Politics
You’re busybodies, S’Court lashes at Abaribe, Nwagbara over Abia PDP primaries suit *Slams N2million fine
For being meddlesome interlopers and busybodies, the Supreme Court of on Thursday, slammed a N2million fine on Ndudi Nwagbara, Onyekachi Abaribe and 5 others after dismissing a case against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Okezie Ikpeazu, Governor of Abia State over last year’s governorship primaries of the ruling party in the state.
An angry apex court, came out smoking, scolding the lawyers to the politicians who had travelled all the way from the Federal High Court, through the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court, with a suit it found not only frivolous but vexatious and a waste of its time.
It was a case that started from the Federal High Court Umuahia, where the plaintiffs, though not members of the PDP, went to challenge the outcome of the primaries that produced the Uchenna Ikonne, who was also joined in the suit alongside 35 others, as the governorship candidate of the party for the March 11 election.
They had pleaded which started the court in the suit no FHC/UM/CS/62/22 and ended at the apex court as SC/CV/143/2023 for the nullification of the outcome of the primaries conducted on May 25, 2022.
The journey had commenced at the Federal High Court, Umuahia which threw it out before proceeding to the appellate court where it suffered the same fate, before landing at the apex court, where a panel of seven justices finally nailed it.
At each stage, the verdict was that they were not qualified to bring the matter because they were not aspirants as described in the electoral Act 2022 and therefore lacked the locus standi to bring the action, even though they claimed to have bought forms to contest.
But, it was at the Supreme Court, which they approached after the appellate court sitting in Owerri, in January 2023, upheld the judgement of the trial court’s verdict, that received a more damning hammer, for even bringing the case that far in the first place, as the justices, not only dismissed it as a rubbish that ought not to have come to them, having lacked the jurisdiction to entertain it.
Led by Justice John Okoro, the apex court had asked Chukwuma Wachukwu Ume (SAN), lawyer to the appellants to withdraw the appeal, after which the matter was promptly dismissed with tonguelashing before a fine of ₦2million in favour of the respondents.
For emphasis, the court ordered that the fine must be paid personally by Ume “for filling a frivolous and vexatious appeal.”
In a related development, they also filed a motion seeking to substitute Chief Okey Ahaiwe, who is the PDP gubernatorial candidate in Abia State with late Prof Ikonne, which was opposed vehemently that Chief Ahiwe was not a product of the first PDP primary election that produced Ikonne but a product of a different primary election and stands on his own.
PDP lawyers, explained that the implication of the judgement is that there is no legal impediment for any of the governorship, National Assembly and state assembly candidates of the PDP, adding that the hope of the opposition that the said congress and primaries would be cancelled so that PDP will have no candidate in the 2023 general elections as it happened in Rivers and Zamfara States in 2015, had backfired.
Emeka Eze represented Chief Okey Ahiwe(Party seeking to be joined, Dr Livy Uzochukwu, SAN for PDP, H Balogu for the Governor, Okey Amaechi, SAN for Ikuku, Ukpai Ukairo for Senator Mao, Dr Hagler for Erondu Jnr and Others.
The Apex Court dismissed case which is believed to have been instituted through proxies by Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, who left the PDP and also withdrew from the 2022 primaries when it was clear that he was not the favored aspirant of the stakeholders in Abia PDP. He later joined APGA to contest 2023 Abia South senatorial election against Governor Okezie Ikpeazu.
A legal tussle is in the offing to determine the fate of the June 20 by-election to fill the vacancy in the Enugu North senatorial district at the National Assembly, following the decision of the Labour Party (LP) to challenge the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to exclude it from participating.
INEC had approved the participation of only three political parties for the exercise to fill the vacant seat left by Okey Ezea, who died last year, to the exclusion of scores of others including the LP under whose platform the former Senator won the seat in 2023.
Ken Asogwa, spokesman of the party, who gave the update on the next line of action, said LP had already approached the Federal High Court, Abuja, to challenge the decision on the ground of wrongful exclusion, saying that the party was deeply disturbed over INEC’s action, especially the reason it gave for it.
Asogwa, who conveyed the decision through a statement on Monday, wondered how its candidate would made to pay for the ineptitude of INEC itself, which failed to carry out its constitutional responsibility.
Stressing that the party complied with all statutory requirements and procedural guidelines, but was still denied access to upload the particulars of its candidate on INEC’s nomination portal, the statement, added: “Up until the close of the submission window on June 2, the party made several efforts, including formal protests and correspondences to the commission, seeking the resolution of the issue, but these efforts yielded no positive result
“The party fulfilled every legal and administrative obligation required under the Electoral Act and INEC’s extant regulations in the nomination of its candidate. Labour Party finds it difficult to understand the basis upon which it had been excluded from an election in which it had a legitimate and undeniable stake.
“It is both disturbing and deeply concerning that the head of Elections and Party Monitoring (EPM) in Enugu State reportedly justified his refusal to transmit the report of the Labour Party’s primary election on the ground that he was out of town on the day the exercise was conducted.
