The Supreme Court has upheld the nomination of Governor Abiodun Oyebanji as the APC candidate in the Ekiti governorship election, dismissing an appeal challenging the party’s primary process.
The Supreme Court has affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, upholding the nomination of Governor Abiodun Oyebanji as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the June 20 governorship election in Ekiti State.
The apex court delivered the judgment on Friday while dismissing an appeal filed by Mrs. Abimbola Olawumi, an aggrieved APC governorship aspirant who challenged the party’s nomination process.
Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Mohammed Idris upheld the objections raised against the competence of applications filed by the appellant to regularise her notice of appeal and her brief of argument.
The five-member panel of the Supreme Court unanimously held that the appeal lacked merit and consequently dismissed it.
Justice Idris ruled that the appeal was incompetent and that the reliefs sought by Olawumi could not be granted.
The court held that the written address accompanying one of the applications was unsigned and that its pagination exceeded the limit prescribed under Order 4 Rule 1 of the Supreme Court Rules, rendering it procedurally defective.
The apex court 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.
According to the judgment, the issues formulated from those grounds were equally incompetent and liable to be struck out.
On the remaining grounds of appeal, the Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal acted correctly in affirming the Federal High Court’s finding that Olawumi’s suit was statute-barred.
Justice Idris also ruled that neither the Court of Appeal nor the Supreme Court could invoke their statutory powers to determine the substantive originating summons because the 180-day constitutional timeframe for resolving pre-election matters had already expired.
Olawumi had challenged the process that produced Oyebanji as the APC governorship candidate, alleging that she was unlawfully prevented from participating in the party’s primary election and asking the court to nullify the outcome.
With the dismissal of the appeal, the Supreme Court has effectively brought the legal challenge against Governor Oyebanji’s APC nomination to a close.
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