Appeal Court Upholds Reps Election

The Court of Appeal, Lagos Division has upheld the election of Mr. Adeola Olamilekan Solomon of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, representing Alimosho Federal Constituency in last April’s elections.

The court dismissed the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate, Mr. Segun Adewale against the election.

The court in its judgment delivered by Justice John Inyang Okoro held that the appeal lacked merit and was liable to dismissal.

Okoro noted that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC did not file any brief of argument.

The National Assembly/ Legislative House Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Lagos had dismissed the joint petition filed by the PDP and its candidate Adewale against the election.

At the resumed hearing of the appeal, counsel to the appellant, Chief Ladi Williams, SAN, urged the court to discountenance any document filed by the respondents, which included the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) (1st respondent), ACN (2nd respondent) and Mr. Solomon (3rd respondent).

Williams submitted that the time stipulated within the Rules for the respondent to reply to the appellant’s brief of argument had expired. He urged the court to decide the appeal solely on the appellant brief of argument.

Opposing the application, Mr. Charles Edosanwa (SAN), counsel to the 2nd and 3rd respondents argued that since public holiday was not part of the computation, the respondents were not out of time.

Edosanwa argued that it would amount to technical justice if the appeal was heard exclusively on the appellants brief.

The election tribunal had in its judgment delivered by Justice Maurice Eneji (chairman) resolved all the three issues raised in the petition against the petitioner.

On the allegation that the respondent (Solomon) did not score the majority of lawful votes cast at the election for the seat of the constituency, the tribunal held that the petitioner failed woefully to adduce cogent evidence to back-up the allegation.

The tribunal further held that the report of the inspection of materials used for the conduct of the election tendered by Petitioner’s witness was not a Certified True Copy (CTC) hence was not admissible.