The Supreme Court on Monday struck out the All Progressives Congress’ application for a review of its May 24, 2019 judgment which nullified the victory of all the party’s candidates at the 2019 general elections held in Zamfara State.
But the party’s lawyer, Chief Robert Clarke (SAN), vowed to re-file the application.
A five-man panel led by Justice Olabode Rhodes-Vivour unanimously struck out the application on the grounds that the application was incompetent as the complete judgments of the apex court, comprising all the judgments of the five members of the panel being contested by the party, were not attached to the application.
Justice Rhodes-Vivour, who delivered the ruling, said the applicant only attached the lead judgment and failed to exhibit the consenting judgments of the four other members of the panel which gave the May 24, 2019 verdict.
“By our rules, the application is incompetent, and it is hereby struck out,” he ruled.
The apex court had in a unanimous judgment of the five-man panel led by the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, delivered on May 24, 2019, declared that the APC never conducted primary elections, thus had no valid candidates for the general elections.
The apex court then declared the first runners-up in the 2019 general elections in the state as the winners of all the offices earlier declared to have been won by the APC and its candidates.
But the APC, through its counsel, Robert Clarke (SAN), filed an application on June 17, 2019, asking the Supreme Court to “review, amend, correct and/or set aside the consequential orders” contained in the May 24, 2019 judgment of the apex court.
The said consequential order from which the Peoples Democratic Party benefited, and which the APC sought its amendment or nullification had directed that “candidates of the parties other than the 1st appellant (the APC) that polled the highest number of votes and the required spread stand elected into the various offices contested for in Zamfara State in the 2019 general elections.”
On Monday, Clarke informed the Rhodes-Vivour -led panel of the apex court about his application, while Mr Benson Igbanoi, who held the brief of Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN) as the counsel for the respondents, said they were only served with the application late last week.
He added that his clients were entitled to 14 days period as provided by the court’s rules to file their response.
After Igbanoi spoke, the members of the panel began to throw questions at Clarke on the competence of his application and the court’s jurisdiction to hear the application.
They said the contested consequential order, being a product of a pre-election case, the application filed by the APC requesting its review was also a pre-election case that ought to be determined within 60 days from the date of filing of the case at the apex court.
However, Clarke said, “If I believed that our application was a pre-election case, I would not be here,” he said.
While holding their grounds that the case was a pre-election case, they also pointed out that the application only contained the lead judgment delivered by Justice Paul Galunje, and left out the judgments of other four members of the panel.
They said without any need to hear from the respondents, the application was liable to be struck out and it was accordingly struck out.
The other members of the panel – Justices Inyang Okoro, Amir Sanusi, Fatima Augie, and Ejembi Eko, agreed with Justice Rhodes – Vivour who headed the panel and delivered the lead ruling.
The respondents to the application who have always been represented by Ozekhome are the Kabiru Marafa-led faction of the party in Zamfara State.
The faction had been in court before and after the general elections battling the ex-governor Abdulaziz Yari faction.
The Yari-faction backed by the National Working Committee of the party was by virtue of a Court of Appeal’s judgment allowed to field candidates for the general elections.
The candidates fielded by the faction won all the elections in the state, including the governorship poll, but their victories were nullified in the May 24, 2019 judgment of the apex court.
