ABUJA– The Supreme Court, on Friday, paved the way for the swearing-in of the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, on Monday, May 29.
The apex court, in a unanimous decision by a five-member panel, dismissed as lacking in merit, an appeal the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, filed to query Tinubu’s eligibility to contest the presidential election that held on February 25.
It held that the appeal, marked: SC/CV/501/2023, was brought before it in bad faith, stressing that the PDP, whose candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, came second in the presidential contest, was bereft of the locus standi (legal right) to challenge a nomination that was made by another political party.
PDP had in its appeal, prayed the court to void Tinubu’s candidacy, alleging that the Vice President-elect, Senator Kashim Shettima, had prior to the 2023 general elections, allowed himself to be nominated for more than one constituency.
It told the court that Shettima was nominated twice, both for the Borno Central Senatorial seat and for the Vice Presidential position.
PDP maintained that Shettima’s dual nomination, was in gross violation of provisions of Sections 29(1), 33, 35 and 84(1) and (2) of the Electoral Act, 2022, as amended.
Consequently, aside from urging the court to invalidate Tinubu and Shettima’s candidature, the Appellant, further applied for an order to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to expunge their names from the list of nominated or sponsored candidates that were eligible to contest the presidential poll. However, the apex court, in its lead judgement that was delivered on Friday by Justice Adamu Jauro, accused the PDP of attempting to interfere in the internal affairs of the APC which nominated both Tinubu and Shettima for the presidential poll. It upheld the
concurrent decisions of the Court of Appeal and the Federal High Court in Abuja, which earlier dismissed case for being frivolous and over PDP’s failure to disclose a reasonable cause of action against Tinubu and Shettima. The apex court agreed with the respondents that section 285 (14) (c ) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, as well as section 149 of the Electoral Act, 2022, did not confer the Appellant with the right to challenge the Tinubu’s candidacy on the ground of Shettima’s alleged double nomination by the APC. The apex court held that section 84 of the Electoral Act only empowered an aspirant that participated in the primary election of a political party, to challenge the nomination of a candidate by the party.
It held that the PDP failed to establish the injury it suffered as a result of the nomination by the APC, adding that
the law did not permit a political party to dabble into domestic affair of another political party.
More so, the apex court held that PDP was unable to prove that its civil rights and obligations were in danger of being infringed upon.
It held that the lower courts were right when they declined to hear PDP’s case on its merit, since they lacked the requisite jurisdiction to do so.
The apex court further descended on the PDP, describing
the appeal as the action of “a nosy busy-body and a meddlesome interloper that is peeping into the affairs of its neighbour.”
The plaintiffs further want a declaration that they have a legal interest and constitutional rights to be heard on the question of whether a President-elect must secure at least 25% of votes cast, on the first ballot, in the FCT, Abuja.
Source: Vanguard