The Court of Appeal in Abuja has dismissed a suit by a group linked with a former Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, seeking to nullify the nomination of Bola Tinubu as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In a judgement, a three-man panel of the court, held that the appeal by the Incorporated trustees of Rights for All International (RAI) was incompetent.
The group had jointly filed the suit with Nwajiuba before the Federal High Court in Abuja, which the court, in a judgment dismissed and outlawed the group.
But on appeal, the group excluded Nwajiuba from the case, a decision the Court of Appeal found to be unlawful.
The Court of Appeal, in its upheld the objection by the APC and other respondents, that the suit by the appellant, filed at the trial court – the Federal High Court, Abuja – was not a pre-election matter because the plaintiffs could not be said to be a person covered by Section 285(14) a, b. c of the 1999 Constitution being an NGO.
The appellate court held that the removal of Nwajiuba who was a party in the case at the lower court meant the judgment of the lower court was not appealed.
The court noted that the appeal was an attempt by the group, to revive itself having earlier been dissolved by the judgment of the trial court.
At the trial court, RAI and Nwajiuba had in their suit sought among others, to void the primaries that produced Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar as candidates of the APC and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the next presidential election.
They claimed that both parties’ primaries were marked by corrupt practices and prayed the court to replace Tinubu with the ex-Minister, who said he participated in APC’s primary and scored one vote.