Three appellants have approached the Supreme Court, asking that President Muhammadu Buhari’s nomination and subsequent victory at the February 23 presidential election nullified on the grounds that he lied on oath in his form 001 he submitted to INEC for the purpose of clearance for the presidential election.
The latest move was premised on the dismissal of their suit at the Court of Appeal, sitting in Abuja on grounds that it was statute barred and as such cannot be heard.
The appellants, Kalu Kalu, Labaran Ismail and Hassy El-Kuris in the Notice of Appeal marked: CA/A/436/2019, are asking the apex court for an Order to set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal and hear the matter on merit and grant the reliefs sought in the Originating Summons.
The Court of Appeal in a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice Mohammed Idris, had on July 12, held that the singular fact that the suit was filed outside the 14 days provided by the law robbed the court of jurisdiction to entertain the suit.
The suit was accordingly dismissed for being incompetent and lacking in merit.
In the Notice of Appeal dated and filed July 24, the appellants through their counsel, Ukpai Ukairo, presented 12 grounds for the setting aside of the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Abuja, amongst which are; that the “Learned Justices of the Court of Appeal erred in law in relying on a Preliminary Objection withdrawn and struck out by the Court of Appeal in striking out and dismissing the appeal.
He added, “The Learned Justices of the Court of Appeal erred in law and breached the right of the Appellants to fair hearing by relying on a Preliminary Objection, withdrawn by the 2nd Respondent and struck out by the Court, thus being a case not made out or relied upon or abandoned by a party in entering a decision in a judgment.
According to Ukairo, the appellants in the brief of argument distilled two issues for determination, (i) Whether the Learned Trial Judge was right in relying on the processes filed by the 1st defendant through a Law Officer in the Ministry of Justice?
The appellants had approached the appellate court to nullify and set aside the Judgment of the Abuja division of the Federal High Court which declined to hear their suit instituted to challenge the educational qualification of President Buhari before the conduct of the 2019 general election.
But the appellate court in a judgement delivered held that the suit has been cut up by the Fourth Alteration to the 1999 Constitution which stipulate a 14 days’ time period within which an election matter must be filed.
Though the appellate court agreed with the trial court that the suit was statute barred having filed out of time, it however, disagreed with the trial court on the date the cause of action took place.
Justice Ahmed Mohammed had in his judgment held that the cause of action took place on September 28, 2018 when the APC held its primary election to select candidate of the party in the 2019 general election.
But the appellate court held that the cause of action took place on October 18, 2018, the date Buhari submitted his form 001 to INEC for the purpose of clearance for the presidential election.
The appellants had filed the suit on November 5, 2018, claiming October 25, the date INEC published the list of successful candidates in the 2019 general election as the date the cause of action arose, making the suit to be competent.
The three man panel of the justices of the Court of Appeal had also dismissed the suit based on the preliminary objection filed by the APC’s lawyer challenging the jurisdiction of the suit on the grounds that it is incompetent.
The judge held that the failure of the Registrar of the Federal High Court to transmit the record of proceedings was fatal to the originating summon and makes the suit incompetent.
The decision prompted the appellants to approach the apex court in their further quest for justice.