New Telegraph

Bayelsaguber: Appeal Court upholds Diri’selection

The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja yesterday set aside the tribunal judgment that sacked Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State and ordered fresh election in the state. In a unanimous judgment by a five-man panel of justices led by Justice Adzira Gana Mshella, the appellate court held that the majority’s verdict of the Bayelsa State Governorship Elections Petition Tribunal that invalidated Diri’s election was “perverse” and “contemptuous of the law”.

Justice Obande Festus Ogbuinya, who read the lead judgment held that the tribunal wrongfully evaluated the petition the Advanced Nigeria Democratic Party, ANDP, filed to challenge it alleged unlawfully exclusion from the governorship election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC The appellate court held there was enough evidence to prove that ANDP nominated an under-aged candidate for the election, in breach of sections 177, 182 and 187 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

Besides, it held that the petition ANDP filed before the tribunal was not only statute-barred but equally a pre-election matter that was outside the jurisdiction of the tribunal. The court noted that whereas section 285(9) of the constitution made it mandatory that the issue of disqualification of candidates, being a pre-election matter, must be filed within 14 days after the cause of action arose, ANDP, filed its petition at the tribunal, five months after its deputy governorship candidate was disqualified by INEC. The court further held that the case of ANDP had become “stale” and “soured” before it lodged the petition on February 26.

“The case of the 1st Respondent was marooned in the ocean of statute bar. The cause of action had expired with the fusion of time. The tribunal, therefore, lacked the requisite jurisdiction to entertain it.

The subject matter if the petition was outside the jurisdiction of the tribunal,” Justice Ogbuinya held. Consequently, the appellate court made an order that set aside the majority judgment of the tribunal which it said was “trapped in the web of nullity”, even as it upheld the minority verdict of the tribunal.

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