Appeal Court Reserves Judgement In Suit Challenging Nomination Of Kogi APC Gov Candidate

The Court of Appeal Abuja has reserved judgement in two appeals brought before it by the Governorship Aspirants of the All Progressives Congress in Kogi state, Abubakar Achimugu and Smart Adeyemi against a judgment of a Federal High Court Abuja which affirmed Usman Ododo as the APC flag bearer for the November 11 governorship election in the state.

The appeal was against the judgment of Justice Obiora Egwuatu and Justice James Omotosho, both of the Federal High Court, Abuja.

In their separate Judgements they had held that Ahmed Ododo can lawfully continue to fly the flag of the APC in the November 11, 2023 governorship election in Kogi State.

Achimugu had approached the Federal High Court with a suit seeking to disqualify Ododo from contesting the November 11 governorship election on grounds that he did not resign his employment with the Kogi State public service 30 days before contesting the governorship primary election.

In a Notice of Appeal filed on July 21 through his counsel, Josiah Daniel-Ebune, Achimugu said Justice Egwuatu erred in law and occasioned a miscarriage of justice when he held that Ododo duly resigned his appointment and thus, not caught up with the mandatory provision of what the law requires them to do before they participated in the APC’s governorship primary election for Kogi State held on April 15, 2023.

According to Achimugu, the trial court erred in law in misapplying the provision of Section 306(2) of the constitution and the cases of Yusuf Vs Governor of Edo State and Zubair Vs Mohammed to the facts and issues in his case and occasioned a miscarriage of justice, among other grounds.

He asked the appellate court for an order setting aside the judgment of the trial court and granting all his reliefs sought in his amended originating summons.

A three-member panel of Justices of the appellate court presided over by Justice Muhammed Shuaibu, reserved the date for judgment in the appeal after the parties adopted their written addresses.

The panel also reserved judgement in the appeal by a former Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District, Senator Smart Adeyemi.

Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court Abuja, had in a judgement delivered on July 12, held that Adeyemi did not prove his allegation that Ododo was not lawfully nominated by the APC.

Senator Adeyemi had alleged in his suit that the primary election that purportedly produced Ododo as the APC governorship candidate did not hold and that the results were forged.

The court noted that the burden of proof was on the applicant to produce the forged results or the original copies of the results to discharge the burden and added that, failure to discharge the burden was fatal to the applicant’s case.

The court held that contrary to the plaintiff’s position, there was evidence that the primary election was validly held and monitored by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Dissatisfied with the judgement which affirmed the primary election that produced Ododo as candidate of the party, Adeyemi approached the appellate court to set aside the judgement.

He insisted that the trial court failed to properly evaluate the proof of evidence that was placed before it by the parties and that there were inconsistencies in the report tendered by INEC and the affidavit that the APC deposed to.

He said while INEC claimed that option A4 mode was adopted for the primary election it monitored, the APC told the court that the election was through a secret ballot.