S/Court strikes out HDP’s appeal against Buhari’s election

The Supreme Court has struck out the appeal by the Hope Democratic Party (HDP) challenging the election of President Muhammadu Buhari in the February 23 presidential election.

A five-member panel of justices presided by Justice Mary Odili yesterday unanimously held that the HDP has no valid appeal before the apex court and therefore struck out the two appeals.

HDP’s presidential candidate, Ambrose Owuru had brought the appeal following the dismissal of his petition by the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal on August 22.

Owuru and HDP had claimed they won a referendum conducted on February 16 following the postponement of the general election to February 23 by 50 million votes.

But defence lawyers, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), representing Buhari; Yunus Ustaz Usman (SAN) for INEC and Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) for the APC all asked the tribunal to dismiss the appeal for being incompetent since both HDP and Owuru filed two notices of appeal with related grounds rather than one notice of appeal with additional grounds of appeal.

In the lead ruling, Justice Odili upheld the argument of the lawyers and held that there is no process titled ‘additional or further grounds of appeal’, rather there are two notices of appeal filed on August 28 and September 2, adding that it was not permitted to canvass issues in both interchangeably.

She said the grounds of multiplicity of petitions, which was used to dismiss the petition by the tribunal was not appealed and therefore the court lacks the jurisdiction to hear the appeal.