Ogona Anita
The supreme court has dismissed the suit seeking the disqualification of Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima as presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
A five-member panel of the supreme court held on Friday that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lacked the locus standi to institute the suit.
The panel said the PDP is not a member of the APC.
The PDP had claimed that Shettima’s nomination as Tinubu’s running mate was in breach of the provisions of sections 29(1), 33, 35, and 84(1)(2) of the Electoral Act, 2022.
The opposition party argued that Shettima nomination to contest the position of vice-president and Borno central senatorial seat — at the same time — contravened the law. In the judgment read by Justice Adamu Jauro the apex Court affirmed the decisions of the Federal High Court and Appeal Court which had earlier dismissed the suit by the PDP on grounds of lacking locus standi to institute the case.
The apex Court stressed that the PDP not being a member of the APC or taken part in the primary election of the party means the PDP lacks the legal rights to institute the case against the nomination of Shettima as Vice Presidential candidate of the APC, citing section 84(14) of the Electoral Act.
It held that no political party has the right to challenge the nomination of candidates of another political party, and hence the action of the PDP amounts to that of a “busy body” or “meddlesome interloper”.
As such, the Apex Court awarded the cost of N2million against the PDP in favour of INEC, APC, Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima who are respondents in the case.
The court deemed PDP’s case a waste of precious Judicial time of the apex Court and as such dismissed it for grossly lacking in merit.
In the judgment the apex Court further stressed that the PDP failed to show what harm it had suffered or would have suffered by the nomination of Shettima as vice presidential candidate of the APC.
The appeal was earlier dismissed by the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal for lack of locus standi with a cost of N5 million awarded against the PDP.
In the suit filed first on July 28, 2022, the PDP claimed that the double nomination by Shettima is in breach of provisions of sections 29(1), 33, 35, and 84(1)(2) of the Electoral Act, 2022.
PDP submitted that Shettima was still the nominated senatorial candidate on July 14, 2022 after his emergence as vice presidential candidate of the APC.
And the party insisted that Shettima withdrew his senatorial nomination on July 15, 2022, by then in breach of Section 33 on multiple nominations.
However, on January 13, Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja dismissed the suit on the grounds that the PDP lacked locus standi.
The PDP took the matter the Court of Appeal to seek justice.
In their defence, APC, Tinubu and Shettima filed a preliminary objection asking the appellate court to dismiss the suit, contending that it is APC’s internal affairs, one which therefore deprives the Court of jurisdiction to hear the matter.
Justice Abundaga of the Appellate Court held that the trial court was right to have held that the PDP failed to establish its locus standi, and as such dismissed the appeal.
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