“This excuse is untenable and raises serious questions about the discharge of official responsibilities. Labour Party cannot be made to suffer the consequences of an official’s absence, negligence, incompetence or dereliction of duty.
“Electoral processes and the constitutional rights of political parties cannot be subjected to the convenience or personal circumstances of individual officers. If the officer was unavailable, it is incumbent upon him or INEC in Enugu to ensure that appropriate arrangements were made for the monitoring and reporting of the exercise.
“INEC should not be penalising a political party that duly complied with all statutory requirements. The Electoral Act only requires political parties to duly notify INEC of their primaries. The party complied fully with this statutory requirement. The legality and validity of the exercise cannot be vitiated by INEC’s absence, as neither the Electoral Act nor the commission’s regulation made its physical presence a mandatory condition for the conduct of a party primary election.”
Expressing confidence in Joash Amupitan, INEC Chairman to do the right thing, he however called on the commission investigate the actions taken by its staff members in Enugu and take decisive action against anyone found culpable.
His words: “Electoral institutions derive their legitimacy from public trust and every effort must be made to protect the integrity of the electoral process. It would amount to a grave injustice for Labour Party to be denied the opportunity of presenting a candidate in an election convened to fill a vacancy created by the death of one of its serving senators.
“Such an outcome would not only undermine the rights of the party and its supporters but it tends to diminish the democratic choices available to the people of Enugu North senatorial district in the coming by-election.
“As the party places its confidence in the impartiality and wisdom of the Nigerian judiciary, it urges all its members and supporters in Enugu North and across the country to remain calm while the matter is being determined by the courts.”
A conciliatory Atiku Abubakar, in magnanimity with victory, extended the olive branch to Rotimi Amaechi and Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, the pair he defeated on Wednesday night to clinch the ticket of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for next year’s presidential election.
He appealed to both men never to abandon the party ahead of the election, scheduled for January 2027, but to close ranks to ensure victory for both party, Nigeria as a country and the people currently under the bondage of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
Extending the olive branch shortly after being handed the party flag, officially declaring him as the candidate, he said: “I therefore appeal to all those who feel aggrieved to come back to our party and close ranks with the rest of us. In particular, I invite Chief Rotimi Anechi and Alhaji Muhammad Hayatu-Deen to join me in this fight to save our democracy and our country.
“As I said previously, there are no winners and no losers. Our people look up to us for leadership and I am ready to lead,” he said.
He added that he would work with other aspirants and stakeholders to build the party ahead of the general election.
“I shall work with you all to continue to build our party. I will campaign with you and if Nigeria’s leaders demand it, govern with you to build a country that works for all of us.”
The appeal is coming hours after both Amaechi, former Governor of Rivers State and former Minister of Transportation and Hayatu-Deen, former Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), rejected the result, even before it was announced, citing what they described as manipulation of the voting process, with Hayatu-Deen saying he would not attend the announcement of the result.
Regardless, Atiku, Nigeria’s former Vice President between 1999 and 2007, said he truly humbled and excited to lead the party into the next elections, adding that he was particularly excited by the party’s demonstration of internal democracy despite the position of naysayers.
Hear him: “I must state at this juncture that this is not the time to celebrate. No one was defeated because we are one party and we all need to recognise the fierce urgency of the moment.
“Therefore, we have to unite, as we pledged before this process, to work to pull our country and our people out of the destructive grip of a corrupt, incompetent and polarising APC government.
“I thank the primary elections Committee for organising peaceful, free, fair and transparent primaries. I thank the various leadership organs of our party, the various stakeholders, and volunteers for their hard work and dedication and all our party members and supporters for their efforts, patience and conduct during the process.
“With the primaries behind us, the real hard work is about to begin. We have to prepare to campaign hard to win the next general elections in order to begin the difficult process of rescuing our country and its long-suffering people from this government.”
“I will not be attending the announcement of the ADC Presidential Election Results today. I am concerned by reports from across the country of widespread vote rigging, some of which I myself observed, and will therefore be taking advice on my next steps.”
These were the exact words of Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, one of the presidential aspirants of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), with which he cast a slur on the ongoing presidential primaries of the party, hinging his position on reports of fraud trailing the exercise.
Hayatu-Deen, a second timer in the search for the nation’s number one job, ran against Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former Vice President and Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, former Minister of Transportation.
In a statement on his assessment of the exercise which began on Monday, the renowned economist Chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), used his X platform to convey his dissatisfaction with the process.
The ADC which said the collation for the exercise would take place in Abuja had urged aspirants, party leaders, delegates, and members to conduct themselves peacefully and uphold party unity.
Bolaji Abdullahi, its spokesman, who described the exercise as a defining moment for both the ADC and Nigerians seeking a credible political alternative, maintained that it remained committed to internal democracy and a transparent leadership selection process.
“The ADC remains proud to stand today as the only truly democratic party in Nigeria because it is the only political party whose choice of presidential candidate is determined through open primaries,” he said adding that the conduct of aspirants and party members during the exercise would reflect the leadership culture the ADC seeks to promote.
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