The Supreme Court of Nigeria has dismissed the suit seeking the disqualification of Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima as presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
A five-member panel that deliver the judgment held that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lacked the locus standi to have filed the suit to challenge the process of nomination of candidates by another party.
The PDP had claimed that Shettima’s nomination as Tinubu’s running mate was in breach of the provisions of sections 29(1), 33, 35, and 84(1)(2) of the Electoral Act, 2022.
The opposition party argued that Shettima’s nomination to contest the position of vice-president and Borno central senatorial seat — at the same time — contravened the law.
Justice Adamu Jauro, in the lead judgment, affirmed the earlier judgments of the Federal High Court and Court of Appeal, which dismissed the case because the PDP is a busybody interloper.
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Justice Jauro, who described PDP as a meddlesome interloper, held that Kashim was not guilty of double nomination because there was evidence that he resigned as a senatorial candidate on April 6 before he was nominated as a vice presidential candidate on April 14.
He held that not being a member of the APC and a candidate in its primary election, the PDP cannot challenge the process the APC adopted in nominating its candidates.
The judge also held that Section 285(14)(c) of the Constitution, which the PDP relied on in bringing the case did not clothe it with the right to challenge INEC decisions and activities concerning other political parties.
On the PDP’s request that it hear the case on merit, the court said since the 180 days within which the trial court could have heard the case and the 60 days for the Court of Appeal have elapsed, it no longer has the jurisdiction to consider the case on the merit.
