Supreme Court Reserves Judgment On Suit Challenging Cross River Gov’s APC Membership

The Supreme Court has reserved its judgment on the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) appeal challenging the membership of Cross River Governor, Sen Prince Bassey Otu, in the All Progressive Congress (APC).

The Court of Appeal, Calabar Judicial Division, had dismissed the appeal filed by the PDP governorship candidate, Sen. Sandy Onor, against Governor Otu.

Onor had approached both the tribunal and appellate court, insisting that Otu must be disqualified from the race for allegedly holding dual citizenship, certificate forgery and for not being a member of the APC as of the time of the election.

But the two lower courts dismissed the PDP case, agreeing with the governor’s counsel, Chief Mike Ozekhome, that the PDP cannot challenge the governor on the grounds of party sponsorship and nomination because they were not aspirants during the APC governorship primaries.

At the hearing on Thursday, Joshua.J. Musa, asked the apex court to set aside subsisting judgments of the courts below for being perverse.

He said the major complaint of his client was that the governor did not vacate his seat as a lawmaker before running for governor.

But K.O. Balogun, counsel for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), urged the apex court to dismiss the appeal because the APC membership register tendered as evidence at the two lower courts showed that the governor was the party’s member.

The governor’s lawyer, Ozekhome, asked the apex court to dismiss the matter with punitive costs.

Justice Inyang Okoro, chairman of the five-man panel of the Supreme Court, reserved judgment.

THE WHISTLER reports that judgment on the matter and other governorship election cases will likely be delivered on Friday.