A lawsuit challenging the authenticity of Ademola Adeleke’s candidacy in the just concluded Osun State Governorship Election in South-West Nigeria has been dismissed by the Supreme Court.
The judgement in the lawsuit instituted by Dotun Babayemi, a former governorship aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party in Osun, was delivered by Justice Amina Augie.
A five-member panel of the Supreme Court held that the apex court lacked jurisdiction to hear the suit after counsel for the appellant, Adebayo Adelodun, withdrew the earlier notice of appeal that was filed within time.
At the resumed hearing, Adelodun, who represented the appellant and Babayemi informed the court that he sought to withdraw the earlier notice of appeal to replace it with the fresh application he filed.
But the panel held that Section 285(11) of the constitution stipulated that an appeal on a pre-election matter must be filed within 14 days from the day of the decision, and that having filed the second appeal out of time, the apex court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the matter.
Justice Augie, therefore, dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.