Alex Enumah in Abuja
The Supreme Court Thursday struck out the appeal of the presidential candidate of the Hope Democratic Party (HDP), Chief Ambrose Owuru against the election of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The appeal was struck out on the grounds that Owuru and his party engaged in gross abuse of court processes by filing two notices of appeal, contrary to the provisions of the law.
Owuru and HDP had approached the Supreme Court to set aside the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, which dismissed their petition against Buhari’s election.
But the apex court in its ruling struck out the appeal for being unmeritorious and an abuse of court process.
The court in striking out the suit further held that failure of the appellants to appeal the August 22 ruling of the tribunal, which had struck out their petition for being incompetent was fatal to their appeal.
In the unanimous decision read by Justice Mary Peter-Odili, the five-member panel of Justices of the Supreme Court upheld the objection raised by the respondents in the suit and subsequently dismissed the appeal.
Owuru and HDP in a notice of appeal filed on August 28 by their counsel, Chukwunonyerem Njoku, sought the court to void the presidential election of February 23 on the grounds that it was unlawfully conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) due to the alleged illegal postponement from February 16 to 23.
In the place of the election of February 23, the appellants prayed the apex court to uphold a referendum election said to have been conducted on February 16 and in which Owuru reportedly won with over 50 million voice votes by Nigerians.
The appeal predicated on 12 grounds, also prayed the Supreme Court to order the swearing-in ceremony of Ambrose Owuru as the duly elected president of Nigeria based on the February 16 referendum.
When the matter was called, President Buhari’s lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), informed the court of a notice of preliminary objection he filed against the appeal.
Olanipekun urged the court to strike out the appeal on the grounds of jurisdiction, adding that there was no proper appeal in the real sense of it before the court.
According to him, the court cannot countenance two notices of appeal on the same judgment.
He also submitted that the appellants did not file any objection to their notice of preliminary objection.
Counsel to the INEC, Yunus Usman (SAN), on his part said though the second respondent did not file an objection to the appeal, it however said he raised objection to the appeal in his respondent’s brief of argument filed on September 13.
In his own notice of preliminary objection filed on September 16, counsel to the APC, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) insisted that the appellants attempted to build their appeal on nothing since the decision of the tribunal that they have no competent petition known to law was not challenged.
Fagbemi submitted that the petition relied upon by the appellants had been declared non-existent by the decision of Justice Mohammed Garba, adding that until the decision of the tribunal on the competency of the petition is set aside, the two appellants have no business coming to the apex court.
However, counsel to the appellants, Isaac Udoka, made spirited efforts to convince the apex court on why the two notices of appeal were filed in respect of one matter.
Udoka submitted that the appellants were forced to do so because the presidential election petition tribunal did not release a clean copy of its August 22 judgment on time while the time to file a notice of appeal was running out.
He therefore urged the court to use its discretion to consider the second notice of appeal as a continuation of the first one.
Delivering ruling on the preliminary objections by the respondents, Justice Odili rejected the plea of the appellants that the second notice of appeal be used as continuation of the first.
The apex court agreed with the respondents that the appeal amounts to abuse of court process, as the law does not permit a party to file two notices of appeal in the same judgment.
On the claim by the appellants that they filed only one notice and that the second was not an appeal but a continuation of the first, Justice Odili held that what is available before the apex court are two appeals, adding that the first dated August 28 was predicated on 12 grounds while that of September 2 was on eight grounds.
She said further that it was wrong for the appellants to have filed two notices of appeal and simultaneously used them to argue their case.
Besides, Justice Odili held that the appellants did not appeal the ruling of the tribunal, which dismissed their petition but chose to appeal against the substantive judgment on the main petition, which was delivered by the tribunal, “out of abundant caution”.
Following the absence of an appeal against the ruling of the tribunal, the apex court therefore held that the appeal against the substantive judgment of the tribunal has nothing to stand upon.
The court therefore upheld the objection of the respondents to the hearing of the appeal and consequently struck it out.
It would be recalled that the tribunal had in a separate ruling on August 22 voided the petition of Owuru and HDP for not being in conformity with the position of the law and for being an abuse of court process.
