The Supreme Court has struck out an appeal filed by Tonye Cole and and two
more filed by his faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers
State against the party’s exclusion from the governorship and house of
assembly elections in the state.
A seven-man panel of judges of the apex court led by acting Chief Justice
of Nigeria, Justice Ibrahim Mohammed, struck out the appeals on Thursday
for being incompetent and defective, saying the matters could not be heard
by the court.
One of the appeals was filed by the APC, with Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) listed
among the respondents; the second was filed by APC, with Magnus Abe and
others as respondents; and the third was filed by Cole, with Magnus Abe
and others as respondents.
At the hearing of the appeals on Thursday, Jibrin Okutepa, counsel to the
APC, argued that the Court of Appeal never affirmed the judgment of the
Rivers State High Court delivered on the March 7. He claimed that the
court only made a pronouncement that the appeals were academic.
But Emmanuel Ukala, counsel to the PDP, disagreed, informing the court of
his preliminary objection challenging the competence of the appeals filed
by the APC.
In the first ruling, Justice Muhammad upheld the PDP lawyer’s argument
that the notice of appeal filed by the APC was defective. He made similar
pronouncements on the other two matters.
The APC was barred from fielding candidates for the governorship and house
of assembly elections, leaving the PDP to have a field day. Although APC
entered an alliance with the African Action Congress (AAC), the PDP
candidate and Governor of the state, Nyesom Wike, won by an incredible
margin