Supreme Court has affirmed the nomination of Hon. Mohamed Omar Bio as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the House of Representatives election in Baruten/Kaiama federal constituency of Kwara state.
Five Justices of the apex court, on Friday, in a unanimous decision upheld the earlier decisions of Kwara state High court and the Court of Appeal that Omar was duly nominated for the election having won the APC primary election in the federal constituency.
The Justices included Amina Auchi, Sanusi A, Okoro JSC, Nwese JSC and Ekpu JSC.
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Abubakar Othman, a House of Representatives aspirant, on the platform of same APC party, had on November 15, 2018, in suit KWS/404/2018 approached Kwara state High Court to declare him as the candidate of APC in Baruten/Kaiama federal constituency in the February 23, 2019, National Assembly elections.
Abdullahi in the suit joined the APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as co-defendants and prayed the court to declare him as the winner of the primary election conducted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Baruten/Kaiama federal constituency of Kwara state on October 5, 2018.
Barrister Razak Alabi represented Bio while Chief Sunday Ashaolu represented APC in the suit.
He also appealed the judgment of the court at Court of Appeal in appeal no CA/IL/57/2019 and Supreme Court in appeal no SC/724/2019 filed on June 6 this year.
While ruling on the suit, the Supreme Court dismissed it and held that it was not filed within the statute time stipulated by the law.
The court declared the case as staled and unenforceable having failed to satisfy section 289(9) of the 1999 Constitution fourth alteration which required that the suit to be filed within 14 days of the acquired cause of action which is the day of placement of names by the third defendant which is INEC.
The Court held that the primary election was conducted by the APC on October 5, 2018, but the suit was not filed until November 15, 2018, which was outside the statutory period prescribed by law.
Reacting to the ruling of the apex court, Chief Sunday Ashaolu who represented APC in the suit said that the Court judgement has put an end to who is the winner of the APC primary election and the candidate of the party in the just-concluded National Assembly election in Kaiama/Baruten federal constituency of Kwara state.
INEC had earlier on February 24, declared Omar Bio as the winner of the House of Representatives election on the platform of APC in the constituency having polled the highest number of votes.
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