The Supreme Court of Nigeria has reserved judgments in the appeals involving the People’s Democratic Party and the Labour Party, challenging the election victory of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State.
The electoral issues raised against the governor pertain to the certificates Sanwo-Olu tendered to the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) before the governorship election.
The appeals were entered by the Labour Party and Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour and Olajide Adediran, alias Jandor of the People’s Democratic Party(PDP).
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The duo asked the apex court to set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal Lagos Division which affirmed the victory of Governor Sanwo-Olu.
A three-man appellate court panel, led by Justice Yargata Nimpar, unanimously dismissed the two separate appeals filed by Jandor and Rhodes-Vivour for lacking in merit.
The three-man panel of the appeal court led, by Justice Nimpar, while dismissing the appeals separately, held that Jandor was constitutionally disqualified from challenging the APC primaries that produced Sanwo-Olu, having not been a member of the APC.
“The appellant was a meddlesome interloper in challenging the emergence of Messrs Sanwo-Olu and Hamzat at the primary exercise of their party, All Progressives Congress; the appellant was neither an aspirant nor a member of the APC,” the appeal court held while affirming the decision of the Lagos State Governorship Petition Tribunal.
Before the five-man panel of the apex court led by Justice Inyang Okoro on Tuesday, the legal team representing LP and PDP asked them to sack the governor on the grounds of non-compliance to the Electoral Act and for not winning a majority of lawful votes cast.
They contended in open court that the governor did not submit his WAEC certificate in his Form EC9 submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
On his part, the counsel to the governor, Wole Olanipekun, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, urged the court to dismiss the appeals and agree with the findings of the lower courts.
Olanipekun said the appellants, right from the tribunal, only challenged alleged variations in names in his client’s certificate.
The senior lawyer added that previous apex court decisions do not equate name variations on certificates with forgery.
After listening to the parties, Justice Okoro reserved judgment in the appeals.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had declared Sanwo-Olu the winner of the election with 762,134 votes.
Rhodes-Vivour got 312,329 votes while Jandor had 62,499 votes.