The Supreme Court, on Friday, dismissed the bid by Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State to stop the court action challenging the conduct of the primary election that produced him as the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The apex court said that the legal action challenging the propriety of the conduct of the primary election instituted by Senator Umaru Dahiru, also a governorship aspirant, had life and not an academic exercise as claimed by Tambuwal.
The apex court set aside the decision of the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division which, early this year, held that the case of the appellant had became academic exercise by the conduct of the governorship election in 2015 that brought Tambuwal to office.
In the unanimous judgment delivered by Justice Musa Dantijo Mohammed, the Supreme Court said that to grant Tambuwal’s claim would amount to murdering democracy.
Justice Mohammed therefore ordered that the legal action challenging the conduct of the primary election that produced Tambuwal as candidate of APC should be heard on its merit by the Federal High Court in Abuja.
The apex court disagreed with Tambuwal that the court action against him cannot be heard, having been overtaken by the April 11, 2015 governorship election.
The court said Tambuwal’s claim that event had overtaken the case against him, cannot be sustained in law because there was still life in the case and must be heard in the interest of justice.
In a related development, the Supreme Court upheld the election of governor Ben Ayade of Cross River state, saying he was validly nominated by his party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
In the lead judgment delivered by Justice Binta Clara Ogunbiyi, the court held that the issue of criminality or forgery of age declaration brought by the appellant, Mr Joe Agi (SAN) against Ayade was not proved beyond reasonable doubt as required by law.
The court said the discrepancy in the two age declaration which bore March 2, 1968 and March 2, 1969 was not intended to cheat on Section 177 of the 1999 constitution, which put a mandatory age for a governorship candidate at 35.
The apex court said that from whatever angle, the two age declarations were looked at, the 3rd Respondents (Ayade) was either ten or eleven years over and above the mandatory age of 35 stipulated by the constitution.
In the case of Tambuwal, two appellants Alhaji Umaru Dahiru and Barrister Aliyu Abubakar Sanyinna who were governorship aspirants on the APC platform in the 2015 general election, in their brief of arguments, pleaded with the apex court to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeal which held that their suit had become academic exercise by virtue of the election of Tambuwal in the April 11, 2015 governorship poll.
They insisted that the lower court (Appeal Court) erred in law by holding that their joint suit has no life to sustain it simply because of the conducted general election, adding that the April 11, 2015 general election cannot take life out of their case or render it an academic exercise because the suit had been filed on January 27, 2015 long before the general election was conducted.
Respondents in the appeal are the APC, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal.
In the case of governor Ayade of Cross River state, Agi’s counsel, N. P. Ibegbunam, urged the court to uphold his client’s appeal against Ayade, adding that his client had since realised that Ayade gave false information about his age, and had thereby contravened the provision of the PDP guideline, which is supported by Section 177 of the Constitution.
Agi, a member of the party and a governorship aspirant of the party is challenging Ayade’s qualification to contest the election on the platform of the PDP having allegedly made false claims about his age.
Justice Adamu Kafarati of the Federal High Court, Abuja and the Court of Appeal, Abuja division dismissed Agi’s case on the grounds that he failed to prove the allegation and that the discrepancies in Ayade’s age resulted from his aides’ errors, prompting Agi to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Earlier, Agi’s lawyer, Ken Njemanze (SAN) had urged the court to uphold his client’s appeal and set aside the concurrent findings of the trial court and the Court of Appeal.