25th May, 2023
The Court of Appeal descended hard on Ambrose Owuru, the 2019 presidential candidate of the defunct Hope Democratic Party for filling what the Justice regarded as a frivolous suit to stop the swearing in of President-Elect Bola Tinubu.
Owuru, had in the suit filed last month at the court of appeal in Abuja, challenged the outcome of the 2019 presidential elections.
The HDP presidential candidate had asked the court to declare the president’s seat vacant and swear him in as the authentic winner of the 2019 presidential election.
Specifically, Owuru asked the appeal court to stop President Muhammadu Buhari, Abubakar Malami, the attorney-general of the federation and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), from allowing Tinubu to assume office as the president with argument that he was the winner of the 2019 presidential election and has not spent his tenure.
Owuru claimed that that Buhari has been usurping his tenure of office since 2019 because the supreme court has not determined his petition challenging the election’s outcome.
He therefore applied for “an order of prohibitory injunction compelling Buhari, AGF, and INEC, their servants, agents, and privies to preserve and give due cognizance and abstain from any further undertaking or engaging in any act of usurpation of adjudged acquired constitutional rights and mandate as the winner of the 2019 presidential election”.
He also applied for another order directing and placing on notice that any form of handover inauguration, organised and superintended by Buhari on May 29 outside the adjudged winner of the 2019 presidential election, subject of the pending appeal, remains and is viewed as an “interim place holder”.
He swore to an eight-paragraph affidavit in support of the suit is also asking the appellate court to give it an expeditious hearing before the inauguration of Tinubu.
He filed the suit at Court of Appeal after a federal high court in Abuja dismissed the suit, for being “baseless, frivolous, irritating, and vexatious in its entirety” in January 2023.
However, the three man panel of court of appeal in their unanimous judgment read Justice Jamil Tukur on Thursday not only dismissed the suit, but they also imposed heavy fine of N40 million on Owuru.
The Court ordered Owuru to pay the sum of N10m each to President Muhammadu Buhari, the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami; the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Tinubu.
According to them, the suit by Owuru is not only a gross abuse of court process, but it is frivolous, and intended to provoke the respondents.
The Court of Appeal held that Owuru had earlier pursued his grievances up to the Supreme Court where it was dismissed for lack of merit.
They contended that the attempt by Owuru to resuscitate the case that died since 2019 at the Supreme Court, was aimed at making the lower courts to go on collision course with supremacy of the Apex Court.