The end of the road for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2019 general elections in Rivers State came yesterday as the Supreme Court dismissed the three separate appeals filed by the party and Tonye Cole, its factional governorship candidate in the state.
Both Cole and the APC had approached the apex court through their notices of appeal, praying it to make them participate in the 2019 general election.
The court however dismissed the separate appeals on the ground that the notices were incompetent in law.
The counsel to APC, Chief Jibrin Okutekpa, at the resumed sitting, prayed the seven-man panel of the court to overrule its own decision, which had earlier upheld the refraining order that barred APC from participating in the poll. He argued that the refraining order from the High Court of Rivers State was fraudulently obtained.
But the counsel to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Emmanuel Okala, quickly drew the court’s attention to the notice of appeal filed by APC, wherein the party erroneously prayed the Court of Appeal instead of the Supreme Court to grant its reliefs. In other words, APC had mistakenly addressed its notice of appeal to the Court of Appeal instead of the Supreme Court.
Okala cited several authorities to buttress the fact that APC had not asked for anything from the Supreme Court and as such, the notice of appeal was incompetent in law. He therefore urged the apex court not only to strike it out but also dismiss it outright.
In the court’s ruling delivered by acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, the court agreed with PDP’s counsel that the notice of appeal filed by APC was incurably defective and grossly incompetent. And as sought by Okala, he struck out the notice and dismissed the appeal accordingly.
Source: Guardian Newspaper
