The Supreme Court has reserved judgement in a suit filed by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos praying the court to upturn an Appeal Court’s order for the governorship election petitions tribunal in Lagos to resume hearing.
Mr Sanwo-Olu, through his Counsel, Victor Opara, approached the apex court to upturn the order of the court of appeal to resume hearing in the tribunal.
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Governorship candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), Owolabi Salis, and his counterpart in the Labour Party, Ifagbemi Awamaridi, prayed the apex court to dismiss the appeal filed by the appellant and uphold the decision of the appeal court.
However, Justice Mary Odili, leading a five-man panel on Thursday, reserved judgment to a later date.
A five-man appellate court panel had held that the tribunal was wrong to have discontinued hearing on the basis that the AD and its governorship candidate had abandoned their petition.
Similarly, it overturned the decision of the tribunal dismissing the petition filed by the governorship candidate of the Labour Party.
The appellate court ordered the return of the petition to the tribunal for expeditious determination.
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The tribunal in Lagos had in June dismissed a petition filed by the AD and LP parties challenging the victory of Sanwo-Olu at the March 9 election.
The tribunal had cited the inability of the petitioners to file applications for pre-hearing conference after the close of pleadings within seven days as prescribed by law.
