The Supreme Court on Thursday ended any hope by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its factional governorship candidate, Tonye Cole, to challenge the outcome of the March 9, 2019 elections held in Rivers State.
A seven-man panel of judges of the apex court led by acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Ibrahim Muhammad, struck out three appeals by the APC for being incompetent and defective, saying the matters could not be heard by the court.
The APC had through its lawyer, Jubrin Okutekpa, SAN, approached the Supreme Court, praying it to set-aside its previous decisions that validated lower court judgments that barred it from participating in the Rivers elections.
One of the appeals was filed by the APC, with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) listed among the respondents; the second was filed by APC, with Magnus Abe and others as respondents; and the third was filed by Cole, with Magnus Abe and others as respondents.
At the hearing of the appeals on Thursday, Mr. Okutekpa argued that the Court of Appeal never affirmed the judgment of the Rivers State High Court delivered on the March 7.
He claimed that the court only made a pronouncement that the appeals were academic.
But Emmanuel Ukala, counsel to the PDP, disagreed, informing the court of his preliminary objection challenging the competence of the appeals filed by the APC.
In the first ruling, Justice Muhammad upheld the PDP lawyer’s argument that the notice of appeal filed by the APC was defective. He made similar pronouncements on the other two matters.
