ENUGU, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)- The Appeal Court sitting in Calabar, the capital of Cross River, has dismissed an appeal filed by Senator Sandy Onor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and governorship candidate in the February 2023 general elections in the State.
Onor is seeking the disqualification of the candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Senator Bassey Otu and his running mate, Peter Odey, for lacking merit.
The appeal was thrown out on Saturday in a unanimous decision on an appeal filed and argued by Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN, the three-man panel of the Court of Appeal, presided over by Justice Raphael Agbo (in which Justices Balkisu Aliyu and Justice Oyebisi Omoleye, concurred) in Appeal No CA/C/392/2022, dismissed the appeal as lacking in merit and non-justiciable.
The court also affirmed the earlier judgement of the Federal High Court in suit no. FHC/CA/CS/142/2022, delivered by Justice R.O. Dugbo-Oghoghorie on 24 November, 2022.
In the originating summons at the trial court, the appellants argued that Odey was disqualified from contesting the elections on the ground that he was not a member of the party and that he possessed dual citizenship of both Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
Punch reports that Senator Otu and his running mate had through their counsel, Ozekhome argued that membership of a political matter is the internal party affair, which is non-justiciable; and also that the APC’ deputy governorship candidate was not disqualified, being a Nigerian citizen by birth who only subsequently acquired British citizenship by naturalisation.
The trial judge however, agreed with this submission of law and dismissed Senator Onor’s suit as lacking in merit.
The court therefore, held that the plaintiffs did not provide convincing argument of the alleged dual membership of two political parties the PDP and the APC, as alleged by the former.