By Vivian Okejeme, Abuja
The Supreme Court, will January 13 deliver judgment in the governorship ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Jigawa State.
A five-member panel of Justices of the Court led by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun fixed the date for judgment after taking arguments from parties.
The appeal filed by Farouk Adamu Aliyu (former Minority Leaders of the House of Representatives) and the cross appeal by Umar Namadi (the current Deputy Governor of the state).
Umar Namadi through his counsel, Prince Lateef Olasunkanmi Fagbemi SAN had won the legal battle at the Federal High Court in Dutse as well as at the Court of Appeal in Kano.
But Aliyu is by his appeal marked: SC/1453/2022 challenging the November 4, 2022 judgment by the Court of Appeal (Kano division) which dismissed his earlier appeal and upheld Namadi’s election as the governorship candidate of the APC in Jigawa State.
A three-member panel presided over by Justice Ita Mbaba, in the November 4 judgment, unanimously dismissed Aliyu’s appeal against the September 13, 2022 judgement by Justice Hassan Dikko of the Federal High Court, Dutse, for lacking in merit.
Justice Dikko had, in the judgment, held among others, that Aliyu lacked the locus standi to sue and added that he failed to prove his case with credible evidence.
However, in the cross appeal filed by Lateef Fagbemi SAN, Namadi is challenging a portion of the Court of Appeal judgment which upturned the trial court’s decision that Aliyu lacked to locus standi to have filed the suit which did not qualify as a pre-election case.
Adopting his client’s brief on Wednesday, lawyer to Namadi, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) urged the Apex Court to dismiss the appeal by Aliyu and allow his client’s cross appeal.
Fagbemi argued that the Appeal Court was wrong to have exercised jurisdiction over Aliyu’s appeal, which arose “from an action improperly constituted.”.
Lawyer to Aliyu, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN) argued otherwise and prayed the court to allow his client’s appeal.
