Nigerian Supreme Court Friday dismissed the suit by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seeking the disqualification of the ticket that produced the president-elect, Bola Tinubu and the vice-president-elect, Kashim Shettima in the 2023 presidential election.
In an appeal marked SC/CV/501/2023, the opposition party sought Tinubu’s disqualification on grounds of the double nomination of his vice in the race, Shettima.
PDP claimed that the vice president-elect, Shettima was nominated twice, both for the Borno Central Senatorial seat and for the Vice Presidential position.
Praying the court to nullify Tinubu’s and Shettima’s candidacy, PDP argued that Shettima’s dual nomination was in gross breach of the provisions of Sections 29(1), 33, 35 and 84(1) and (2) of the Electoral Act, 2022, as amended.
They also applied for an order to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to remove their names from the list of nominated or sponsored candidates that were eligible to contest the presidential poll.
Opposing the position by the plaintiff, Lateef Fagbemi SAN contended that the PDP ought to have remained an onlooker no matter its grievance In how the APC nominated its candidates.
“It is abundantly clear that the Appellant in the totality of its position in the instant case, is peeping and poke-nosing into the affairs of another party as a busybody and meddlesome interloper,” he said.
In a unanimous decision of a five-man panel, the court held that an appeal by the PDP challenging the validity of the Tinubu/Shettima ticket lacked merit.
Delivering the lead judgment on the suit, Justice Adamu Jauro upheld the concurrent decisions of the Court of Appeal and the Federal High Court in Abuja, which earlier dismissed the case.
The court ruled that the plaintiff lacked the legal right to meddle in the affairs of the APC which nominated the duo as its candidates in the election and dismissed it.
Describing the appeal as an activity of “a nosy busy-body and a meddlesome interloper, the court stressed that the law does not permit a political party to dabble in the domestic affairs of another party.
The court agreed with the respondents that section 285 (14) (c ) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, and section 149 of the Electoral Act, 2022, did not confer to them the legal right to question the candidature of Shettima on the ground of double nomination.
The apex court held that section 84 of the Electoral Act only empowered an aspirant that participated in the primary election of a political party, to challenge the nomination of a candidate by the party.
The court maintained that the PDP did not prove that its rights were threatened, adding that the party failed to establish the injury it suffered as a result of the nomination by the APC.
More so, the apex court reprimanded the PDP for filing the appeal which it said was frivolous.
It held that evidence before it showed that Shettima duly withdrew as the candidate of the APC in the Borno senatorial election, on July 6, 2022, and so, the duo of the APC were eligible to contest the presidential election held on February 25.
Justice Jauro said, “From the trial court, down to this court, it has been a waste of precious judicial time.”
He admonished counsel to advise their clients “against filing this sort of suit in future.”
It further awarded in favor of the respondents, the sum of N2 Million damages against the PDP.