Supreme Court rejects Zamfara APC’s request to review judgement

The Supreme Court, on Monday, rejected the application brought before it by the All Progressives Congress (APC), seeking a review of the judgement of the Court on the Zamfara State governorship elections.

A five-member panel of justices of the apex court, led by Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour, in a unanimous, decision delivered yesterday, ruled that the application marked: SC/377/2019 filed the APC was incompetent and lacking in merit.

The lead counsel for the APC,  Robert Clarke (SAN) had filed an application before the Supreme Court, for it to review its previous judgement in the Zamfara state governorship poll.

The panel said that the application should not have been brought before it in the first place.

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The apex court had, on May 24, 2019, nullified the votes cast for the APC in the governorship, National Assembly and state Assembly elections in Zamfara State because the party did not conduct legitimate primary elections.

The APC, Zamfara State chairman, Alhaji Lawali Liman, had said on June 26 that the party had a “window to challenge the action of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), following the Supreme Court ruling” that nullified all APC election in the state.

“Since the matter taken to the court revolved around irregularities of primaries, we had 13 candidates for the state House of Assembly, three for the Senate and two for the House of Representatives.

“These were those who contested unopposed and the primaries did not affect them.

“INEC was too hasty to declare the party with the second-highest votes because the exact directive of the Supreme Court was that the next party with the ‘requisite spread should be declared and by these, our issues were not taken into consideration,” he said.