted that the issue, in respect of which the appellants seek a full panel, was a fraction of the entire appeal.
Justice Garba further noted that the issue was one out of the three issues raised in the appeal.
He held that the court, as presently constituted, could hear and determine the appeal.
Justice Garba then called on Akubo to proceed with the hearing of the appeal. Akubo identified his briefs, adopted them and urged the court to allow the appeal, set aside the decision of the Court of Appeal and declare Ajaka as the duly elected governor of Kogi State.
On their part, Agabi, Daudu and Ukala all Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SANs) adopted their briefs and prayed the court to dismiss the appeal and affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
The apex court subsequently adjourned judgment till a date to be communicated to parties
It would be recalled that the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja had earlier in July upheld the tribunal judgement that declared Usman Ododo of the All Progressive Congress as the valid winner of the Kogi governorship poll.
A three-man panel of the Court of Appeal, in a unanimous judgment, dismissed the appeal of the Social Democratic Party and its governorship candidate, Murtala Ajaka.
The court held that the appellants failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt as required by law the allegations contained in their petition challenging Ododo’s election victory.
The appellate court said the Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which sat in Abuja was right to have expunged the evidence of the first witness called by the petitioners for been hearsay documents.
According to the court, the allegation of forgery of a document which Ododo submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission is a pre-election matter which is handled by the Federal High Court and not the Tribunal.
The court held that the said action happened before the conduct of the November 11 governorship election in the state and as such, cannot be legislated upon by the Kogi election Tribunal.
Having resolved all the issues raised in the appeal against the appellants, the court dismissed the appeal for lacking in merit and upheld the judgement of the tribunal.
