Appeal Court upholds APC Senator, 2 reps victories in Ekiti – TheNigerialawyer

The Court of Appeal sitting in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday, upheld the
election of Sen. Olubunmi Adetumbi of the All Progressives Congress
(APC), who won the Ekiti North Senatorial District seat.

The News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN) reports that the three-man
appellate court dismissed the appeal filed by Sen. Duro Faseyi of
the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Faseyi had appealed the verdict of the election petition
tribunal that upheld the Independent National Electoral
Commission’s (INEC) declaration of Adetumbi as winner of the Ekiti
North Senatorial seat in the Feb. 23 National Assembly
election.

Also, the Appellate Court struck out the suit filed by Mr
Kehinde Agboola of the PDP and affirmed the victory of Mr Peter
Owolabi of the APC as winner of Ekiti North Federal constituency
(1) seat in the Feb. 23 National Assembly polls.

Similarly, the Court also dismissed another case filed by Mr
Nicholas Olusola Omotoso of the PDP against the winner and APC
candidate, Mr Ibrahim Olanrewaju, representing Ekiti North Federal
Constituency (II).

The crux of the of the three appeal cases were that the APC
Senator and the two Federal lawmakers did not score the highest
number of lawful votes, and that the ruling party did ‘not conduct
valid primaries , which presupposed that the party did not present
candidates for the polls.

Delivering his judgment on the case filed against Senator
Adetumbi, Justice Hamma Akawu Barka, said the PDP candidate,
Senator Faseyi, acted like a busy body by trying to contest the
outcome of the APC’s primaries.

” By combined effects of Section 87(9) of the Electoral Act and
Section 285(14) of the 1999 constitution, only aggrieved aspirants
who participated in a primary can contest its outcome. Not just
anybody.

“With this , the appellant lacks the locus standi to have filed
this appeal in the first instance.

” Even if he had the locus, it had to be filed within 14 days
after the conduct of the primary, so filing it outside that
stipulated days rendered it statute barred.

” Apart from this, it is only the State High Cvourt, Federal
High Court and the Federal Capital Territory High Court that can
entertain such issues that emanated from the conduct of any
primary, so we lack the jurisdiction to entertain this case.

” Looking at all the exhibits tendered, there was no sufficient
evidence to prove a case of substantial non -compliance against the
respondent, so this case lacks merit and it is hereby dismissed”,
the appeal court Justice said.

Also delivering judgment on the appeal filed by Nicholas
Omotoso, Justice Uzo Ndukwe Anyanwu, said exhibit 3(1), the report
of INEC on the APC primary relied on to prosecute the suit was
supposed to be tendered by INEC official and not through the
bar.

” We expected the appellant to call the maker of the document,
so that he can be cross examined but rather, he dumped it on the
court and this makes it lack probative value and the case lacks
merit based on this ground having not called the maker.

“The document was rendered useless by this action,” Anyanwu
said.

On the third case, Justice Alfrieda Oluwayemisi Williams-Daudu
also adopted the foregoing position in the appeal filed by Kehinde
Agboola of the PDP against the victory of Peter Owolabi of the APC
in Ekiti North Federal constituency I.

Reacting to the judgment, the lawyer to the respondents, Chief
Rafiu Balogun, said he was not surprised that the appeals were
dismissed, saying they lacked the requisite merits in the first
instance.

” We are not surprised at the verdicts of the Appeal Justices.
We salute their industry and commend them for being painstaking in
dealing with the issues raised”, he added.

Efforts to obtain reactions of the appellants to the judgments
was not successful as at the time of filing these reports.