The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed appeals by Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour and Olajide Adediran aka Jandor against the election of Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
A five-member panel of the apex court, in a unanimous judgment delivered by Justices Lawal Garba and Adamu Jauro, affirmed the declaration of Sanwo-Olu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as winner of the March 18, 2023 governorship election.
Mr Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party (LP), who came second and Mr Adediran of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who came third had challenged the election of Sanwo-Olu on grounds of alleged irregularities, malpractices non-compliance as well as non-qualification.
They specifically argued that the deputy governor, who acquired citizenship of the United States of America, was not qualified to contest elective position and as such his nomination as deputy governor was unlawful null and void.
They also argued that his alleged unlawful nomination affects the qualification of Sanwo-Olu, hence the court should nullify their participation in the governorship election.
However, both the tribunal and the Court of Appeal in their respective decisions dismissed the two appeals for failure to prove allegations made in their petitions.
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The apex court, in its judgement, held that it found no cogent reason to deviate from the concurrent judgments of the tribunal and Court of Appeal which held that Sanwo-Olu was lawfully elected as governor of Lagos State.
The appellate court, in a unanimous judgement, held that the acquisition of a foreign national does not bar any citizen by birth from contesting an election.
Justice Lawal stated that the only condition a citizen with dual citizenship can lose his right to be elected as governor is when he denounces his Nigerian citizenship by birth.
The apex court subsequently dismissed the two appeals for lack of merit.
Sanwo-Olu polled 762,134 votes, Rhodes-Vivour scored 312,329 votes, and Jandor got 62,449 votes.
