Nigeria’s apex court has trashed an appeal by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seeking to disqualify former Governor of Osun State, Gboyega Oyetola and his Deputy Bendict Alabi as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates for the July 16, 2022 governorship election.
Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja had, in his ruling dated September 30, 2022 disqualified Oyetola and Alabi as APC’s candidates for the governorship election on the grounds that their nomination forms were signed by Mai Mala Buni, a serving governor of Yobe State, who also doubled as the party’s Caretaker Committee Chairman.
Justice Nwite’s verdict has been overrun by the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division in a judgment in December 2022, a decision the PDP appealed to the Supreme Court.
In a judgment on today’s Thursday 2nd February 2023, a five-member panel of Justices of the Supreme Court, led by Justice Centus Nweze, dismissed PDP’s suit for lacking in merit, thereby directing the counsel to the PDP, Kehinde Ogunwumiju (SAN) to withdraw the case.
The court held that the PDP lacks the ground, under the law, question the process leading to the candidature of Oyetola and Alabi.
