The Supreme Court, on Friday, left the members of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Jigawa State in uncertainty by deferring judgment in the party’s gubernatorial candidacy legal battle indefinitely.
Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, leading a panel of five members of the court, has after taking arguments from the parties in the appeal on Friday, the decision remains for Friday.
The appeal was filed by Farouk Aliyu against Umar Namadi as the APC governorship candidate for Jigawa State.
Mr. Namadi is the deputy governor of Jigawa State. The governor of the state, Abubakar Badaru, is serving his second term as governor.
But on Friday, a five-member panel of the Supreme Court headed by Emmanuel Agim asked lawyers to the parties in the appeal to wait for more “directions” on when the judgment will be delivered.
In Friday’s proceedings, Mr. Agim had announced that the judgment on the suit would be delivered later at 3pm but then informed the parties that the judgment was not ready yet.
The appeal filed by Mr. Aliyu, a former House Minority Leader, is challenging the nomination of Mr. Namadi as the APC governor in Jigawa State for the March 11 poll.
Mr. Aliyu’s appeal challenged the decision of the Court of Appeal on November 4, 2022 in Kano, which dismissed his case and upheld Mr. Namadi’s candidacy.
A three-member panel of the Court of Appeal chaired by Ita Mbaba in its November 4 judgment, unanimously dismissed Mr. Aliyu’s appeal against the September 13, 2022 judgment by Hassan Dikko of the Federal High Court, Dutse, Jigawa State, as unfair.
The judge in court said that Mr. Aliyu did not have the right to sue the governorship aspirant, and that he could not prove his case with credible evidence.
Meanwhile, Mr. Namadi challenged a part of the Court of Appeal judgment which overruled the court’s ruling that Mr. Aliyu did not have the right to file the suit which was inappropriate as a pre-election case.
Argument
Arguing the appeal before the Supreme Court panel on Wednesday, Mr. Namadi’s lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi, asked the court to dismiss Mr. Aliyu’s claim and allow his client’s appeal.
READ ALSO: APC governorship campaign in Jigawa
Mr. Fagbemi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), contended that the appellate court erred in exercising jurisdiction over Mr. Aliyu’s appeal, which arose “from improper conduct.”
However, Mr. Aliyu’s lawyer, Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, prayed the apex court to appeal his client.
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